Raw Spillage…
Yeesh, what a crazy couple weeks. It takes a hell of a lot to keep me away from my slog for two weeks, but getting back to work seems to be doing it. I tried to condition you to expect more random updates…that’s being borne out now.
Have a lot to plow through here, so might be a bit clipped…
Manoj, the office guy, is always there. And he’s always laughing – not sure if it’s at me, or at life. Possibility – I learned that he stays up all night playing ‘Doom.’ That might explain it. Apparently during the terrorist attacks last December he was a real trooper – making sure everyone was safely at home, delivering food, etc. You need people like that in your company – they’re the glue.
No lack of reading materials these days – I pretty much have to catch up with all the work my team did over the past 18 months. One excruciating document I barely got through was an overview of the Pakistani dairy industry, replete with boring SWOT diagrams and other nearly-useless trife. Most of the other materials have been interesting, so I can’t complain.
Real estate agents have been hounding me withour mercy. I may have erred in contacting many at the outset…but I did manage to see quite a few flats and things are now looking good. More on that later.
Wrote my first project proposal in 3 years. Came out pretty well – didn’t feel rusty at all, the consulting syntax was right on the tip of my tongue and I was pretty efficient in writing it up. Of course, I was at the office doing this from 6 p.m. till midnight – because I’m pretty much in meetings all day and it’s hard finding time to sit down without distractions for 6 hours. I’m sure you all know what I mean…
Had dinner with the project leader who’s reporting to me on an NGO case. She’s very talented – has a background in design and innovation. We met for dinner at All Stir Fry, a terrific place in the Gordon House Hotel. Mongolian BBQ-style – you fill up your bowl with raw materials and the fellow throw it in a wok. A bottomless ‘big bowl’ costs about US$8 – hard to beat that value.
Wednesday morning was bizarre. Got in a cab outside my hotel – driver seemed to understand where my office (Free Press House) is. Next thing I knew, we were on Marine Drive – but he still seemed to have a plan. A minute later I realized he was clueless – mea culpa. And I couldn’t help him understand where he had to go, although I knew – so I paid him, got out, and walked 10 minutes to the office. I was sweating when I reached there…I wasn’t thrilled. Cabbies here are horrendous – and the vehicles are 30 years old and are depressing. Not quite as bad as the wrecks in Rangoon, but close.
Got to my office – voicemail light lit up. Checked it – two voicemails in Korean. Clearly erroneous. Great start to the day. Things did settle down after that.
Saw a few more flats on Thursday with agent Jyoti, a very pleasant woman who has shown me some crap flats, but this time she found a real winner, a 1-bedroom in the chi-chi Grand Paradi building. The next day I asked her to put in a bid on it – but learned that the quoted price was incorrect (owner wanted much more), and also the owner was thinking of selling it, not renting it. Ugh. When Jyoti’s office manager called me, clueless, the next day, I lit into her and told her I was sick of her agency showing me flats under false pretenses. Really…these people don’t do their homework. If I wasn’t so busy I’d live with it – but I suppose I need to vent and share the pain.
Met Roxanne again that night…seemed like ages since our fun night out at Zenzi. We were met at Woodside Inn by Mike, a friend of a colleague’s who’s stationed here for a year. Nice guy.
Read in the Times of India – which seems to specialize in obscure stories which only I’d be compelled to read – that a cab drove across the runway of Legaspi (RP) Airport and nearly caused a plane crash. Classic. The runway there is pretty modest, I was there for my Donsol excursion just a few weeks ago. Seems like yesterday, and a lifetime ago, all at the same time. I do miss the RP…
Flew to Delhi at dawn on Friday with two colleagues. Had to get up at 4:30 a.m. for that. Had some good meetings up there, including one with the project leader for my current case. We talked about the project for a while, then about a feedback session she was about to do with a report of hers on her recent project. It was looking to be a contentious session, and she wanted my advice. I was happy to help her out, and found that I had a lot to say – I’ve been through some of these myself, on both sides of the desk, and there’s a lot of data in my mental hard drive on this topic. I do like to give advice and talk about touchy subjects – maybe I am truly a consulting lifer.
Flew back with one of my colleagues. Bonded a bit in the Delhi Jet Airlines lounge over a beer…was so weary from the week that I didn’t really keep an eye on the time, next thing we knew they were calling our flight and we had to scramble to get through security and make it. Then we sat on the runway for 45 minutes. Classic, and typical.
Landed in Mumbai, got in line for a taxi. Halfway to the city, the meter stopped working. Here there’s always something confounding – if you like an orderly existence, this is a bad place for you.
