Friday, November 26, 2010
Vacation
I'll be gone for the next week, so I won't write again until December 4th or 5th. I'm going to Dharamsala, the Tibetan capital in exile. It should be a way cool trip, but I'll save the details for afterwards. In the mean time, I bet Roger Ebert's written something cool lately. You could check him out instead.
Breaking the Law
I’ve always been something of a fanboy of police, tending to take the side of the boys in blue over, say, Don’t Tase Me, Bro. But living in India has made me appreciate American police even more.
My first encounter with police was last weekend, when we went to a 24-hour truck stop outside of town late at night. Everything closes early here, and some people got hungry, so we made a run. The guy driving had made a point not to drink anything, even a sip, lest he get stopped and get breathalizered. He explained that even though 0.00 isn’t the legal limit, anything above that can get you hassled by the cops, and that can get problematic late at night. Sure enough, there was a road block on the way, with a breathalizer for everyone passing by. I got stopped at a road block once at the U of I. They asked me a couple of questions and sent me on my way. There were no questions here. The cop simply stuck out the breahtalizer, Ajit blew into it, and then we left. I suppose that’s simpler than the Q&A in the US, but it seemed intrusive. But that wasn’t it for the night. We were stopped at a second roadblock, this one much more in the middle of nowhere, and this time with no breathalizer. Ostensibly, this was because they were expecting a security threat, but I’m pretty sure this was just to extract bribes. To be honest, I’m not positive anyone there was actually a cop–you could set up a road block with a couple of barriers and something that looks like a uniform. They were suspicious of why we were going to this truck stop so late at night, but they had no reason to hold us, so even if they were just a bunch of yahoos, they had nothing on us. We encountered neither road block on the return trip.
My next one came when Sanju’s car got booted for illegal parking. For starters, the spot she was in was in no way blocking a road–between the curb and protruding driveways, there’s no way anyone could have driven along the path she’d parked in. Second, there were tons of cars parked there, and no clear signage. And their response is... boot everyone? No tickets, just mass-botting? Third, this is freaking India. Come on, people. THIS is what your tax dollars go to? Not, say, cleaning the streets? Or making it so the power doesn’t turn off daily? Anyway, we arrived back at the car to see a sign that said that we’d been "clamped," and which gave a number (this was in Kanada and English). This was a problem because Sanju and I were in the cell phone district to get new phones, as she’d dropped hers in the Arabian Sea and mine had inexplicably stopped turning on. But we were able to get them there to un-clamp us, but only after paying the whopping RS.200 fine (about $4.50). Again, the Indian police confuse me.
Tulsi, Sanju’s roommate, also had a good story of one of her encounters with a cop. She was pulled over for talking on her phone while driving. She truthfully told the cop that it was her mom, and he seemed sympathetic, and they both used this as a segue to bribery, rather than ticketry. Tulsi realized, though, that all she had on her was an Rs.10 note (20 cents-ish), and an Rs.500 note ($12, but quite a bit of money here). She offered the Rs.10 note, and the guy balked. "10 rupees? Really?" She then asked if he had change, which only annoyed him more. In her final act of desperation, she offered her small stash of chocolates that she keeps on hand for beggar children. A huge smile appeared on the cop’s face, and he laughed and took the bribe. If only one of us worked in advertising, we’d have a whole campaign lined up for Cadbury.
My first encounter with police was last weekend, when we went to a 24-hour truck stop outside of town late at night. Everything closes early here, and some people got hungry, so we made a run. The guy driving had made a point not to drink anything, even a sip, lest he get stopped and get breathalizered. He explained that even though 0.00 isn’t the legal limit, anything above that can get you hassled by the cops, and that can get problematic late at night. Sure enough, there was a road block on the way, with a breathalizer for everyone passing by. I got stopped at a road block once at the U of I. They asked me a couple of questions and sent me on my way. There were no questions here. The cop simply stuck out the breahtalizer, Ajit blew into it, and then we left. I suppose that’s simpler than the Q&A in the US, but it seemed intrusive. But that wasn’t it for the night. We were stopped at a second roadblock, this one much more in the middle of nowhere, and this time with no breathalizer. Ostensibly, this was because they were expecting a security threat, but I’m pretty sure this was just to extract bribes. To be honest, I’m not positive anyone there was actually a cop–you could set up a road block with a couple of barriers and something that looks like a uniform. They were suspicious of why we were going to this truck stop so late at night, but they had no reason to hold us, so even if they were just a bunch of yahoos, they had nothing on us. We encountered neither road block on the return trip.
My next one came when Sanju’s car got booted for illegal parking. For starters, the spot she was in was in no way blocking a road–between the curb and protruding driveways, there’s no way anyone could have driven along the path she’d parked in. Second, there were tons of cars parked there, and no clear signage. And their response is... boot everyone? No tickets, just mass-botting? Third, this is freaking India. Come on, people. THIS is what your tax dollars go to? Not, say, cleaning the streets? Or making it so the power doesn’t turn off daily? Anyway, we arrived back at the car to see a sign that said that we’d been "clamped," and which gave a number (this was in Kanada and English). This was a problem because Sanju and I were in the cell phone district to get new phones, as she’d dropped hers in the Arabian Sea and mine had inexplicably stopped turning on. But we were able to get them there to un-clamp us, but only after paying the whopping RS.200 fine (about $4.50). Again, the Indian police confuse me.
