The Dog Jumps – הכלב קופץ

CTS is organized well. In addition to the teams technical abilities, they meet me each day, assigned me a driver to make sure I got to where I needed to go, brought me food, and generally took good care of me.

The only downside, and this applies to everywhere I have been so far, is that people are so service focused that I feel like I cannot do anything for myself. Someone brings me coffee. Someone brings me Coke. I seemingly offended someone yesterday because I refused to let him carry my bags to my hotel room. I have a had a couple NY moments where I thought, can I please just be left alone?!?!

This is, however, juxtaposed to just how pushy people can be at time. In the airport yesterday I had a man walk up on my shoes several times in a row in the security line. After the third time I had words with him which drew the attention of a man with a riffle who scolded him and elicited an apology. Then this morning when the elevator doors opened people rushed in like a rush hour subway. I had to push my way out. They seemed to not notice or not mind. I guess the idea here is that I can push back and they wont mind because that is normal.

The hotel is nice with a good outdoor patio where I have had breakfast each morning in the sun. The weather is warm but not too hot. At night it get slightly cool.

Traffic and driving amaze me. With trucks larger than anything we have in the US mixed with three wheeled cabs, motorbikes, cars, and even a couple ox carts people blend in and out of lanes while honking to let each other know they are there. It is so tight and weaving that you could hold conversations with people next to you and perhaps even touch them. On top of all this there are people who jump out and cross the street at seemingly random intervals.

Then there are the cows and dogs. I dont know what the dogs are doing, but they are all over, napping in the sun, eating trash, etc… The cows are funny, I see them let out in the morning by their owners or handlers. Then they wander around all day and at the end of the day they seem to wander back home. I have seen whole groups of them single file walking along the sides of roads, stopped at traffic lights, and crossing when told. I have a new fond respect for the cow.

I have not been many places outside of the hotel, CTS, airports, and working facilities. I am looking forward to wandering around a bit more.

There are 1.1 billion Indians so it is dangerous to make generalizations. However, one thing I have noticed and it is actually kind of endearing and cute is the suite of communication that happend via varios head nods. It is truly fascinating and I wonder if anyone has even, either in humor or seriously, made a catalog of these gesture. My short observation is that a quick right/left/right/left is kind of an affirmation with a thank you. I also noticed that when having a conversation it gives you an idea that the person is listening to you because sometimes it stops when she or he are talking back. I also have no idea if this is a Southern thing or how else it might break down. But in the 30 or so people I have spoken to almsot all of them move their head in one way or another. I have no idea how I never noticed this before.

The power goes of for about 15 seconds 3-5 times a day. This seems to be unnoticed by all but me. Electronics and systems must be UPSed or built to withstand the fluctuations.

I stared to think more macroscopically about Indian and Indians. These people all speak English, work hard, seemingly complain about nothing, and so on. Take this along with the non-adversarial stance of india as a nation when compared to China and what do you have India doing? All the guts of almost every bank, software company, telcom, etc… while China is sewing garments because we cannot trust them with our IP. India’s “our nation with prosper by being friendly” vs. China’s “screw you” seems to be working here. I am not sure about the rest of the country, but in Bangalore it is working. Finally on this topic, I realize that I am being exposed to only a certain segment of society. However if that is 2% of the population it is still 22 million people. Yeah, they are going to eat our lunch, but a conversation on that topic is more about how much America is screwed than how amazing India is.

The local language is called Kanada. It looks like Telgu and Tamil and I obviously wouldn’t be able to tell one from the other. All signs, I am told, have to be in Kanada and then whatever other language is needed. In most places that ins English. Amongst the people I have interacted with, who come form various linguistic backgrounds, use English as the common language, not Hindi. I asked if this was for my sake and they said not.

One last observation for now is that everything is under construction or not quite finished. It is a lot like South America. THe under construction part seems to be from India’s expansion and rapid modernization. They simply cannot build fast enough to keep up. The not quite finished part probably comes from a historical poverty, where things were done “good enough”, and no building standards, no zoning, no planning, etc… this is very common in developing nations (again like South America) and mirrors how places like Boston and London became such messes in the old parts of the city.

Overall, so far so good!