Today's the last day my internship in Mumbai which, more than anything, marks the last day that I will have any regular and steady internet on a daily basis. Sure I had my fair share of time split where sometimes I'd be working hard or sometimes hardly working but the main thing here is that I learned a lot in the 10 weeks I was at in the office (and even more in the 12 weeks I've been in India). Quick lil rundown of things I did do and did not do in my 3 months...
10) NO, I did not intern at a call center
9) NO, I didn't become obsessed with cricket to the point that it consumes my life (although it's impossible to come to India for the time I was here and not pick up on at least some tidbits)
8) YES, I did learn why the Marco Polo spice trades back in the day were such a big deal (because the food is so damn good)
7) NO, I will never see consumer goods (cells phones in particular) as cheap ever again in my life
6) NO, virtually no part of the game is applicable in India (since most people that go party are married)
5) YES, you must have Aquaguard or some water purifier or else you are guarenteed to get sick (as I aptly demonstrated 3 times)
4) YES, admittedly the dogs and buffalo on the road will have a soft spot in my heart forever (mostly because I won't ever have to see them again)
3) YES, next time you must get from one end of Mumbai to the other quickly, bring a helicopter
2) YES, after living and adapting to Mumbai for 3 months, I could see myself living here for an extended period of time in the future
1) NO NO NO NO NO, I will not be coming home with an arranged marriage
All in all, to put things in perspective, I am ready to come home. I doubt I'll be writing at all on here anymore simply due to lack of steady internet, nonetheless I'm leaving India on the 16th and will be arriving on the 17th sometime in the afternoon.
Later (or as they would say in Hindi, phir milenge)
Monday, August 3, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Update
By the way, the Lakers just re-signed Lamar Odom to a 4-year deal.
But you probably knew this because the greatest TV show ever, Sportscenter, is on essentially 8 hours a day in America and has been on about 0 hours while I've been in India.
Championship................. (repeat)......... period
But you probably knew this because the greatest TV show ever, Sportscenter, is on essentially 8 hours a day in America and has been on about 0 hours while I've been in India.
Championship................. (repeat)......... period
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Day at Work
I took a look at my blog from top to bottom yesterday and realized that... I hate it. It makes me look like I'm 50, grey haired, and boring. I don't know exactly what to do to remedy the situation but I'll try. I think I'm going to play the "external locus of control" card here and say it's a product of Mumbai not being that fun and despite my usual ability to create my own fun in these types of situations, my environment hasn't been too responsive.
I did manage to get myself into a little trouble yesterday. I work in Corporate Accounts at Bayer and one of the perks of my position is that I'm not forced to sit in my desk and punch numbers in all day. I do get to liaison with people in finance, zonal accounting, tax, and industrial operations to get "xyz" information on a regular basis, which allows me to get up out of my seat and walk around. Yesterday, I was walking past the zonal accounting team around lunchtime and noticed there were two Dominos boxes sitting on the table. Two of the guys in my department told me that the team was not really allowed to get pizza but they were cheating today.
One thing led to another and the two guys in my department dared me to go take the pizza boxes and hide them in the storage room. There was no way I could actually back down from a challenge, especially something that would come second nature to me back home. So when the zonal guys weren't looking, I reached right over the cubicle and scooped up the pizzas. They were full and they smelled good. I didn't eat them. But I did take them and hide them in the storage room.
10 minutes later, the head of zonal accounts came out with the CFO right behind him red as a cherry. "WHERE IS MY PIZZA?" I could see those dickheads in my department and zonal guys snickering in their cubicles. But I took the pizzas out of storage and handed them over to the zonal accounts head and held myself together. I haven't been chewed out yet by him and my boss, the corporate accounts head, wasn't in the office yesterday. I think they got a little kick out of it.
Needless to say, I am pretty embarrassed about making such a rookie mistake like that. A similar situation is chronicled in Michael Lewis' "Liars Poker", where a new trader "had the SEC calling him because he stole food from the cafeteria." But, what's the workplace without any fun? I'm finished after next Friday and my boy DP's comin to Mumbai that next Saturday. I'll probably post one more time before I head back to the homeland in 16 days, but the next two weeks are poised to be raging to the max.