Tulsi, Sanju’s roommate, also had a good story of one of her encounters with a cop. She was pulled over for talking on her phone while driving. She truthfully told the cop that it was her mom, and he seemed sympathetic, and they both used this as a segue to bribery, rather than ticketry. Tulsi realized, though, that all she had on her was an Rs.10 note (20 cents-ish), and an Rs.500 note ($12, but quite a bit of money here). She offered the Rs.10 note, and the guy balked. "10 rupees? Really?" She then asked if he had change, which only annoyed him more. In her final act of desperation, she offered her small stash of chocolates that she keeps on hand for beggar children. A huge smile appeared on the cop’s face, and he laughed and took the bribe. If only one of us worked in advertising, we’d have a whole campaign lined up for Cadbury.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
On India, Pakistan, and Obama
President Obama’s recent visit to India seemed to be received pretty well here. Based on my limited contact with opinionated Indians, they don’t seem to like the guy much, largely because he’s been much more diplomatic about Islam and Pakistan than Bush was. But while here, he did a lot to mend his past statements, and to return to a recent string of good will that the US and India have enjoyed.
India and Pakistan have a long history of war, one which I wasn’t too aware of when I got here. I knew they REALLY cared about their annual cricket matches (most of which end in ties somehow... I’m still fuzzy on cricket), but I wasn’t particularly aware of just how unfriendly these two countries are with each other. If the US hated a country this much, we would NOT be playing regular sporting events with them.
The very brief history begins with the British Partition of India, which resulted in the border disputes we see today. Several northern “princely states”, including Kashmir, were given the option to join Pakistan or India, and their choices are disputed. Kashmir was eventually split in two by a U.N. mediator, leaving both sides unhappy. So you start off with a war in 1947 over the initial partition and another in 1965 over Pakistan’s invasion of Jammu and Kashmir (the Indian-controlled half of Kashmir). They fought again in 1971 over the independence of Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan, and now an ally of India), and then again in the Kargil war in 1999, again over Kashmir. India and Pakistan now fight over the <"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siachen_Conflict">Siachen Glacier, a useless plot of land that is the highest battlefield in the world.
More recently, we had the 2008 Mumbai Attacks, or “26/11,” as it’s referred to here. “26/11" references November 26th in the rest of the world’s day-month-year date ordering. It also invokes 9-11, and is considered India’s 9-11. I won’t recap that whole affair, but it was several days of terror in Mumbai, with hostage situations unfolding at lavish hotels and other locales. 175 people were murdered. This was tied to a Pakistani terrorist group, but Indians believe it was so well-organized that the Pakistani government must have been involved. This isn’t too far-fetched, given Pakistan’s history of infiltration into India. I’m skeptical, since all this took was guns, boats, and a landing timed to coincide with the India-Pakistan cricket match that everyone would be watching.
Anyway, we have a long history of being flaky allies of the Indians. They’re obviously our best allies in the area, but India has other allies, too. Iran and Pakistan aren’t the greatest of neighbors with each other, and as a result, India and Iran are fairly close. In 1971, when we attempted to diffuse conflict between Pakistan and India, the Soviets lent their support to India (Nixon supported Pakistan, an ally of China and a bastion against Soviet expansion). The Russians and Indians later co-designed a supersonic cruise missile, the fastest in the world, called the Brahmos, a combination of “Brahmaputra” and “Moscow.” It’s the fastest missile in the world, but it’s a medium range thing, so don’t worry about it hitting the US. The French helped India in its conflicts with China over Arunachal Pradesh, and as a result are also good allies of the Indians. Manmohan Singh was the chief guest at France’s National Day celebrations in 2009 (Bastille Day). And obviously they’re still close with the British.
The US has, in recent times, become more stalwart of an ally. Like I mentioned, Bush was willing to speak out against Islam, and this played well in India. Based on my experiences, Indians detest being equated with Pakistan. They consider themselves (rightly, I would think) far more advanced a society than they are, and would consider this on par with equating the U.S. and Mexico. When we have refused to take sides in their conflicts, we have implicitly equated the two as equal powers. Obama is something of a return to that, though. A small handful of Americans may believe he’s a Muslim, but a whole lot of Indians believe that. Obama has also displayed very harsh rhetoric over outsourcing, an industry which has made our two countries great economic allies. Side note: this is anything but an abusive industry–outsourced work is good work here, as opposed to in China. The newspapers were definitely afraid that he would rebound from the election with a lot of populist commentary here (one newspaper also characterized the election with “Prez whitewashed by voters”).
But while the newspapers were skeptical heading in, they seemed mostly won over by the time he left. He saved his Islam-stroking for later, in Indonesia, and refrained from harsh anti-outsourcing rhetoric while here. Importantly, Obama advocated making India a permanent member of the UN Security Council, something the Indians have wanted for a long time, and something which was not lost in the op-ed pages here.
India and Pakistan have a long history of war, one which I wasn’t too aware of when I got here. I knew they REALLY cared about their annual cricket matches (most of which end in ties somehow... I’m still fuzzy on cricket), but I wasn’t particularly aware of just how unfriendly these two countries are with each other. If the US hated a country this much, we would NOT be playing regular sporting events with them.
The very brief history begins with the British Partition of India, which resulted in the border disputes we see today. Several northern “princely states”, including Kashmir, were given the option to join Pakistan or India, and their choices are disputed. Kashmir was eventually split in two by a U.N. mediator, leaving both sides unhappy. So you start off with a war in 1947 over the initial partition and another in 1965 over Pakistan’s invasion of Jammu and Kashmir (the Indian-controlled half of Kashmir). They fought again in 1971 over the independence of Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan, and now an ally of India), and then again in the Kargil war in 1999, again over Kashmir. India and Pakistan now fight over the <"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siachen_Conflict">Siachen Glacier, a useless plot of land that is the highest battlefield in the world.
