Wanderlust Heaven!

I emailed some of my former clients in Tokyo and Sydney and told them I was back at work – got some nice replies.  I was happy I’d kept in touch with people while I was on the road…for me, one of the most gratifying aspects of being a consultant is becoming friendly with several clients.  I wouldn’t have seen that coming years ago, it’s a bit different than the usual workplace friendships – the consulting-client relationship can be intense, and this can lead to strong bonds after some time.

Read a Yahoo News headline that was just classic:  “Big squishy blobs may fill key tracks in evolutionary timeline.”  Hard to argue with that, huh?

Stayed pretty busy at work.  Met with a local PE firm to discuss a few ideas…I’m learning a hell of a lot on the fly here, another characteristic of consulting.  As with my previous stint, I’m getting all the responsibility I can handle, and probably a bit more, so I need to keep pushing till I reach a state of equilibrium.  That may take a few more months, but I’ll get there, or at least I’ll be able to fake it…

Had a good meal at Delhi Darbar, a chain with a resto in Colaba.  Despite my best intentions to shift my diet to mostly vegetarian, I opted for the tandoori mixed platter, which was terrific…lamb reshmi kebab, chicken tandoor, and a few other morsels.  The issue with Indian food is that you can barely walk away from the table…unlike in East Asia, where the food’s relatively light and you don’t feel about to explode.  And the more time I spend here, the more I recognize that Indian bodies are a lot like ours; they’re prone to have big bellies and thighs, and the place is already diabetes central.  That will only get worse over time…

Flew up to Delhi to meet with my project leader there.  Was hoping to get in early enough to have dinner with b-school buddy Hasmeeth, but the flight was a bit late and it wouldn’t work.  Delhi is spread out and the driving distances are vast…plus they’re working on a few key roads and at certain times they’re nearly impassable.  So we took yet another flyer…it’ll work one of these days.

Had dinner instead at a place right across from my hotel, the Svelte Personal Suites.  Can’t get over that name.  The resto was Spice Market, had a full meal centered on a Bengali fish curry that was very nice.  But I keep telling myself to eat like a poor Indian laborer instead – veg thali and roti.  Yeah, yeah…

Met the project leader for breakfast at the Sheraton – hadn’t had a 5-star breakfast buffet in some time.  The issue with these things, in a business setting, is that I’m self-conscious eating a lot while trying to have a discussion.  So the breakfast costs around US$25 or so, and I probably consume the equivalent of US$5-8.  I’d rather meet at a diner and have it out over a bagel or something like that…I think in India it would be in a dhaba (canteen) and a cup of chai.

Met with the project leader all morning, and made good progress.  We’re working on a fairly technical, implementation-focused project – not my usual gig and hers neither, but we’re trying to expand the scope a bit and make it more strategic.  We’ll see how that goes when we meet the client in a week or so.

Raced back to the airport – wanted to catch a conference in Mumbai that night on alternative energy.  My car didn’t show, but I grabbed a taxi and made it with time to spare.  Delhi’s Indira Gandhi Airport is pretty slow during the day – it mostly gets going during the wee hours.

The conference, at the Trident Hotel in Mumbai, was alright.  It was co-sponsored by the Asia Society and Credit Suisse, so there were some blowhard intros given before the speaker, Tulsi Tanthi of Suzlon, got on.  Suzlon is India’s biggest solar/wind power company, maybe the only real one, and Tanthi is a pioneer in the field.  Their stock was absolutely skyrocketing until last year – a familiar enough story.  After the sho w they had drinks and snacks, and I ran into a bunch of people I had met over the past month…and I also ran into an old colleague from our HKG office, Gauri, who used to head HR for us in Asia, and who left around 2001 or so.  Hadn’t seen her since then, but we recognized each other – in fact, Angeline and Purwa, two of her colleagues at Asia Society, had become new friends of mine and they had told her that I was in town.  Small world…Mumbai has 18 million people but it seems there are just a few hundred of us who go to these things.