Got back to my hotel. Checked email – Lotus Notes indicated 44 unread messages. Shit. I had checked in Delhi a few hours before, and had cleared most emails there. Reluctantly opened up email and was relieved to see that only 6 emails were actually new – for some reason Lotus is a bit flaky with the read/unread markings. That was a gut check of sorts and I made it through…
Went for a beer at Leopold’s, upstairs. Fairly calm evening there, until a guy fell in his chair back from the bar onto the floor. At first I thought there was trouble – Leo’s has an odd mix of people and you never know who won’t mix. He hit the floor with a crack – and his chair undercut another and caused that one to fall too, with another guy on it. For a moment the air was heavy with anticipation…I grabbed my 650ml Kingfisher bottle and was ready to wield it…then both guys got off the floor and dusted themselves off. And sat down again without further ado. Nice.
Spent Saturday in the office. Not too bad a day, just clearing up a few things. Got an email from the University of Virginia’s online system requesting that I update my –personal info. Fine…did that, and quickly scanned my profile. Saw a line-item about a scholarship I won for my 2nd year at b-school – the ‘Class of 1970 Creative Management Scholarship.’ But I was surprised to see that it was sponsored by DAR – the Daughters of the American Revolution, a right-wing group. Hadn’t known they were the sponsors – how random. I still would have happily accepted their money, it’s just funny that 15 years on I just found this out.
BTW, if you want to email me, please do it via normal email and not on Facebook or LinkedIn. I detest having to open those programs to respond. ‘Nuff said.
Got out at 1 p.m., went to Café Mondegar for lunch. This place is similar to Leopold’s, has been around forever, perhaps a key difference is that it’s somewhat less (in)famous and thus terrorists are less likely to attack. Had a Kingfisher and a terrific Goan Curry Prawns Rice, a winner by any measure.
Saw more flats later that day with Jyoti. Mixed bag (the flats, not Jyoti).
Got an email from German friend Ivo, who rode with me partway on the Trans-Siberian Railway and who hung out with me in Moscow and St P. He had just done Carnival in Munich and had a blast – he sent me some good pics, including this one – I hope for his sake he’s dating the blonde:
Did some party planning…got some cheap Indian wine to bring out to a party that night. Had a bite at Bade Miya, then took a cab to Churchgate and went to the flat of Mike, who I’d met at Woodside a few nights earlier with Roxanne. Had a scotch with Mike and his roommate Jeff, they both work for BCG. Talked to Roxanne, we agreed to meet later that night at a US Consulate St Paddy’s Day party.
Moved on the a pre-party at a flat in Kemps Corner – the resident is Jay, a banker who just lost his job but is hanging around for a while. Eclectic crowd – talked with Darius, who works for an auto magazine…Avanti, who works for AT Kearney and loves to dive (scuba, that is), and Auloke, who works for an industrial company. Lots of others there too – ate and drank my fill. Then we went to a building where some US Consulate staffers live, there’s an upstairs bar called George’s (presumably George Washington, not another George we all unfortunately know of).
Terrific party – I knew a fair number of people there, and met many others. Perhaps the highlight was an Indian-American going to hug a placard of Obama and accidentally taking it down. I hope no metaphor arises from this…
On Sunday I saw the noontime showing of Gran Torino. Not exactly the comedy I’m in sore need of (given my recent addiction to Kate Winslet heart-tuggers), but an excellent movie all round. I swear Hollywood can still do it when they try – 80% of the stuff is dross, but if there were more movies like this one Hollywood could probably save America by itself. And if only they still made cars like that Gran Torino…
Another funny Times of India article – the Foxy Lady strip bar in Providence, RI held a job fair recently to recruit ‘new talent’. Of course, I’ve never been to that fine establishment…
Am remembering how hard it is to align people’s calendars and set meetings. Over the past 3 years it’s been enough work to stay on top of things like visas, etc. with my own calendar – haven’t really had to make lots of appointments. Welcome to reality.
Left the office Monday night – as I was walking out, I realized I had fronted the cash for the team’s lunch that day and was essentially broke. I had to borrow 30 rupees from Manoj, the office guy – that felt weird. I won’t even venture to guess how much he makes, but I presume it’s very little…still, he was happy to help. He even joked (I think) about getting interest on the loan. Actually, he handles a lot of cash, he goes to the dry cleaner for a number of senior people, including me…it’s just that he winds up making very little income.