More recently, we had the 2008 Mumbai Attacks, or “26/11,” as it’s referred to here. “26/11" references November 26th in the rest of the world’s day-month-year date ordering. It also invokes 9-11, and is considered India’s 9-11. I won’t recap that whole affair, but it was several days of terror in Mumbai, with hostage situations unfolding at lavish hotels and other locales. 175 people were murdered. This was tied to a Pakistani terrorist group, but Indians believe it was so well-organized that the Pakistani government must have been involved. This isn’t too far-fetched, given Pakistan’s history of infiltration into India. I’m skeptical, since all this took was guns, boats, and a landing timed to coincide with the India-Pakistan cricket match that everyone would be watching.
Anyway, we have a long history of being flaky allies of the Indians. They’re obviously our best allies in the area, but India has other allies, too. Iran and Pakistan aren’t the greatest of neighbors with each other, and as a result, India and Iran are fairly close. In 1971, when we attempted to diffuse conflict between Pakistan and India, the Soviets lent their support to India (Nixon supported Pakistan, an ally of China and a bastion against Soviet expansion). The Russians and Indians later co-designed a supersonic cruise missile, the fastest in the world, called the Brahmos, a combination of “Brahmaputra” and “Moscow.” It’s the fastest missile in the world, but it’s a medium range thing, so don’t worry about it hitting the US. The French helped India in its conflicts with China over Arunachal Pradesh, and as a result are also good allies of the Indians. Manmohan Singh was the chief guest at France’s National Day celebrations in 2009 (Bastille Day). And obviously they’re still close with the British.
The US has, in recent times, become more stalwart of an ally. Like I mentioned, Bush was willing to speak out against Islam, and this played well in India. Based on my experiences, Indians detest being equated with Pakistan. They consider themselves (rightly, I would think) far more advanced a society than they are, and would consider this on par with equating the U.S. and Mexico. When we have refused to take sides in their conflicts, we have implicitly equated the two as equal powers. Obama is something of a return to that, though. A small handful of Americans may believe he’s a Muslim, but a whole lot of Indians believe that. Obama has also displayed very harsh rhetoric over outsourcing, an industry which has made our two countries great economic allies. Side note: this is anything but an abusive industry–outsourced work is good work here, as opposed to in China. The newspapers were definitely afraid that he would rebound from the election with a lot of populist commentary here (one newspaper also characterized the election with “Prez whitewashed by voters”).
But while the newspapers were skeptical heading in, they seemed mostly won over by the time he left. He saved his Islam-stroking for later, in Indonesia, and refrained from harsh anti-outsourcing rhetoric while here. Importantly, Obama advocated making India a permanent member of the UN Security Council, something the Indians have wanted for a long time, and something which was not lost in the op-ed pages here.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
More on Shopping
After my last post about shopping, I thought of a few more interesting things about shopping here. At least if you stretch the definition of interesting. Here goes:
Milk doesn’t come in gallon jugs. I’m pretty sure we’re the only civilization on Earth that consumes enough milk to make that feasible. Maybe the Canadians do. But nobody else. In India, the milk comes in 500ml pouches for about 30 cents each. You cut off the corner and fold the pouch over itself to reseal it. This actually works well. The web site says it comes in 1L cartons, but I haven’t seen any of those. If they do exist, they aren’t the norm. At stores, huge heaps of 500ml packets are the norm.
The shopping carts here handle like a dream. For starters, they’re all well-calibrated. I haven’t yet encountered a sticky or too-short wheel. Carts also tend to be smaller, which works with the smaller aisles. Again, compare to the huge aisles of large American stores where real estate is cheap. The carts at the Jewel and Dominick’s in downtown Chicago were small, too. The biggest change, though, is that the carts are four-wheel-drive. That is, the back wheels aren’t locked, which enables strafing. I never quite understood why the US does that, and this just reinforces that. You can maneuver around anything without turning the cart. Finally, the carts at SPAR are more of plastic stands for their shopping baskets. If you want a basket, you take one, and if you want it on wheels, you place it on one of the carts. If you want more space, you can put another basket on the bottom of the cart. This allows all parts to be stacked up really neatly, again saving on space.
Chocolate doesn’t melt in your mouth here. Regular chocolate would melt on the shelves at most stores here, and would certainly melt before it made it to your mouth. So Cadbury, the major chocolatier here, had to redesign its formula so chocolate could be sold, with the tradeoff of texture. They recently introduced Cadbury "Silk", in an attempt to achieve the best of both worlds, but it doesn’t really work. And it ain’t cheap.
Milk doesn’t come in gallon jugs. I’m pretty sure we’re the only civilization on Earth that consumes enough milk to make that feasible. Maybe the Canadians do. But nobody else. In India, the milk comes in 500ml pouches for about 30 cents each. You cut off the corner and fold the pouch over itself to reseal it. This actually works well. The web site says it comes in 1L cartons, but I haven’t seen any of those. If they do exist, they aren’t the norm. At stores, huge heaps of 500ml packets are the norm.
The shopping carts here handle like a dream. For starters, they’re all well-calibrated. I haven’t yet encountered a sticky or too-short wheel. Carts also tend to be smaller, which works with the smaller aisles. Again, compare to the huge aisles of large American stores where real estate is cheap. The carts at the Jewel and Dominick’s in downtown Chicago were small, too. The biggest change, though, is that the carts are four-wheel-drive. That is, the back wheels aren’t locked, which enables strafing. I never quite understood why the US does that, and this just reinforces that. You can maneuver around anything without turning the cart. Finally, the carts at SPAR are more of plastic stands for their shopping baskets. If you want a basket, you take one, and if you want it on wheels, you place it on one of the carts. If you want more space, you can put another basket on the bottom of the cart. This allows all parts to be stacked up really neatly, again saving on space.