The next day I took my team out to lunch at Vong Wong, a fairly pricey Thai place.  Hadn’t been there before, didn’t even know about it.  Good food and a fun change of pace from gorging in the office kitchen, our usual lunchtime deal.  I do find myself missing the ease of going out for lunch near our old Tokyo office, or near the HKG office.  Eating in the office is a drag, plain and simple.  We work hard and I think it’s a healthy thing to escape for an hour.  Will work on that once I hammer out a few other things.

Have been inching towards closing the deal on my new flat, and moving in.  The agent sent me a draft contract, which turned out to be pretty one-sided (not in my favor), an annoying turn of events given that I’m the one paying the agent.  I handed this draft over to the HR Director of my firm, as they’re signing the lease, fronting the money, and then withdrawing it from my paychecks – a good way to deal with this.  The HR Director and the agent are doing some edits and I hope by early this week it’s done, registered, and I can move in on Wednesday.  It’s been a month in the Suba Palace Hotel and I want a change of scenery, and lifestyle.  The solution is in view…

Had dinner the other night at Leopold’s upstairs bar, where I’m sometimes to be found.  I’ve become friendly with Deepak the barman, a delightful fellow who grins ear-to-ear 80% of the time – not in the cloying way that the two San Diegans did on the Sinai overnight dive trip a few months back, but in a truly joyous way that I find infectious.  He may have some form of brain damage, but I tend to think he has an uncluttered life and that he’s damn happy to have a job at Leopold’s.

I was in the mood for some fried rice, I asked him to recommend one of the dishes, and went for that.  A huge plate came out 10 minutes later, fried rice with chicken, topped with a heavy red spicy sauce.  The combination of rice and sauce in my stomach didn’t sit well – I was stuffed after eating 10% of the plate, and only saw gastric tragedy if I pressed on.  I got a doggy bag, told Deepak it was delicious (something of a lie, but hey), and walked outside.  Not 6 steps later I came upon a crippled boy who reached out his hand – I hope he likes spicy fried rice with chicken, because I gave him a kilo of the stuff.

Am working on setting up a call involving myself, the project leader in Delhi, and a colleague of ours in Washington, D.C.  The call needs to happen middle to late this coming week – right around the start of Passover.  Not ordinarily an issue, but we’re all Jewish, leading us to wonder how the hell 3 Jews all came together to work on a project in India.  Reminds me of the “Jewish Ghetto” corner of the HKG office…and the time all 3 of the Jewish consultants in our Asia region were in the Tokyo office.  We do look out for each other, at least out here…

As I get deeper into my new job and life here in Mumbai, I’m more and more aware of the contrast with the other offer I had, to work on pharma projects in Shanghai/East Asia.  I thought I had a good sense of the contrast coming in…but the more I think about it, the more I realize that I made a serious choice to do something significantly more challenging in almost every way.  Living in Mumbai vs. in Shanghai…working on social impact assignments vs. the old, familiar pharma stuff…having a new team vs. a group of largely familiar faces…and so on.  If I can pull it off, the psychic rewards will almost certainly be vastly superior – but the climb won’t be easy.  Did I mention there are often goats grazing on rubbish right outside my office building?  I thought I knew what I was getting into…but despite all my experience changing geos and jobs, I probably underestimated the challenge here.  So now I’ve got to step up and deliver.  Fingers crossed.

Friday was a mellow day…caught up on some emails, did some reading, was looking forward to the most relaxing weekend in a month.  Hadn’t heard from a couple prospective clients so pinged them around 1 p.m…then things got interesting.  Both replied within a few minutes, both were positive about working with us – but they wanted to meet again, discuss various matters, talk about cost, etc.  Good news, for sure, but I spend the rest of the time lining up the next set of meetings, getting the content ready, etc.  Won’t have much time this coming week as I have a biz trip to a remote part of the country, then when I’m back I need to move to my new flat (we’ll see about that), and will try to cram in Passover services on Wednesday night.  Everything always happens at once.  So by the time Friday evening rolled around, I was exhausted.  Crawled out of the office at 8 p.m., went to Geoffrey’s Pub in Marine Plaza Hotel for a couple beers, then hit the sack before midnight.  I was supposed to meet a friend of a friend, but he had to postpone, and I was glad about that.  You know you’re getting old/working hard when you’re happy to have a beer or two and not talk to anyone…