250%.
I did manage to get myself into a little trouble yesterday. I work in Corporate Accounts at Bayer and one of the perks of my position is that I'm not forced to sit in my desk and punch numbers in all day. I do get to liaison with people in finance, zonal accounting, tax, and industrial operations to get "xyz" information on a regular basis, which allows me to get up out of my seat and walk around. Yesterday, I was walking past the zonal accounting team around lunchtime and noticed there were two Dominos boxes sitting on the table. Two of the guys in my department told me that the team was not really allowed to get pizza but they were cheating today.
One thing led to another and the two guys in my department dared me to go take the pizza boxes and hide them in the storage room. There was no way I could actually back down from a challenge, especially something that would come second nature to me back home. So when the zonal guys weren't looking, I reached right over the cubicle and scooped up the pizzas. They were full and they smelled good. I didn't eat them. But I did take them and hide them in the storage room.
10 minutes later, the head of zonal accounts came out with the CFO right behind him red as a cherry. "WHERE IS MY PIZZA?" I could see those dickheads in my department and zonal guys snickering in their cubicles. But I took the pizzas out of storage and handed them over to the zonal accounts head and held myself together. I haven't been chewed out yet by him and my boss, the corporate accounts head, wasn't in the office yesterday. I think they got a little kick out of it.
Needless to say, I am pretty embarrassed about making such a rookie mistake like that. A similar situation is chronicled in Michael Lewis' "Liars Poker", where a new trader "had the SEC calling him because he stole food from the cafeteria." But, what's the workplace without any fun? I'm finished after next Friday and my boy DP's comin to Mumbai that next Saturday. I'll probably post one more time before I head back to the homeland in 16 days, but the next two weeks are poised to be raging to the max.
250%.
Monday, July 27, 2009
My Hot, Flat, and Crowded Story
Very recently, I was recommended the book "Hot, Flat, and Crowded" by Thomas Friedman to read as I was told I would surely be enlightened as a result. I don't think it was enlightened as if I were going to a Scientology convention but at least that I would come out of reading the book feeling as though I have a clearer view of the world.
It's probably the explanation to any bad mood I'd be in today.
While I haven't finished the book entirely, I've read enough of the book to be able to develop some sort of commentary about it. It's very real, it's affecting us now, and while we don't notice it, most world events are very much interlinked. The book goes into detail about global warming (hot), the rapidly increasing standard of living (flat), and the even more rapidly increasing global population (crowded). And while most of Friedman's examples involve the Middle East, everything that I'm reading is centrally happening right before my eyes here in Mumbai. And while most people may refer to the situation as scary, I think a better word is depressing.
Because if you're watching a horror movie, you know that the main characters are at least going to try to fight or run away from the monster/beast/ghost that's out to kill them, so it's ok to say scary. Depressing is the better word when it seems that the system is too big and has snowballed to the size of Mt. Everest such that nobody can actually stop it. When you know that the monster's gonna get you and you can't do anything about it, you start to feel more depressed than scared. I've already touched on all three of these at some point during previous posts, so I'll mostly just use those as sources.
Mumbai is Hot - Granted, Mumbai has always been a hot place but it hasn't necessarily always been this hot. Based on conversations with people who have lived in the city their whole lives, Mumbai has gotten warmer. Also, the official historical start date for monsoons is June 9th, when the city usually gets it's first pre-showers of the year and it's lakes begin filling up. During this season, people get out and start parading the streets ready to party and just expecting that their pal the rain will join them. I reluctantly went out to get wet as well. This year the rain didn't show up. So people celebrated the next day thinking the rain was a day late. The rain didn't show up. I don't remember the exact date, but the first monsoon showers didn't come for at least two weeks. It could be written off as a fluke, but given how consistently the rain used to come on or around June 9th, isn't it at least a little hard to think two weeks is a fluke? The levels of the Arabian Sea are rising rapidly as well, to the point that the Municipal Commissioner Jairag Pathak says that the high tides will probably hit the city in two to three years. Hit the city in two to three years? Well, speculate where it might be in 10-12 years. Is there a chance that the 2006 floods in the streets could become a national phenomenon? If lands started to get flooded, how would that affect agriculture? The Indira Gandhi Institute of Developmental Research says that a series of effects could lead to a 40% decrease in annual rice yields. We know that this whole global warming monkey business really stems from the abnormal usage and burning of fossil fuels, i.e. coal, natural gas, and petroleum. So, the practical person would ask, why don't we just burn less fossil fuels? Well...