Chocolate doesn’t melt in your mouth here. Regular chocolate would melt on the shelves at most stores here, and would certainly melt before it made it to your mouth. So Cadbury, the major chocolatier here, had to redesign its formula so chocolate could be sold, with the tradeoff of texture. They recently introduced Cadbury "Silk", in an attempt to achieve the best of both worlds, but it doesn’t really work. And it ain’t cheap.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Shopping
Shopping here can be a baffling ordeal. A lot of it depends on where you’re shopping, but each place has its quirks.
Most stores here are highly specialized–a corner mattress store here, a stand selling fresh potato chips there, five different places selling the same assortment of biscuits and Sprite all over the place, etc. Sony operates a couple of its own stores in town, and basically sells its stuff only at those stores. This is convenient in some ways, but can make it tough to find specific things. For example, I’ve had trouble findings a: a power strip, b: cheap plastic coat hangers, and c: an umbrella. This creates a demand, albeit a small one compared to the US, for larger one-stop-shops. I found the power strip at a place called Reliance Digital, run by a large Indian conglomerate called Reliance. They’re sort of a smaller version of Best Buy, and while there were almost certainly cheaper places for a power strip, hell if anyone knew where those were. For the cheap plastic coat hangers, I found something of a textiles bazaar that advertises, among other things “Export Rejected Door Mats, Rs.100/kg.” If only we bought door mats by the pound in the US. I still haven’t found the umbrella, but I haven’t had a huge need for one, either. The rain tends to be light and misty. I also need a capacitor, but let's not go there.
Check out can also be a pain. Most stores only have a few registers, and tend to have all of them open. Compare this to the dozen registers at Meijer that haven’t opened since Y2K. Like the 600 unused parking spots, they’re there because real estate is cheap. The problem with cheap labor, though, is that you get what you pay for, and the cashiers tend to be pretty slow. Invariably, with you or someone ahead of you, the cashier will either need a managerial override, a price check on something unmarked, or will run out of change. The latter happens ALL THE TIME. At Garcia’s, we’d start each day with hundreds in singles and would still occasionally run out. I don’t think these places have the foresight.
By far the biggest difference, though, is the ubiquity of assistance in the aisles. The stores run out of cash registers on which to stack people (space is expensive), but can stuff employees in the aisles cheaply. And they want to help. Twice at SPAR I’ve had people come up to me to encourage me to buy a larger size container of something “that’s on special.” One tried to get me to buy a huge bag of Tide, and the other was, I’m not kidding, trying to put me in a 5L jug of olive oil that was like $50. When I went shopping for sheets, I checked out a small sheet store, and from the moment I walked in there was a guy shadowing me. I took a step, he took a step with me, ready to answer any questions. This got awkward in a hurry. I never said a word to the guy, but I did find that the stuff there was pretty expensive, smiled at him, and walked out.
Perhaps I’m just crazy. Why should extra help be a bad thing? Perhaps I only find it awkward because I’m used to shopping in places where there is no help, and am therefore accustomed to finding my own way around a store. Indians seem to appreciate the guided shopping, even if it chased me out of the bedding store. Once I went with Sanju to a small place that sold books on child advocacy. Someone would show her a book, she’d thumb through it, and she’d either say “good,” or “no, we don’t want this” and hand it back. It was all very blunt. Not “this isn’t what we’re looking for,” or “no thanks,” but just “no, we don’t want this.” I found the whole display impolite, but again, I think that’s the American in me. Indians are used to having personal help in stores. They expect it. When I see it, I see an employee basically going out of his/her way to help, and I respond appreciatively. When I get back to the States, if any of you see me being a total douche to a store clerk, slap me. And if you ever see a Desi doing that, just imagine how pissed off they were that they had to do their own laundry today.
Most stores here are highly specialized–a corner mattress store here, a stand selling fresh potato chips there, five different places selling the same assortment of biscuits and Sprite all over the place, etc. Sony operates a couple of its own stores in town, and basically sells its stuff only at those stores. This is convenient in some ways, but can make it tough to find specific things. For example, I’ve had trouble findings a: a power strip, b: cheap plastic coat hangers, and c: an umbrella. This creates a demand, albeit a small one compared to the US, for larger one-stop-shops. I found the power strip at a place called Reliance Digital, run by a large Indian conglomerate called Reliance. They’re sort of a smaller version of Best Buy, and while there were almost certainly cheaper places for a power strip, hell if anyone knew where those were. For the cheap plastic coat hangers, I found something of a textiles bazaar that advertises, among other things “Export Rejected Door Mats, Rs.100/kg.” If only we bought door mats by the pound in the US. I still haven’t found the umbrella, but I haven’t had a huge need for one, either. The rain tends to be light and misty. I also need a capacitor, but let's not go there.
Check out can also be a pain. Most stores only have a few registers, and tend to have all of them open. Compare this to the dozen registers at Meijer that haven’t opened since Y2K. Like the 600 unused parking spots, they’re there because real estate is cheap. The problem with cheap labor, though, is that you get what you pay for, and the cashiers tend to be pretty slow. Invariably, with you or someone ahead of you, the cashier will either need a managerial override, a price check on something unmarked, or will run out of change. The latter happens ALL THE TIME. At Garcia’s, we’d start each day with hundreds in singles and would still occasionally run out. I don’t think these places have the foresight.
