Finally mobile

I finally got my car last night.
It's blazing red. I can listen to my ipod in it. I don't have to inhale 30 minutes worth of road fumes while getting to work. Unfortunately, I'm contributing to those fumes. :( Hey I gave the buses a chance (probably not a completely fair chance).

Anyone want to suggest a great web hosting service where I can move this blog (I want to start using movabletype) and host photos as well?

Incidentally, if you aren't using a news aggregator to read this, you need to. Check out bloglines.

Indian Ingenuity

I've wanted to write this entry for a long time but I keep forgetting.

So as far as I can tell, there are two reasons why you'd want a water-faucet that automatically turns on when you move your hands close to it (like in newer public restrooms):
1) So you don't have to touch the faucets that other people have touched after using the toilet,
2) So people don't waste water by accidentally (or lazily) leaving the water on.

When I first went to the public restrooms near work I got all pissed off because the water wouldn't turn on. I looked helplessly to the janitor, who looked at me like I was an idiot and then looked towards the ground.

The restroom sinks here (not all, but some) have foot pedals. That's such an awesome idea. You walk up to the sink and just press your foot down on the pedal. You don't have to touch anything with your hands. And when you're done, the water turns off.

A low cost alternative to IR sensors (that often break) on sinks.

Happy Diwali, Eid Mubarak

A little late on the wishes but oh well.

I spent diwali in Pune - it was phenomenal. I left from Bangalore on Thursday afternoon and flew to Mumbai. The flight was terrible. Sitting next to me was an obnoxious little 13 year old Gujju kid from Kuchh. How do I know he was from Kuchh? He informed me. I actually thought he was pretty cute at first. But then a bunch of things started getting on my nerves. First, he was ordering the flight attendants around - no thank you's or please's. That was the big one. Next, he kept interrupting me when I was reading. Next, he kept nudging me when I had my eyes closed and was trying to sleep. Grr.

I then took a prepaid taxi to Dadar TT, which is where one catches busses/taxis to go to Pune. Don't take a Prepaid taxi - it's much, much more expensive than a regular taxi. I got into a CoolCab - a shared, airconditioned Mumbai-Pune taxi. I paid Rs. 420 for 1 1/3 seats (we shared a full cab among 3 people). That was very comfortable and I caught up on all the sleep that I missed on the plane. Because of a slight delay in my flight plus a bunch of traffic en route to Dadar, I ended up reaching Pune late and missed Apte Kaka's (family friend) party.

S came in on Friday morning and Baba and I went to pick her up from the airport. The rest of the weekend is actually a bit of a blur. I spent time with my sister's family and S and my brother's family (they got in on Friday night). I think I made it a point to eat to the point of feeling sick at every meal. Needless to say, I passed out after every meal.

On Sunday night we had a big party at a place called the Harvest Club in Pune. It's a great outdoor location. I walked in needing to go to the bathroom but since everyone wanted to meet S, I didn't get to go for about 30 minutes (until I found someone that S already knew and could leave her with them).

S and I left from Pune on Monday morning. We took an A/C bus to Mumbai for Rs 480 (for the both of us). It was very comfortable except for the extremely loud Hindi movie (Hum Tum) that I was forced to watch. We hung out at the Orchid hotel and had something to eat (curd rice). I met up with an old high school friend there - it was good to catch up on old school gossip. After lunch it was time to fly back to Bangalore and end a wonderful Diwali weekend.

I must say that getting out of bed and into work was tougher than usual this morning.

Transportation

In case there are any doubts about the severity of the traffic in Bangalore, let me dispell them. Traffic here sucks.

I got a ride home yesterday with a coworker (Jeyandran) and we spent at least 15 minutes out of a 40 minute ride waiting in traffic with the engine switched off. I did almost the same commute this morning in a three-wheeler and it took less than 10 minutes. It's about 4 km away.

I have been trying hard to figure out how to get around Bangalore. A two wheeler seems so tempting until I think about inhaling all the bus and truck fumes and risking getting run over. In a four wheeler you don't inhale fumes but you're stuck in traffic for twice as long. I thought of cycling but then I be in the same traffic as the two and four wheelers but would be severely underpowered. I tried walking from home in the direction of our new office (haven't moved yet) but I don't think that'll be feasible. There's no direct bus from home to work; I'll have to change buses.

Any suggestions?

Apartment

I found an apartment yesterday. It's through a family friend of ours so I don't have to worry about getting screwed over on the rent or anything. In addition, it's fully furnished so I pretty much just have to walk in with my bags.

It'll be a relief to move into a permenant place. I still haven't got my own transportation. I hate taking autos...I'm always wondering if I'm getting screwed or not. Paranoia.

Incidentally if you're in Bangalore, I highly recommend picking up a copy of the Eicher Map of the city. It's awesome and has really helped me get to know the place.

Now all we need is a craigslist and a citysearch for bangalore.

I went to an amazing place for dinner on Vittal Maliya (sp?) Road today. It's a small multi-cuisine place in what used to be a house. I forget the name of the place. I'll find out and post back here.