Mumbai is Flat - Or if not completely flat, it is at least becoming flatter. The business, commercial, entertainment and social capital of India was ranked as the city with the highest GDP is the Central and South Region of Asia. (7th overall in Asia and 38th in the world) It's per capita rates are three times the national average. I remember coming 10 years ago and driving through not so bad traffic and seeing a lot more greenery. Today, I get the luxury of sitting in traffic for hours and hours and seeing buildings erected all around me. The color has changed from once green and brown to today grey. Once famously know for it's city textile factories and seaports, the city is surging in engineering, healthcare and IT. It's people aren't just locals as others from states of Gujarat, Punjab, Rajasthan and South India come to make a new living. With the better skilled jobs people have, they make more money and choose to live flashier lives. Today, kids are eating McDonalds, young adults are driving cars, and everybody is purchasing A/C units to fight the hot months. They are living their own version of the American Dream, a lifestyle that says "We too are a developed part of the world." I see kids walking around in Polo and Banana Republic shirts. And why should they be deprived the right to live like we do if they're working for it? At first glance, you might say, "This is great news" but you're forgetting that...
Mumbai is Crowded - I'm not going to spend a long time writing about Mumbai being crowded, simply because I've written about it too many times. 14 million in the actual city alone, 20 if you include neighboring New Mumbai and surrounding suburbs. Unfortunately, despite flattening, still many of these people are living in slums and are uneducated, hence having more and more children. The population number has nowhere to go but up when you also factor in the large numbers of migrant workers.
What does the hot, flat, and crowded revolution mean?
We've already gotten this knee deep in global warming as well as technological and population growth. And the machine isn't going to slow down. Friedman argues that there needs to be a "Green" revolution where people start to get infused with the desire to conserve and spend less money on oil. The world needs to develop alternative energy sources. But the voice is in the masses. Whose ready to slow down their country's growth in order to facilitate environmental change? There's a reason China, India, and the United States have all been so critical of the Kyoto Protocol. There's a reason none of them are instituting any really serious gas tax to curb comsumption of petroleum. There's a reason why alternative energy has a back seat on their political agendas. And there's a reason why all three are talked of as the next three superpowers.
It's like the world is one house where you have more people living than there should be and this influx of people don't turn off the lights when they leave the room and don't pick up their trash after they drop it on the floor. But these people are multiplying. Like jackrabbits. And when push comes to shove, how are we going to decide who gets voted out?
I watched The Matrix last week and while I usually sat up the most during the awesome fight scenes, this time I paid attention to something else. In this scene, the Agent Smith has Morpheus tied up to the chair and is torturing him to get the access codes to Zion when he says, "Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet."
Now that quote is maybe exaggerating the truth a little bit but is there some truth to the claim? In a world that's hot, flat, and crowded, can we change to solve that belief?
It's probably the explanation to any bad mood I'd be in today.
While I haven't finished the book entirely, I've read enough of the book to be able to develop some sort of commentary about it. It's very real, it's affecting us now, and while we don't notice it, most world events are very much interlinked. The book goes into detail about global warming (hot), the rapidly increasing standard of living (flat), and the even more rapidly increasing global population (crowded). And while most of Friedman's examples involve the Middle East, everything that I'm reading is centrally happening right before my eyes here in Mumbai. And while most people may refer to the situation as scary, I think a better word is depressing.