By far the biggest difference, though, is the ubiquity of assistance in the aisles. The stores run out of cash registers on which to stack people (space is expensive), but can stuff employees in the aisles cheaply. And they want to help. Twice at SPAR I’ve had people come up to me to encourage me to buy a larger size container of something “that’s on special.” One tried to get me to buy a huge bag of Tide, and the other was, I’m not kidding, trying to put me in a 5L jug of olive oil that was like $50. When I went shopping for sheets, I checked out a small sheet store, and from the moment I walked in there was a guy shadowing me. I took a step, he took a step with me, ready to answer any questions. This got awkward in a hurry. I never said a word to the guy, but I did find that the stuff there was pretty expensive, smiled at him, and walked out.
Perhaps I’m just crazy. Why should extra help be a bad thing? Perhaps I only find it awkward because I’m used to shopping in places where there is no help, and am therefore accustomed to finding my own way around a store. Indians seem to appreciate the guided shopping, even if it chased me out of the bedding store. Once I went with Sanju to a small place that sold books on child advocacy. Someone would show her a book, she’d thumb through it, and she’d either say “good,” or “no, we don’t want this” and hand it back. It was all very blunt. Not “this isn’t what we’re looking for,” or “no thanks,” but just “no, we don’t want this.” I found the whole display impolite, but again, I think that’s the American in me. Indians are used to having personal help in stores. They expect it. When I see it, I see an employee basically going out of his/her way to help, and I respond appreciatively. When I get back to the States, if any of you see me being a total douche to a store clerk, slap me. And if you ever see a Desi doing that, just imagine how pissed off they were that they had to do their own laundry today.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Ranganathittu
On Sunday Tulsi, Sanju’s cousin Ajit, and I went to a bird sanctuary near Mysore called Ranganathittu (rahn-ga-na-TEET-oo). Mostly, the photography is the story here, but I suppose this deserves a narrative.
We got something of a late start on the 3 hour drive, but this worked to our advantage. We arrived at about 3:30 to find that until 2:30 that day, the water had been too high to do the boat ride, basically the only thing to do at the sanctuary.
When we arrived, we went through a big gate and bought our tickets for entry and the boat ride. Because I was a foreigner, our “special” boat ride was Rs.500 instead of Rs.250, for the three of us. The “special” boat ride meant that, instead of being on a full boat, we’d have our own rower, and it would be just us on the boat. Our guide, Swami, rowed us around and pointed out the various birds. There were birds there that had migrated from Europe. There was some sort of heron, but it was too fast for my photographic skills. He answered our questions about the pretty sedated crocodiles, too. Crocodiles eat until they’re full, then they stop. When they’re full, they could be right next to a bunch of lame birds and they wouldn’t care. So these guys were just hanging in the sun.
Swami started rowing us around the standard half-hour “special” path, and when we asked if he could take us further, he said it’d be another Rs.500. We were fine with that, especially since the excess went to Swami, and we wound up getting about an hour out of the boat ride. We had dosas at their small restaurant before heading back to Bangalore.
Yeah, this is definitely the sort of trip that’s better told through photos. There wasn’t much history or learning at Ranganathittu. Just nature.
We got something of a late start on the 3 hour drive, but this worked to our advantage. We arrived at about 3:30 to find that until 2:30 that day, the water had been too high to do the boat ride, basically the only thing to do at the sanctuary.
When we arrived, we went through a big gate and bought our tickets for entry and the boat ride. Because I was a foreigner, our “special” boat ride was Rs.500 instead of Rs.250, for the three of us. The “special” boat ride meant that, instead of being on a full boat, we’d have our own rower, and it would be just us on the boat. Our guide, Swami, rowed us around and pointed out the various birds. There were birds there that had migrated from Europe. There was some sort of heron, but it was too fast for my photographic skills. He answered our questions about the pretty sedated crocodiles, too. Crocodiles eat until they’re full, then they stop. When they’re full, they could be right next to a bunch of lame birds and they wouldn’t care. So these guys were just hanging in the sun.
Swami started rowing us around the standard half-hour “special” path, and when we asked if he could take us further, he said it’d be another Rs.500. We were fine with that, especially since the excess went to Swami, and we wound up getting about an hour out of the boat ride. We had dosas at their small restaurant before heading back to Bangalore.
Yeah, this is definitely the sort of trip that’s better told through photos. There wasn’t much history or learning at Ranganathittu. Just nature.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Blog Notes
I uploaded a bunch of photos to flickr. The quality isn't great, because I'm limited to 100mb/month, and I'm trying to get maximum photos at decent quality. They should be fine for screen-viewing, but in case any family members out there are looking for refrigerator material, I'll gladly honor any requests for full-size photos. Or if you're just interested in high-res shots of those crocs.
The photos are from Ranganathittu, a bird sanctuary near Mysore. We went there on Sunday. I'll write about it soon.
I've got another "hidden" post in the pipeline. I realize those aren't too frequent, so the e-mail distribution thing is sort of a hassle for the benefit gained. But if anybody out there wants more to read, drop me a line. You know my email, but if not, use the "Contact" button above. I know word of this blog is starting to spread, so I don't care how distant a Facebook friend you are, or how tertiarily you know my parents. Just drop me a line.
The Cubs failed, the US World Cup team failed, the Bears will soon fail, the Blackhawks are sluggish, and Illini football disappointed. You're all instructed to root for Illini basketball. I-L-L...
The photos are from Ranganathittu, a bird sanctuary near Mysore. We went there on Sunday. I'll write about it soon.