Read that 1,600 Indians die of diarrhea each day. Ugh. Reading things like this help me stay motivated in my work – if we can help sub-scale companies refine their business models and get financing from institutions, this sort of thing will gradually go away. It’s shocking how poor half of the world still is…
Had dinner with Rajan’s cousin Sumeet, who runs a small water company. Great guy. Met at Cricket Club of India, in the upstairs bar called The Wet Wicket. Absolutely packed, on a Monday night. Great food and buzz. I think the waiting list for a new membership is 20 years…
I had to give a US$200 deposit (10K rupees) to enable International Direct Dial on my mobilephone. They really don’t make it easy for you here…
Went to my second Expat Night at Henry Tham’s. Met Darius from the auto mag, Jug from the reinsurer, Jay the ex-banker, and a few others. Good relaxed affair.
Have started skipping the hotel breakfasts. It’s inevitably eggs, toast, fried vegetables, etc. Instead, at the office, the guys will cut up a couple apples for you, and that’s far better in every way. As I’ve written many times, Indian food’s tasty, but not healthy – I need to make sure I eat a lot of fruit and stay away from the finger food here.
Finally settled on a flat I like. It’s in Kemps Corner, near my old ‘hood of Breach Candy. If I live there, I can join the terrific Breach Candy Club and exercise/swim/eat/drink there – a fine option and a real oasis in this mad city. I was a member there in ’92 and it was a life saver.
Prashant, the real estate agent (one of them, anyway), took me to meet the flat’s owner, who works in Nariman Point near my office. Meeting the owner is the usual course of action – real estate in Mumbai is a serious business. The owner is a Marwari (Rajasthani) fellow, and is a big shot. We met in his extensive offices, sat around drinking tea for a while till we got to talking about the flat. I was reasonably well-prepared, although in hindsight it wouldn’t have been a bad idea to drag a colleague with me.
We aligned on a monthly rental amount fairly quickly, but haggled on a few other points (length of contract, security deposit, furnishings). Pretty much settled everything, except that I wanted to check on the security deposit figure – Prashant said that the quoted figure was fine, but it sounded high to me. Anyway, the owner and I agreed to meet a few days later, on Saturday, when we’d go shopping for a bunch of things – a washing machine, kitchen table, sofa, and seat. I think the owner found me amusing, at the very least, and quite possibly a decent negotiator – or at least well-prepared and organized to the point of being rare over here. He would quote a figure, I would do a quick calculation and then explain why I was in the right. Over the course of the session I came to suspect that he wasn’t incredibly fussed over the actual #s, as much as wanting a solid tenant, one who wouldn’t wreck the place or move out suddenly and leave him hanging. And given his quite evident business success, this wasn’t his primary business – I’d heard stories of owners who lived on their rental income and were nightmares to deal with. This fellow, Mr. G, clearly didn’t really need the cash and had other criteria in mind. I was perhaps fortunate here, after my various tribulations over the past few weeks.
Went back to work. Noticed that I had a ‘friend offer’ on Facebook, from the first girl I made out with at Tufts. She dyed her hair blonde and now lives in the Midwest. At least she hadn’t become a lesbian (inside joke).
Doing laundry is annoying here. The laundry shops will make a marking on the collar of your shirts or tags of your pants, and they’ll thread a piece of cloth through to identify you…and sometimes they still lose items. They already lost a shirt I quite like – I asked Manoj, who’s been taking my clothes to the shop, to switch shops and to bug the first shop to find my damn shirt. I traveled all over the world for years and only lost a single white sock, in Laos…here, they write on and put holes in your stuff and then still lose things. India…not for everyone.
On Friday night I left the office before 8 p.m., my earliest night yet. Went out for a run…felt like I’d been smoking cigarettes. I did have one last week, just for old time’s sake…but I suspect it’s lack of exercise and also the air quality here that’s the real issue. Will make sure to go running both days this weekend, and once I move into my flat, religiously hit the Breach Candy Club and be a fixture on the treadmill every night. Would be great if I could motivate in the morning to exercise, but that would be a huge lifestyle change and it might be too much to ask given all the other upheavals in my life.
Another addition to my ongoing list of travel memories – how could I have forgotten the night in the ger (yurt) in Mongolia when I showed the guides photos and videos of my scuba diving in the Philippines with giant turtles? They were so fascinated they were drooling as they sat and went through the photos.
That night I went back to Henry Tham’s – Talvin Singh, the Indian-English DJ/composer, was spinning. I like his stuff and was looking forward to the show – seemed that the usual expat suspects and many Indian hotshots would show up. Which turned out to be the case – my BCG friends were there, many of the Expat Night gang too, and I met some very nice locals and a few foreign journalists. The music was very loud, but I managed to make it till about 2 a.m., then ducked out and hit the sack. Long week, needed my beauty sleep.
Indians love equating their local businesses with ours. Hollywood/Bollywood, of course, but there’s also Wall Street/Dalal Street. Pretty humorous.