Because if you're watching a horror movie, you know that the main characters are at least going to try to fight or run away from the monster/beast/ghost that's out to kill them, so it's ok to say scary. Depressing is the better word when it seems that the system is too big and has snowballed to the size of Mt. Everest such that nobody can actually stop it. When you know that the monster's gonna get you and you can't do anything about it, you start to feel more depressed than scared. I've already touched on all three of these at some point during previous posts, so I'll mostly just use those as sources.
Mumbai is Hot - Granted, Mumbai has always been a hot place but it hasn't necessarily always been this hot. Based on conversations with people who have lived in the city their whole lives, Mumbai has gotten warmer. Also, the official historical start date for monsoons is June 9th, when the city usually gets it's first pre-showers of the year and it's lakes begin filling up. During this season, people get out and start parading the streets ready to party and just expecting that their pal the rain will join them. I reluctantly went out to get wet as well. This year the rain didn't show up. So people celebrated the next day thinking the rain was a day late. The rain didn't show up. I don't remember the exact date, but the first monsoon showers didn't come for at least two weeks. It could be written off as a fluke, but given how consistently the rain used to come on or around June 9th, isn't it at least a little hard to think two weeks is a fluke? The levels of the Arabian Sea are rising rapidly as well, to the point that the Municipal Commissioner Jairag Pathak says that the high tides will probably hit the city in two to three years. Hit the city in two to three years? Well, speculate where it might be in 10-12 years. Is there a chance that the 2006 floods in the streets could become a national phenomenon? If lands started to get flooded, how would that affect agriculture? The Indira Gandhi Institute of Developmental Research says that a series of effects could lead to a 40% decrease in annual rice yields. We know that this whole global warming monkey business really stems from the abnormal usage and burning of fossil fuels, i.e. coal, natural gas, and petroleum. So, the practical person would ask, why don't we just burn less fossil fuels? Well...
Mumbai is Flat - Or if not completely flat, it is at least becoming flatter. The business, commercial, entertainment and social capital of India was ranked as the city with the highest GDP is the Central and South Region of Asia. (7th overall in Asia and 38th in the world) It's per capita rates are three times the national average. I remember coming 10 years ago and driving through not so bad traffic and seeing a lot more greenery. Today, I get the luxury of sitting in traffic for hours and hours and seeing buildings erected all around me. The color has changed from once green and brown to today grey. Once famously know for it's city textile factories and seaports, the city is surging in engineering, healthcare and IT. It's people aren't just locals as others from states of Gujarat, Punjab, Rajasthan and South India come to make a new living. With the better skilled jobs people have, they make more money and choose to live flashier lives. Today, kids are eating McDonalds, young adults are driving cars, and everybody is purchasing A/C units to fight the hot months. They are living their own version of the American Dream, a lifestyle that says "We too are a developed part of the world." I see kids walking around in Polo and Banana Republic shirts. And why should they be deprived the right to live like we do if they're working for it? At first glance, you might say, "This is great news" but you're forgetting that...
Mumbai is Crowded - I'm not going to spend a long time writing about Mumbai being crowded, simply because I've written about it too many times. 14 million in the actual city alone, 20 if you include neighboring New Mumbai and surrounding suburbs. Unfortunately, despite flattening, still many of these people are living in slums and are uneducated, hence having more and more children. The population number has nowhere to go but up when you also factor in the large numbers of migrant workers.
What does the hot, flat, and crowded revolution mean?
We've already gotten this knee deep in global warming as well as technological and population growth. And the machine isn't going to slow down. Friedman argues that there needs to be a "Green" revolution where people start to get infused with the desire to conserve and spend less money on oil. The world needs to develop alternative energy sources. But the voice is in the masses. Whose ready to slow down their country's growth in order to facilitate environmental change? There's a reason China, India, and the United States have all been so critical of the Kyoto Protocol. There's a reason none of them are instituting any really serious gas tax to curb comsumption of petroleum. There's a reason why alternative energy has a back seat on their political agendas. And there's a reason why all three are talked of as the next three superpowers.
It's like the world is one house where you have more people living than there should be and this influx of people don't turn off the lights when they leave the room and don't pick up their trash after they drop it on the floor. But these people are multiplying. Like jackrabbits. And when push comes to shove, how are we going to decide who gets voted out?