I've got another "hidden" post in the pipeline. I realize those aren't too frequent, so the e-mail distribution thing is sort of a hassle for the benefit gained. But if anybody out there wants more to read, drop me a line. You know my email, but if not, use the "Contact" button above. I know word of this blog is starting to spread, so I don't care how distant a Facebook friend you are, or how tertiarily you know my parents. Just drop me a line.
The Cubs failed, the US World Cup team failed, the Bears will soon fail, the Blackhawks are sluggish, and Illini football disappointed. You're all instructed to root for Illini basketball. I-L-L...
Nutrition
If you’ve seen me in the past two years, you probably know that I’ve become a lot more health-conscious as of late. I lost a lot of weight, and have been working hard to keep it off. I haven’t joined a gym here yet, although I will soon, but I have had some encounters with the other side of healthy living: nutrition. Something Indians seem to know nothing about.
Sanju and her roommate, Tulsi, are both on the petite side of things, so they don’t eat much to begin with. They also seem to care less about what they eat than I did when I ate nothing but cheese pizza and got a kidney stone. Tulsi, for example, was pretty surprised when I started looking at a nutrition label and said she’d never really looked at one. Sanju, however, recently tried to convince me that Ghee, or clarified butter, is healthy. Ghee is butter that’s been distilled down to just the fat, removing the milk proteins and some of the unsaturated fat, the point where you’re eating something that’s 1/3 unsaturated fat, 2/3 saturated fat. Sanju claimed that this is the “good” fat. Some web sites agree with her, but they also recommend things like Ear Candling. Ghee winds up in a lot of food, and in large doses. You know how Chinese food is supposed to leave you hungry two hours later? Indian food leaves you full all day, because it’s loaded with saturated fat.
A lot of this is cultural. Sanju touts the skin benefits of ghee, as well as its ability to prevent ulcers. In a society where not a lot of fat is consumed, these are both very real benefits. Add to that the love of chilis here, and the ulcer prevention is quite real. But when you have plenty of access to fat, ghee is a terrible choice. Avocados, nuts, fish oil, and other Polyunsaturated fats will line your stomach without lining your arteries. When your goal is getting bang-for-your-buck, and when meat fat is scarce and lactose intolerant prevalent, ghee works well.
Anyone who saw Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution knows how backwards America’s nutritional standards can be. Not only is the potato classified as a vegetable, but it’s basically THE vegetable in school lunches, despite being almost purely empty calories (yes, my Irish friends, I know the skin has value, but nobody eats the skin). School standards mandate that children be allowed to drink chocolate milk that has as much sugar as pop, to make sure they get enough calcium. India is largely still at the stage where those goals are important-–how do we provide as many calories as cheaply as possible to these hungry kids? While the US has moved on to dealing with health in an affluent society, India is still in an era when ghee and white rice make a lot of sense. So I don’t fault India or Sanju or Tulsi for their love of ghee. Now, when they make fun of me for drinking skim milk, that’s another matter.
Sanju and her roommate, Tulsi, are both on the petite side of things, so they don’t eat much to begin with. They also seem to care less about what they eat than I did when I ate nothing but cheese pizza and got a kidney stone. Tulsi, for example, was pretty surprised when I started looking at a nutrition label and said she’d never really looked at one. Sanju, however, recently tried to convince me that Ghee, or clarified butter, is healthy. Ghee is butter that’s been distilled down to just the fat, removing the milk proteins and some of the unsaturated fat, the point where you’re eating something that’s 1/3 unsaturated fat, 2/3 saturated fat. Sanju claimed that this is the “good” fat. Some web sites agree with her, but they also recommend things like Ear Candling. Ghee winds up in a lot of food, and in large doses. You know how Chinese food is supposed to leave you hungry two hours later? Indian food leaves you full all day, because it’s loaded with saturated fat.
A lot of this is cultural. Sanju touts the skin benefits of ghee, as well as its ability to prevent ulcers. In a society where not a lot of fat is consumed, these are both very real benefits. Add to that the love of chilis here, and the ulcer prevention is quite real. But when you have plenty of access to fat, ghee is a terrible choice. Avocados, nuts, fish oil, and other Polyunsaturated fats will line your stomach without lining your arteries. When your goal is getting bang-for-your-buck, and when meat fat is scarce and lactose intolerant prevalent, ghee works well.
Anyone who saw Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution knows how backwards America’s nutritional standards can be. Not only is the potato classified as a vegetable, but it’s basically THE vegetable in school lunches, despite being almost purely empty calories (yes, my Irish friends, I know the skin has value, but nobody eats the skin). School standards mandate that children be allowed to drink chocolate milk that has as much sugar as pop, to make sure they get enough calcium. India is largely still at the stage where those goals are important-–how do we provide as many calories as cheaply as possible to these hungry kids? While the US has moved on to dealing with health in an affluent society, India is still in an era when ghee and white rice make a lot of sense. So I don’t fault India or Sanju or Tulsi for their love of ghee. Now, when they make fun of me for drinking skim milk, that’s another matter.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Facebook > Chase
I was sitting on this post for a few weeks, trying to come up with something else to say in it. I'm just publishing it as-is.
When I logged onto Facebook for the first time here, Facebook was understandably suspicious of why Charlie Kinzer was suddenly logging in from India. Its security measure, though, was ingenious. Rather than having me verify through an email, or sending me an SMS message like most places would do, they had me identify photos of my friends. It’d display 3 photos of a particular friend, and would give me a random list of friends from which to choose, including the right one. It did this for 4-5 friends, and it managed to pick only good friends of mine, as opposed to people I’d met once and with whom I’d never interacted on Facebook. It was a great verification system. I handled it with ease, but no one else could have done it. Even a close friend of mine probably could not have, since no particular friend would be able to identify my friends from college, law school, and high school. Only I could do that.