Got up early Saturday morning and went straight to the office – all the mayhem on Friday afternoon meant that I now had to take care of a few things that hadn’t gotten done.  Stuck around for about 4 hours, did the key stuff, then escaped and went to seafood place Apoorva for lunch.  I’ve been meaning to check out this place for years, b-school friend Rajan has always recommended it but I’ve never had a chance.  I liked it immediately – the downstairs section is informal, no tablecloths or fancy waiters.  Sat down and got a beer, then some Hyderabadi fish tikka.  A fellow across the way asked me where I was from…very personable guy, we wound up chatting for an hour.  He goes there nearly every day.  Indians aren’t shy people, for the most part, at least not Mumbaikers.  My fish came and it was excellent – I now have a very solid alternative to Mahesh Lunch Home.  The fellow, who turned out to be a Muslim businessman in the financial sector, gave me his card and wants to invite me to his home for dinner.  These sorts of interactions don’t happen everywhere…I’m not always in the mood to be chatty and make friends in 5 minutes, but I usually try to stay open to these sorts of possibilities…they can lead to some bizarre adventures and that’s my raison d’etre.

After lunch I walked around the Fort area for a while, visited a clothing/furnishings store called FabIndia, a real success story here.  Nice stuff – didn’t buy anything, but will be back.  Then hit Rhythm House, a good music shop – they didn’t have the latest Prem Joshua live album, but I later got it on iTunes…an increasingly familiar story.

Wanted to visit a store called Bombay Dye, known for its bedding stuff, but couldn’t find it.  Need to get some bedsheets, etc. before I move in.  Another thing to squeeze in this week…

That night we had a work get-together at our HR Director’s flat.  Our MD was presenting our low-cost housing work to some contacts, about 30 people attended and it went well.  Kind of funny, though – there we were in a posh flat in South Mumbai, talking about low-cost housing units retailing for under US$8,000.

Friends Rajan and Kalli were supposed to attend but couldn’t make it – we took a raincheck for coffee the next day.  After the prez we were all milling around, having some wine, and I was introduced to a woman running for the Lok Sabha (lower Parliament house) in the upcoming elections.  Her name’s Meera Sanyal and I was impressed – well-educated banker, articulate, funny, worldly – by all accounts, the polar opposite of the hack now occupying that seat.

Meant to leave around 10 p.m. or so and go to the Ghetto Bar uptown, but the HR Director and her very cool hubbie convinced me to stay for another glass of wine…then another…etc.  The HR Director’s sort of taken me under her wing…first with the housing contract, and now in a more general social sense.  I’m fine with that – it’s probably good for me to let someone else help me out now and again.  I wound up staying till well past midnight, having dinner there with them, and finishing every drop of wine in the flat.  Then I went to my hotel, watched “Milk,” which was terrific, and finally crashed around 3 a.m.

Had a nice little hangover today.  Met Rajan at Oxford Bookstore for coffee, hung out and explained the history of the Old Testament to him for a while.  Got a call from Rabbi Hezy at Chabad House Mumbai, looks like I’ll attend Passover services Wednesday night at Knesset Eliyahu synagogue, then do a seder with the Chabad gang after that.  Can’t remember the last time I went to a seder.

Got an email from Bryan in NYC – he just ran into a classmate, Mike D., at a party there.  I think Mike D. and I emailed a while back, somehow he’d gotten word of this slog and had become a regular reader.  Mike, this entry’s for you, man.  See you at our 20^th reunion in May, and please spread the word.  And I need to do the same for my gang.

Had lunch at Café Churchill in Colaba – they do a pretty solid lamb club sandwich (better than it sounds).  Walked back to my hotel to escape the heat – a red Ferrari whizzed by.  A Ferrari in India – they used to only have Ambassadors and Marutis, now the place is wide open.  As it should be.  You might lose a bit of oldtime charm, but the world awaits.  Speaking of which, I need to go for a run, my waistline spilleth over.  See you next week…over and out.

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