I watched The Matrix last week and while I usually sat up the most during the awesome fight scenes, this time I paid attention to something else. In this scene, the Agent Smith has Morpheus tied up to the chair and is torturing him to get the access codes to Zion when he says, "Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet."
Now that quote is maybe exaggerating the truth a little bit but is there some truth to the claim? In a world that's hot, flat, and crowded, can we change to solve that belief?
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Successfully Manuever Mumbai
First things first, I had planned a long while back that I'd be putting up a post titled "Goa Fantasy", a name entirely based on the fact that I planned to be in Goa this past weekend with da bros. For those who aren't aware, Goa is a tiny state just south of Mumbai and it is situated on the coast right on the Arabian Sea. The beaches there are fantastic and the tropical beauty of the state is unbeatable year round. In the 70s and 80s, hippies used to make it their retreat. Today, it is the premier vacation spot in India and probably the most visited place in India after the Taj Mahal. Sounds like a blast doesn't it?
I got water poisoning Wednesday night and thus didn't make it to Goa over the weekend. Naturally, my friends did their due diligence my drowning me in guilt and I held up my end by trying to force myself out of bed, which wasn't possible except right before diaharrea/puke explosions. That was Wednesday night and all day Thursday. Yesterday, however, I started to feel alright after taking my meds and eating properly. And I decided, rightfully so, to make a day out of my Sunday. The rain had subsided for a while and I decided to venture out to the Bandra markets.
The only problem I had in all of this was the issue of transportation. In an incorporated metro (Mumbai and New Mumbai) that has a population of 20 million and highways with no more than 3 lanes, it is near impossible to efficiently navigate through traffic. (Cincinnati, my wonderful hometown, by comparison has a metro population of 2 mil and keeps 3 or 4 lanes on most highways in the suburbs and 5 in the city) I will never get over the fact that the distance I would cover in Cincinnati in 20 minutes would take me two hours here. And that's on a good day. India has done one, on the surface, smart thing. However rather than smart, I would call it a necessity. They have curtailed the size of their cars so that its easier to navigate on the road. This increases efficiency very moderately, however nothing would beat a renovated public transportation system.
You don't need me to tell you that 20 million people is a lot of people. It's by most estimates too many people. With the fifth largest population density in the world (looked up on Wikipedia)(none of the 1-4 are even close to Mumbai in total size), an efficient public transportation system is a must. There is a train system in place right now which is said to move over 6 million people daily. Nonetheless, even the trains take a long time to reach their destinations and rush hour traffic on the train is like trying to fill one box of Cocoa Puffs cereal with four packets of cereal. In the end, what you have is a bunch of smashed brown pieces which, after enough time, are harder to separate then they were to compress together.
Nonetheless, today I avoided the trains. (I always avoid the trains if possible) I hopped on what would be the most peculiar vehicle anybody from the western world would ever see, the autorickshaw. Without a photo, an autorickshaw might be best described as a three-wheel golf cart with an extended cover around it. Since that sort of pathetic explanation does not do the rickshaw justice, I included a photo. You can usually see these things doing the Allen Iverson weaving around the bigger cars through all sorts of traffic. The drivers are so bad that you'd think Ryanair in Europe deserves safety awards after receiving the rollercoaster experience on one of these.
I'd keep going on but I have to get going right now and do some other work. Let it be known that before I leave, I plan to drive an autorickshaw and report on it. Adios
I got water poisoning Wednesday night and thus didn't make it to Goa over the weekend. Naturally, my friends did their due diligence my drowning me in guilt and I held up my end by trying to force myself out of bed, which wasn't possible except right before diaharrea/puke explosions. That was Wednesday night and all day Thursday. Yesterday, however, I started to feel alright after taking my meds and eating properly. And I decided, rightfully so, to make a day out of my Sunday. The rain had subsided for a while and I decided to venture out to the Bandra markets.
