India - Writer's Block Over...

Hell yeah! Finally, I can sit down and post.

No, the irony of my last post being about what a writer uses as source material and the length of time between that post and this one is not lost on me. I meant to write about many different things I have seen here in India but for the past week and a half I have been pretty depressed, for reasons that I won't even get into here.

But I'm back, and that's the most important thing. Now for a few random items in this post (then I will post a more focused topic later today).

First random observation, the traffic. I noticed today as I walked around Bangalore that the traffic has stopped seeming abnormal to me. I was walking down the street with Bill (one of my co-workers) and we were crossing streets full of traffic while still having our conversation. Neither of us so much as blinked. It was hilarious!

The interesting thing about traffic here is there are very few stop lights. I have only seen three or four in all my riding around in cabs and such. So when you want to cross a street you usually have to just wade out into traffic and cross. Now, this sounds very dangerous (and maybe it is, I dont know the statistics on people getting run over by cars here) but if you know the "system" then you won't get hurt.

First thing to remember crossing the street is: Pedestrians do NOT have the right-of-way. This is important, let that sink in for a second and try not to cry...ok. Now, when you get out into the middle of the street and cars do not stop for you, do not panic. Instead, just stay very still (like the veritable "Deer in headlights") and the cars, rickshaws, motorcycles, and trucks WILL NOT hit you. They will simply see you as an obstacle in the road and go around you. Now, when you see an opportunity to move further across the street (like when there are less cars passing in front of you) then you move a few more steps across and repeat.

Using this process you can safely cross any Indian street. It is important to note here that, while you are standing in the middle of the street, you need to be very still and pay attention. If you step forward at the wrong time you WILL turn into road-kill. However, if you are careful and stay still at the appropriate times, standing in the middle of a busy street is as safe as standing on the sidewalk. I'm not joking.

Second random observation, the weather. In Bangalore the high here is around 85 degrees and it is not too humid. It makes for very nice weather most of the time. When you are downtown with all the traffic and people and it is sunny out side it can get quite hot but that's just the nature of summertime. Now, when it rains the temperature drops down to around 65 degrees. The Indians all make me laugh when this happens because they start putting on windbreakers and parkas and such. They also start saying things like, "Ooooo, It's cold outside!" Cold? Don't make me laugh!

When one of my co-workers said that last Thursday I told him, after I stopped laughing, "Do you see snow on the ground out there? No? Then its not cold!" He just chuckled and said, "Well this IS cold for Bangalore." Pfft! Pansies!

Third random observation, the office. Most of the time I work either at the Sarjapur road Wipro campus or here at Electronic City Campus. Both campuses have buildings that are pretty nice but nothing to write home about. However, this past Friday I spent the whole day in a client meeting, as an observer.

When I walked into the room where we were going to have the meeting, I thought I had left India and walked onto a Movie Set. The room looked like a boardroom in a high rise building that someone like Donald Trump would use. The room had a large bay window along one wall showing the immaculately landscaped Wipro technology campus and the two largest buildings on the campus. The other walls had a high quality oak wood look to them. The large centerpiece of the room, the meeting table, was a HUGE oak wood affair with leather board room chairs that were so comfortable it made you want to go to sleep (and as I saw later, some people did). The table had microphones set into the tabletop for each chair around the table so that when you spoke everyone in the room could hear you just fine without you raising your voice. The projection screen at one end of the room was a Huge ice-glass panel that you could walk up to and touch and such without your shadow showing up because the projector was located BEHIND the ice-glass. Next to that was a 32 inch plasma screen TV that can be used to show movies and other figures or just mirror the current presentation. Any way you look at it, the entire set up just screamed MONEY! It made me wonder why our offices are so mediocre and yet what we present to the client is just PHAT. Especially since our company made $700 million profit last year.

That's enough for you to chew on for now. I will post some more in a little while. I've got plenty more to write about...

PS. I put up a new movie quote...let the guessing begin.