An interesting introduction to bangalore pubs

The other night (Friday), Vikas and I decided to go grab a quick drink before calling it a night so we ducked into a place called NASA on Church St. First off, the music was ultra loud and the place was tiny. Second, Vikas chose a table directly underneath a large speaker. Just after we ordered drinks, we realized that there was something missing... women. We looked around to see an entire room of guys. Pretty pathetic scene for a Friday night. After yelling loudly over the blaring music and gulping down drinks we decided to call it a night.

Found out later in the weekend that NASA is rumoured to be a gay pickup joint. Welcome to Bangalore.

Titles are hard...

It's really hard to put a title on a post. It feels like most of my entries for the next few months will just be titled "Impressions".

I'm currently looking for apartments in Bangalore. The range is huge. I hear from some people about 2br houses at Rs. 6K per month ($120) but then there's also places at 30K ($650). The places that have nice natural light, modern bathrooms, a good finish, and pleasant view... they tend to be 3 br places that are upwards of 1800 sq. ft. That's much too large for me (I spent the last 2-3 years in 700-900 sq.ft. apartments).

If I could find smaller places with a nice finish... that'd be awesome.

So people keep complaining about the traffic. I thought that was the purely nonindian perspective speaking, but the traffic really is pretty horrendous. I often out-walk auto-rickshaws on the way home.

I experimented with the bus system over the past few days. It's actually not as bad as I thought. For the most part, people are pretty friendly on the bus. The only annoying part is when the bus gets ridiculously crowded and you have to squeeze your way through the mass of people.

I've noticed that restaurants in India don't seem to believe in giving one menu per person. In general you get one or two menus per table. I'm not sure if there's some sort of shortage or cost savings going on, or if people just don't see the need of having their own menu.

Long time

Unfortunately it's been a while since I last blogged. Sorry for the suspense - I don't have great internet access at the hotel and I'm really busy during most of the day at work.

So I'm in Bangalore. I have a local cellphone number - email me if you need to get a hold of it.

This last weekend was a long weekend for dasra. 4 of us from work drove to Goa for the weekend and spent two long and blissful days on the beach eating prawn curry and rice, rava fish fry, masala fish, tiger prawns; drinking kingfisher, planters punches, and old monk rum; and browning our already-brown skin. It was wonderful.

I'm back at work. For some reason I'm at work and before I know it, it's 8pm.

Vikas and I found a huge climbing wall this morning and did a few climbs. There were people practicing for the national rock climbing championships in Delhi so there were some hardcore climbers there. Kids as young as 7 upto adults. It was awesome - I have to make sure I stay close to there.

This morning I took the bus to work. It's about 4 times cheaper than taking an auto-rickshaw. And the annoying auto-drivers refuse to go half the places I want to go anyways. And they try to cheat you. If I can get used to taking buses, that'll be the way to go.

We did a tour of the city yesterday to look at apts, and we're going to have another tour today. I think the people showing us stuff are mostly showing us fancyshmancy-expat housing with swimming pools, gyms, the works. I'm tempted to get a much more modest place but then sign up for a nice club where I can go work out, play golf, and socialize. We'll see.

OK. Must get back to work.

It's all over now, baby blue.

As Mr Dylan wrote, it's all over now baby blue.


And so it was for my baby blue.

I picked up this blue honda civic in the winder of 1998, just before I went off to North Carolina to do a co-op. I don't remember who it was that coined the name, but someone decided to call it it 'baby blue' because of its color. The name stuck.

The car has been on some amazing road trips, too numerous to mention. It's transported sofas, kayaks, riverrafts, bicycles, desks, dressers, and probably a host of other items that I'm forgetting.

I promised all of my friends that I wouldn't get rid of it until it died on me. It almost died on me once a few years ago. It was just a few months after 9/11 and I was picking up my roommate Suman from the airport. On the way to the airport I saw the 'Check Engine' light go on, so I resolved to go get it checked out the next day. As I pulled into the passenger pickup area, I felt the car sputter and stall. I immediately shifted to neutral, flung open my door, jumped outside (while the car was still coasting), and pushed/steered it towards the curb so as to not hold up any traffic. I looked up to see 2 marines with their guns raised, cocked, and pointed at me. Needless to say, I flipped out. No permemant damage. They got a tow truck to take me out to the nearest gas station, after which I had to arrange for my own towing. I eventually go the car fixed (I had somehow blown the head gasket) weeks before driving it cross-country from Pittsburgh to Seattle.

It hasn't given me trouble since then, but it just didn't make sense to keep it here for 2 years while I'm off in India.

Anyways, here's pictures from the sale:


Jim picked her up for his son Eric 

Jim's a nice guy. He works as an HR person at the Seattle courts. We did the exchange and then I took a picture of him. Then I got him to take one of me.



I'm smiling on the outside, but crying on the inside. 

Finally, he dropped me off at the Avis to pick up my rental. I took a quick snap as he pulled away with my first car.


bye bye baby blue 

Packing

Packing is taking a really long time.