The only problem I had in all of this was the issue of transportation. In an incorporated metro (Mumbai and New Mumbai) that has a population of 20 million and highways with no more than 3 lanes, it is near impossible to efficiently navigate through traffic. (Cincinnati, my wonderful hometown, by comparison has a metro population of 2 mil and keeps 3 or 4 lanes on most highways in the suburbs and 5 in the city) I will never get over the fact that the distance I would cover in Cincinnati in 20 minutes would take me two hours here. And that's on a good day. India has done one, on the surface, smart thing. However rather than smart, I would call it a necessity. They have curtailed the size of their cars so that its easier to navigate on the road. This increases efficiency very moderately, however nothing would beat a renovated public transportation system.
You don't need me to tell you that 20 million people is a lot of people. It's by most estimates too many people. With the fifth largest population density in the world (looked up on Wikipedia)(none of the 1-4 are even close to Mumbai in total size), an efficient public transportation system is a must. There is a train system in place right now which is said to move over 6 million people daily. Nonetheless, even the trains take a long time to reach their destinations and rush hour traffic on the train is like trying to fill one box of Cocoa Puffs cereal with four packets of cereal. In the end, what you have is a bunch of smashed brown pieces which, after enough time, are harder to separate then they were to compress together.
Nonetheless, today I avoided the trains. (I always avoid the trains if possible) I hopped on what would be the most peculiar vehicle anybody from the western world would ever see, the autorickshaw. Without a photo, an autorickshaw might be best described as a three-wheel golf cart with an extended cover around it. Since that sort of pathetic explanation does not do the rickshaw justice, I included a photo. You can usually see these things doing the Allen Iverson weaving around the bigger cars through all sorts of traffic. The drivers are so bad that you'd think Ryanair in Europe deserves safety awards after receiving the rollercoaster experience on one of these.
I'd keep going on but I have to get going right now and do some other work. Let it be known that before I leave, I plan to drive an autorickshaw and report on it. Adios
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
The Storm
I recently realized that I have a lot in common with my favorite radio host, the King of Conservatism, Rush Limbaugh. Now even though Rush and I have our differences, such as me believing that global warming is real and that disillusioned soldiers who fought in Iraq shouldn't be called "phony soldiers", our basic mission to the American people is very similar. When Hillary Clinton "the femiNazi" and Barack Osama go to the podium to introduce some new liberalist fatwa, Rush makes the claim on his radio show that he will "listen to them and report the truth so that the American people don't have to." Very similarly, I, Amit Dixit, stand before my American brothers and sisters to report the truth about the monsoons here in Mumbai which have started to consume our lives.
The rain that pours down is unbelievable. I am certain that few people are as strong sleepers as I am, having slept through alarm clocks countless times. Nonetheless, during the monsoon season, I doubt any Mumbaian is able to register the standard 8 hours of sleep through the incredible storms.
We have snow days in America, Indians have rain days.
The other day I was on my way home from work and I got to experience my first flood-expedition. Not a pleasant experience. At least it isn't like 2005, when Mumbai had amassed 100 cm (3.28 ft) of precipitation in 24 hours. Media reports indicated that at least 1000 people had died as a result. People in the city say that they could see stray animals "surfing" that day. I'd love to have built a raft and rowed in this.
But you know what the most interesting point in this water mess is? People in Mumbai need it.
In a world where water supply is constantly dwindling and most of the people don't have access to good water as regularly as we Americans do, the people in Mumbai depend on the rainfall to survive. At a time when I will look out the window and say, "Shit, it's raining," the general consensus in the office will be, "Finally, it's raining." In the suburb of Powai where I'm living, the residents live off the water of the local Powai Lake, which supports them as well as a large portion of Mumbai. Every year the volume of the lake shrinks by about half from it's post-monsoon size of the previous year and the rains replenish the water supply.
I don't know of many people who are big fans of rain back home. And to be perfectly honest, right now I'd keep writing but given my adapting to the Indian lifestyle since I've been here, I'm going to go play in the rain with everybody else.
The rain that pours down is unbelievable. I am certain that few people are as strong sleepers as I am, having slept through alarm clocks countless times. Nonetheless, during the monsoon season, I doubt any Mumbaian is able to register the standard 8 hours of sleep through the incredible storms.