This was also something I could do quickly and easily. Compare this to the credit and debit cards that just shut down the moment I tried to use them here. Chase required me to call them, and not on a 24-hour line, either. I was only able to get Google Voice running on a decent connection, which I didn't really have at home. Chase still won't let me use the card from an Indian IP--only when I log into the U of I's server, thus allowing me to surf from an American IP address, did Chase let me book my ticket to Delhi. Ironic, because they now supposedly know that I'm in India. Shouldn't they be declining anything purchased in America? Anyway, this round definitely goes to Facebook, and not Chase.
When I logged onto Facebook for the first time here, Facebook was understandably suspicious of why Charlie Kinzer was suddenly logging in from India. Its security measure, though, was ingenious. Rather than having me verify through an email, or sending me an SMS message like most places would do, they had me identify photos of my friends. It’d display 3 photos of a particular friend, and would give me a random list of friends from which to choose, including the right one. It did this for 4-5 friends, and it managed to pick only good friends of mine, as opposed to people I’d met once and with whom I’d never interacted on Facebook. It was a great verification system. I handled it with ease, but no one else could have done it. Even a close friend of mine probably could not have, since no particular friend would be able to identify my friends from college, law school, and high school. Only I could do that.
This was also something I could do quickly and easily. Compare this to the credit and debit cards that just shut down the moment I tried to use them here. Chase required me to call them, and not on a 24-hour line, either. I was only able to get Google Voice running on a decent connection, which I didn't really have at home. Chase still won't let me use the card from an Indian IP--only when I log into the U of I's server, thus allowing me to surf from an American IP address, did Chase let me book my ticket to Delhi. Ironic, because they now supposedly know that I'm in India. Shouldn't they be declining anything purchased in America? Anyway, this round definitely goes to Facebook, and not Chase.
“Apparently I’m supposed to marry a banana tree first.”
In the wide range of Indian castes and mysticism, some people are born “Mangliks.” Mangliks are cursed to something like 27 years of bad luck, which I think is divided into 20 years of bad luck and 7 years of really bad luck. The “matrimonials” section of the classifieds, which is a great read, has several listings that specified “non-Manglik.” There was also a guy who was 60, but “looks 50!” and several ads that were overtly seeking a family “alliance” via marriage.
Mangliks have particular bad luck on the marriage front: a Manglik’s first spouse is doomed to die an early death. But there is supposedly a loophole in this curse: you marry an animal or some other semi-animate object first. That way you’re only killing a dog, or whatever. Makes perfect sense, right?
Sanju and I had talked about Mangliks before, but I met a guy at a party last night who’s a Manglik. He said he’s supposed to marry a banana tree before finding a bride. Apparently that’s what Aishwarya Rai did to break her curse. I guess whatever fates are concerned with Manglik punishment are fooled by this. Or bound by Indian bureaucracy to kill the banana tree and break the curse, even if they’re aware it’s a bogus out.
Mangliks have particular bad luck on the marriage front: a Manglik’s first spouse is doomed to die an early death. But there is supposedly a loophole in this curse: you marry an animal or some other semi-animate object first. That way you’re only killing a dog, or whatever. Makes perfect sense, right?
Sanju and I had talked about Mangliks before, but I met a guy at a party last night who’s a Manglik. He said he’s supposed to marry a banana tree before finding a bride. Apparently that’s what Aishwarya Rai did to break her curse. I guess whatever fates are concerned with Manglik punishment are fooled by this. Or bound by Indian bureaucracy to kill the banana tree and break the curse, even if they’re aware it’s a bogus out.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Blackouts Reported. Check Power Map.
India has some severe infrastructure problems. The first is electricity. We’re in a pretty nice neighborhood in a decent apartment complex, and the power still goes in and out here at least once a day. It’s out right now, even though the weather’s great. This usually only lasts 20 minutes or so, and has only once lasted more than an hour. At some point I’ll try to figure out why this happens. It could be an issue with power plants. It could be circuit breakers in the building. It could be the family of opossums living in the switching station. Some impacts of this: laptops are really popular, since battery backups for desktops don’t last very long. Nobody bothers setting the clock on the microwave or TV, since they reset daily. Everyone has a stash of candles ready. Here, they’re already spread around the apartment, waiting to be lit. Stores seem to continue to function during power outages, although I haven’t gone shopping during one yet (reminiscent of the time when the power was out at the Watseka Subway, and of the three employees, the only one who knew how to take out a calculator and find the taxes by hand was the mentally challenged guy). I’m sure I’ll find more interesting impacts of unreliable power supplies as this sojourn wears on.
The layout in this city is also a total disaster. London puts it to shame. I’ve always said every major city needs to burn to the ground at least once (London did this too early), and this place is in dire need of a reset button. Just look at it:
There’s no order to the streets. The streets aren’t physically labeled, either, making navigation impossible without resorting to [[Indian GPS]], since you can’t tell what street you’re on, even at major intersections. The buildings are numbered, but since most streets are so short, the numbering doesn’t do much, and it certainly isn’t as useful of a numbering system as used in the US. Rather, the numbers begin at 1 at one end of the street and continue to the other end. Navigation winds up being accomplished by neighborhood and landmarks. When I want to go home, I ask for “Koramangala, Sony World.” Apparently this Sony store at a busy intersection qualifies as a landmark, as every rickshaw driver so far has known exactly where it is.