I stayed up all last night going through my stuff. I guess it doesn't really have to take that long. However, I have boxes that have made the past 3-4 moves without being opened and that's just wrong.

I figure if I haven't used what's in those boxes till now, I probably won't ever use it. But it's really hard to get rid of stuff just like that.

saying goodbye...

I've started saying goodbye to Seattle. I'm super sad. On Friday, a bunch of my friends came to hang out at the W hotel downtown. It's got a bar that's niether loud nor smokey so it was a great place to chat with everyone.

Some of my buddies chipped in and got me an ipod which kicks butt. Except that now I feel like I'm in complete yuppiedom. But it really is awesome. I downloaded all of my indian classical music on it this weekend using Apple's lossless encoding. So I'm already 10 Gigs into the 40 Gig storage.

I made kheer this weekend for all the people who had called me over to say bye. My indian classical music group threw me an awesome get together. Jyoti organized a potluck which Shamneez hosted. There was dahi vada, shev-batata-dahi-puri, samosa, alu vadi, and of course kheer.

They gave me an amazing gift which was all Jyoti's idea. It's called The Raga Guide. I promptly downloaded all of the sound samples onto my ipod. :)

squatting.

I'm afraid that this blog will be exclusively on the potty-topic. That's really not my intent I promise. Nor does it consume the majority of my thinking power.

But my evil fiancee (the same one that inspired the previous post) sent me another great link to a product meant to help sitters become squatters.

So you can blame the theme on my fiancee and not me. :)

wash or wipe; squat or sit.

My fiancee sent me an article which talks about washing vs. wiping.

What a wonderful topic. One that's very dear to me.

I just got back from Alaska a few weeks ago. And questions of washing vs. wiping were high on my mind for the past few months.

Denali National Park is pristine. Traveling in the back-country is an amazing experience. The park is divided into areas and you need to get a permit to sleep in a given area. There are only a few permits per area per night, so the chances of you running into someone else are pretty slim. There is a lot of wildlife (bears, caribou, dall sheep, wolves) so any food or fragrant items (toothpaste, deodorant) you carry has to be in a bear proof container.

How does any of this relate to the topic of this post? Consider the problem of taking a dump. You start by digging a hole 8-12" deep. Then you squat over the aforementioned hole and populate it. The next logical step is to wipe, bury the mess, and be on your way, right?

Well.. the problem is that your excrement falls under 'fragrant items'. So if some of the wildlife comes sniffing and digging, they're going to find not only your mess, but your toilet paper too.

And Denali National Park would no longer be pristine would it?

So what do you do? You wipe, and then you put your wiping materials into a ziploc bag. And then you put that ziploc bag into another ziploc bag. And then you put that ziploc bag into your bear proof container. Along with your toothpaste. And your food.

ugh. The thought of carrying my used toilet paper (albeit double bagged) in the same container as my food is scary. I don't see how people even consider this a viable option.

So I spent the month before the Alaska trip practicing washing. How does washing work?

Well, you start with an emptied out yoghurt tub filled about half way with water. You hold it in your right hand. Then you bend forward on the commode. Then you extend your left arm behind you. At this point, both your arms are behind you and you're leaning forward.

You tentatively start pouring the water and aim it just right so it pours down your butt crack but doesn't wet you too much. At that point you curl your left hand around the water stream and start scrubbing out the debris while water pours down onto your fingers.

It's actually not as disgusting as you think. The first sensation is weird (when you start the process) but then as you pour water to clean off your fingers, it all feels nice and clean; much cleaner that wiping.

The next problem is combining the washing with the squatting. If you're not used to squatting, you already have the daunting task of maintaining your balance (so as not to fall back into your own mess). So there's already some mental tension. Now, you somehow have to maintain your balance while keeping both hands behind you and coordinating the pouring and scrubbing.

To add to the pain, it's cold so you're probably going to be wearing several layers. Half of these layers are bunched up around your tummy and threatening to slide down to the hazmat zone, while the other half are bunched up around your legs, inhibiting your ability to squat. There is the fear of the water run-off splattering smack down into your trousers. I'm not sure if you're disgusted yet. These thoughts kept me awake at night but since anything seemed better than the alternative (paper + food locked into the same bearproof container), I persevered.

I was worried enough that I actually approached a work buddy of mine (more legitimately from the motherland than me) to ask for exact directions. He got a kick out of it. Being a fellow engineer, he immediately proceeded to draw diagrams on the whiteboard to address my concerns.

Armed with a shovel, yoghurt container, extra water, and some hand sanitizer, I proceeded courageously into the wild. This is me at the end of my first try.


the first time 


And no. That water was not from the run-off. It was from me nearly losing my balance while reaching for the mug and spilling half of the precious water on my pants. Nevertheless I had to return to camp with wet pants. The second and third days I was much more successful.

I'm back from Alaska reunited in spirit with the Motherland. And you'll find an empty yoghurt container sitting on the floor of my bathroom if you should need to use it.