We have snow days in America, Indians have rain days.
The other day I was on my way home from work and I got to experience my first flood-expedition. Not a pleasant experience. At least it isn't like 2005, when Mumbai had amassed 100 cm (3.28 ft) of precipitation in 24 hours. Media reports indicated that at least 1000 people had died as a result. People in the city say that they could see stray animals "surfing" that day. I'd love to have built a raft and rowed in this.
But you know what the most interesting point in this water mess is? People in Mumbai need it.
In a world where water supply is constantly dwindling and most of the people don't have access to good water as regularly as we Americans do, the people in Mumbai depend on the rainfall to survive. At a time when I will look out the window and say, "Shit, it's raining," the general consensus in the office will be, "Finally, it's raining." In the suburb of Powai where I'm living, the residents live off the water of the local Powai Lake, which supports them as well as a large portion of Mumbai. Every year the volume of the lake shrinks by about half from it's post-monsoon size of the previous year and the rains replenish the water supply.
I don't know of many people who are big fans of rain back home. And to be perfectly honest, right now I'd keep writing but given my adapting to the Indian lifestyle since I've been here, I'm going to go play in the rain with everybody else.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Metamorphasis
It's really become a problem. Going to a completely different environment really changes you. It's not at all like when I was in Luxembourg in the fall however, simply because I was surrounded by Americans the whole time even though we were all in a foreign land. As long as at least one person in our group knew French, we could get by in any situation. This is different. That's not to say India and America are as different as Venus and Mars but they certainly aren't the same. You get forced to give up a little bit of the coomfort zone that you've grown up in your whole life. People can easily tell you're from the outside and, just like back home, some are very interested to hear about the outside but most really work to distance themselves. Here are a few examples of conversations I've had...
Me: What's going on in Indian news this morning?
My Boss: Something that happens in America all the time
Me: O ok, what's that?
My Boss: Well, some kid in Mumbai just got kidnapped, held for ransom, and was killed. They just found his body.
Me: That doesn't happen in America all the time
My Boss: Who are you trying to fool? I remember reading about JonBenet Ramsey.
Or this one....
Guy at bar: So have you been to most places in America?
Me: Yeah, I've been a lot of the major places
Guy at bar: Have you ever been to San Francisco?
Me: Um, sure
Guy at bar: Are you gay?
Me: No, not all people in San Francisco are gay
Guy at bar: Well, I've seen it on TV. I get the feeling that most people in America are gay.
(Note: To be perfectly honest, if his assumption about San Francisco was true, a large portion of the guys in Mumbai would fit right in San Francisco based on their bar/club attire.)
When I went to Amsterdam, as part of a class trip, we went to a Dutch school and were told to talk to the kids and get their opinions about Americans. I still remember asking the guy at the table what his impression about Americans was and I still clearly remember him saying, "Fat people who eat McDonalds." Now that's not to say that Americans don't eat McDonalds; I had just eaten there while perusing Amsterdam late the night before. But still, one of the most interesting things I have gotten to see in foreign countries is the local person's view of what I would like to call "The Greatest Nation on Earth."
However, it really is the fact that we parade ourselves as the "Greatest Nation on Earth" that makes the outside world resent the United States. In an earlier post, I expressed how much I find Cleveland sports fans to be the bane of humanity for their overdone local loyalty and this isn't too different. The only difference is that, unlike the city of Cleveland, America truly is a winner. Given this truth, people in foreign countries really do everything to put America down, or at least bring themselves up to our level. Hence, the poster boy for America has really become NOT a Barack Obama or a Bill Gates, but rather 50 Cent or Lil Wayne (which as awesome as Lil Wayne being the poster child of America sounds, we could certainly do better).
The most talented and ambitious of Indians rarely end up staying in India, they usually go abroad to places like London, Dubai, or the US. There's a whole host of reasons for this, mainly political (a whole entire separate discussion), but as a result of the poor economy, the outside world has begun closing their doors to foreigners from India, China, and Latin America. This too, creates a sense of anger towards American from Indians who were and weren't trying to go to America.