Saturday morning – a red-letter day for me, might be the day I settle on a flat. Had to meet owner Mr. G at his flat in Kemps Corner and continue haggling. After our first meeting I had called Prashant, my agent, and told him that I wasn’t happy with the proposed security deposit amount – I’d asked around my office and was told it was way too much, given that I’m proposing to pay one year’s rent up-front (I know, it sounds insane, but it’s common here and a good way to reduce monthly rent amount). Prashant said he’d touch base with Mr. G and see about that – apparently he left a message to that effect with Mr. G’s office. Mr. G had then told Prashant that he wasn’t flexible, but that we should all meet at the flat on Saturday anyway. And in fact he’d gotten back to Prashant and hadn’t ignored his message…so I thought there was a glimmer of hope.
And after 5 minutes of meeting we were sorted. Mr. G came down on the security deposit figure, Prashant left (I was annoyed with him for having told me that the first security amount was “normal”), and Mr. G and I went shopping together. Which turned out to be one of the more random and enjoyable days I’ve had in a while – and certainly unexpectedly diverting. We rode in his wife’s Honda (he has a Merc, and he bought his sons an Audi and a BMW) to a furniture store, where we picked out a good kitchen table and chairs…we rode to a white goods/electronics shop, where we got a washing machine and microwave. In both places we were in and out in 20 minutes. Mr. G had no issue with pulling out his credit card and closing the deal. We obviously have similar shopping styles (i.e., we hate shopping), it’s just that he probably has a considerable fortune and I’m still building mine up.
After shopping, he invited me for a drink at a club where he’s a trustee. I think it’s called the Orient Club, it’s a 100-year-old place overlooking the Arabian Sea and Chowpatty Beach. Went upstairs and, in succession, polished off a couple Kingfishers, then some scotch, then white wine. And he’s 70 years old. We were clearly finding each other interesting company – I think he was pretty happy to find an American to take his flat. Turns out his son’s getting his undergrab business degree at Babson – so we had lots to talk about.
I had a 3 p.m. internal meeting at my office, and hadn’t anticipated being tight on time…but we then had lunch, and didn’t get out of there till nearly 3. Then we drove down to my office, where they deposited me, with a strong buzz, on the doorstep of my office building. You really never know what a day will turn out to be over here…I think that’s one of the reasons I like living overseas.
Was definitely tipsy during my meeting, but it turned out fine – I was up-front about how I’d spent my day and my colleagues thought it was pretty funny. And I felt quite fortunate – Mr. G gave every indication he’d be a great landlord and he wants me over for dinner with his family next week. I suppose it’s not a bad thing to have a well-to-do landlord living across the road who can afford to buy new furnishing and presumably deal with any problems as they crop up. I’ve had cheapo landlords who were a very different story. And in a place like Mumbai, it’s all about who you know and who can help you get things done…so in that column I’m now doing pretty well. I have a feeling Mr. G and I will get along very well. He certainly isn’t a Mormon…
After my internal meeting, read an email about my current project and setting up a conference call for that. It’ll just be Monitor people on the call – 3 of us, all Jewish. I love it.
Got out around 8 p.m. It was Saturday night, and I’d already had my RDA of alcohol. Went over to Indus Resto, which has superb fish tikka, had one of those and a beer, then waltzed over to SportsBar Express for one more, then went back to my hotel to relax. Dealing with flats and shopping – not my favorite activities by any measure, although the Mr. G angle had made the day quite enjoyable.
Sunday – considered doing the Hash House Harriers run, but it was some ways out of town and I decided to just stay put, read, and relax. Really my first day off since I got here – no work, no flat visits. Phew. Finished “The Sign and the Seal,” about the search for the lost Ark of the Covenant. Had been on this book for more than a month, was happy to finish it. Good yarn – not sure I buy the conclusions, i.e. that the Ark is in a church in Axum, Ethiopia. But the author (Graham Hancock) covers lots of ground and I did enjoy the book. One interesting bit is when he visits Elephantine Island, in the Nile near Aswan. I went there in December, to visit the Temple of Isis – but Hancock learned that there was an ancient Jewish temple there around 6oo B.C., and his sense is that the Ark was taken there after it left Jerusalem (the king at the time started practicing pagan rituals and worshipping idols – you know, the usual). Nearly no data/evidence to support this, just anecdotes and circumstantial stuff – still, worth a think and a read.
Alright, that’s enough for now, I’m finally caught up. Given my work schedule, it’s probably best to assume that I’ll be updating the slog on weekends from now on, so expect that. And thanks for sticking with me here…I’ll try to be entertaining despite being busy. Comments more than welcome. Over and out.
Tags: 1, Travel
mbsloney
Incredible India indeed!
Keep up the good work Uncle, hehe just kidding brother