The whole experience has really had a change on me though. I'd like to say it's made me tougher because I'm able to sit here and listen to all this ridiculous America bashing all the time, but in reality it's just made me more of a dickhead. I find myself regularly talking about my experience of being halted on the road by buffalo in an urban metro to any America basher and subsequently saying things like "Make sure you don't step in that buffalo shit on your walk home from work. We don't have to worry about things like that in America." I'll usually get a snide remark such as, "Make sure you don't step in that Wall Street banker shit on your walk home. We don't have to worry about things like that in India."
Moral of the Story: For better or for worse, the elitist lifestyle that was once exclusively American is now becoming a global phenomenon. With a new technology base that seems to somehow make the cover of BusinessWeek every week, India is certainly making strides to move forward. It's purely a new competition, which is not necessarily good for America, but very good for globalization. It's about time somebody else felt that their home was "The Greatest Nation on Earth."
Me: What's going on in Indian news this morning?
My Boss: Something that happens in America all the time
Me: O ok, what's that?
My Boss: Well, some kid in Mumbai just got kidnapped, held for ransom, and was killed. They just found his body.
Me: That doesn't happen in America all the time
My Boss: Who are you trying to fool? I remember reading about JonBenet Ramsey.
Or this one....
Guy at bar: So have you been to most places in America?
Me: Yeah, I've been a lot of the major places
Guy at bar: Have you ever been to San Francisco?
Me: Um, sure
Guy at bar: Are you gay?
Me: No, not all people in San Francisco are gay
Guy at bar: Well, I've seen it on TV. I get the feeling that most people in America are gay.
(Note: To be perfectly honest, if his assumption about San Francisco was true, a large portion of the guys in Mumbai would fit right in San Francisco based on their bar/club attire.)
When I went to Amsterdam, as part of a class trip, we went to a Dutch school and were told to talk to the kids and get their opinions about Americans. I still remember asking the guy at the table what his impression about Americans was and I still clearly remember him saying, "Fat people who eat McDonalds." Now that's not to say that Americans don't eat McDonalds; I had just eaten there while perusing Amsterdam late the night before. But still, one of the most interesting things I have gotten to see in foreign countries is the local person's view of what I would like to call "The Greatest Nation on Earth."
However, it really is the fact that we parade ourselves as the "Greatest Nation on Earth" that makes the outside world resent the United States. In an earlier post, I expressed how much I find Cleveland sports fans to be the bane of humanity for their overdone local loyalty and this isn't too different. The only difference is that, unlike the city of Cleveland, America truly is a winner. Given this truth, people in foreign countries really do everything to put America down, or at least bring themselves up to our level. Hence, the poster boy for America has really become NOT a Barack Obama or a Bill Gates, but rather 50 Cent or Lil Wayne (which as awesome as Lil Wayne being the poster child of America sounds, we could certainly do better).
The most talented and ambitious of Indians rarely end up staying in India, they usually go abroad to places like London, Dubai, or the US. There's a whole host of reasons for this, mainly political (a whole entire separate discussion), but as a result of the poor economy, the outside world has begun closing their doors to foreigners from India, China, and Latin America. This too, creates a sense of anger towards American from Indians who were and weren't trying to go to America.
The whole experience has really had a change on me though. I'd like to say it's made me tougher because I'm able to sit here and listen to all this ridiculous America bashing all the time, but in reality it's just made me more of a dickhead. I find myself regularly talking about my experience of being halted on the road by buffalo in an urban metro to any America basher and subsequently saying things like "Make sure you don't step in that buffalo shit on your walk home from work. We don't have to worry about things like that in America." I'll usually get a snide remark such as, "Make sure you don't step in that Wall Street banker shit on your walk home. We don't have to worry about things like that in India."
Moral of the Story: For better or for worse, the elitist lifestyle that was once exclusively American is now becoming a global phenomenon. With a new technology base that seems to somehow make the cover of BusinessWeek every week, India is certainly making strides to move forward. It's purely a new competition, which is not necessarily good for America, but very good for globalization. It's about time somebody else felt that their home was "The Greatest Nation on Earth."
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