In addition to the gridlessness, there are no real arterial streets. There are some highwayish stretches, but a trip across town involves weaving around many small streets. There are ring roads, Outer Ring Road, Inner Ring Road, and one other, but none of those are true highways, Rather, they’re just routes patched together from existing streets. My guess is that eminent domain isn’t very powerful here, and that it’s impossible to condemn enough property to construct a highway from scratch. So you just draw out a route and designate it as the highway, then you work on making all stretches of that route as fast as possible. If you look at this map of Outer Ring Road, you’ll see how it weaves all over the place:
At least Karnataka isn’t in $15B of debt. Nor, as far as I know, does it owe over $1B to any university system. So at least it has that on Illinois.
The layout in this city is also a total disaster. London puts it to shame. I’ve always said every major city needs to burn to the ground at least once (London did this too early), and this place is in dire need of a reset button. Just look at it:
There’s no order to the streets. The streets aren’t physically labeled, either, making navigation impossible without resorting to [[Indian GPS]], since you can’t tell what street you’re on, even at major intersections. The buildings are numbered, but since most streets are so short, the numbering doesn’t do much, and it certainly isn’t as useful of a numbering system as used in the US. Rather, the numbers begin at 1 at one end of the street and continue to the other end. Navigation winds up being accomplished by neighborhood and landmarks. When I want to go home, I ask for “Koramangala, Sony World.” Apparently this Sony store at a busy intersection qualifies as a landmark, as every rickshaw driver so far has known exactly where it is.
In addition to the gridlessness, there are no real arterial streets. There are some highwayish stretches, but a trip across town involves weaving around many small streets. There are ring roads, Outer Ring Road, Inner Ring Road, and one other, but none of those are true highways, Rather, they’re just routes patched together from existing streets. My guess is that eminent domain isn’t very powerful here, and that it’s impossible to condemn enough property to construct a highway from scratch. So you just draw out a route and designate it as the highway, then you work on making all stretches of that route as fast as possible. If you look at this map of Outer Ring Road, you’ll see how it weaves all over the place:
At least Karnataka isn’t in $15B of debt. Nor, as far as I know, does it owe over $1B to any university system. So at least it has that on Illinois.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Two Photos
Every other letter of this neighborhood is an A. There's got to be a better way.
The helmet's a good idea, but in a wreck, I'd be more worried about that tank of gas at your feet.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Diwali
November 5 was Diwali. Some sort of festival about Krishna or Rama or one of those gods. I’m hazy on the details. All I know is this is the holiday when Indians light fireworks, and Diwali is more of a week-long thing than just one day.
Diwali is a Hindu holiday, which makes it more popular in the north than down here. There are still plenty of Hindus here, but it isn’t quite as concentrated–lots of Muslims and... miscellaneous. I’m also in a relatively calm neighborhood. Which made it all the more surprising to experience five hours of war noises throughout Koramangala. Seriously, this place sounded like the footage you got from reporters embedded in the Iraq War. Distant explosions, constant rat-tat-tat-tat-tats, and the occasional close BOOM! From what I could tell, nobody was really interested in the bright, shiny fireworks. This was really more about the loud stuff and blowing things up. This made me assume Diwali was a celebration of the time Lakshmi blew open a diamond mine.
Diwali is one of dozens of holidays in India. As you can see, there’s basically a holiday at least once a week, year-round: http://www.thisismyindia.com/nationalholidays.html. But that’s only part of the story, as there are tons more religious holidays, which are observed in some states but not others, and trying to figure out exactly when your business may be closed is quite a task: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_holidays_in_India. For example, Nov. 1 was Karnataka Day, the state’s celebration of itself. Some people observed this, but not all, so my first day in our office space was me alone. Compare this to Diwali, when the office was locked. The day after Diwali, though, is also some sort of Holiday, which was observed by Citibank, but only Karnataka Citibanks, which created some problems for Sanju. Neither of us can explain this, because this wasn’t Karnataka Day, this was a Hindu holiday, which supposedly wasn’t a big deal in this state. Are you confused yet? I sure am. I figure this is only about as confusing as trying to explain Casimir Pulaski Day to someone from outside Illinois, though, so I can’t totally fault the Indians as backwards on this one.
Anyway, the general system is that everyone takes off the three national holidays, while the rest of the holidays are sort of hit or miss. Spin the wheel and see if a particular business is closing for a particular holiday. Or just hope that that business dealt with it by having a diverse enough employee pool that they can absorb some off-days. Sorta like how we have Jewish doctors to work on Christmas. I think India probably does pretty well with that. Citibanks may have been closed today, but most stores were open even yesterday, with reduced hours. And of course Sanju’s Muslim maid came. We’ll see what she does when Eid al-Fitr rolls around
Diwali is a Hindu holiday, which makes it more popular in the north than down here. There are still plenty of Hindus here, but it isn’t quite as concentrated–lots of Muslims and... miscellaneous. I’m also in a relatively calm neighborhood. Which made it all the more surprising to experience five hours of war noises throughout Koramangala. Seriously, this place sounded like the footage you got from reporters embedded in the Iraq War. Distant explosions, constant rat-tat-tat-tat-tats, and the occasional close BOOM! From what I could tell, nobody was really interested in the bright, shiny fireworks. This was really more about the loud stuff and blowing things up. This made me assume Diwali was a celebration of the time Lakshmi blew open a diamond mine.
Diwali is one of dozens of holidays in India. As you can see, there’s basically a holiday at least once a week, year-round: http://www.thisismyindia.com/nationalholidays.html. But that’s only part of the story, as there are tons more religious holidays, which are observed in some states but not others, and trying to figure out exactly when your business may be closed is quite a task: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_holidays_in_India. For example, Nov. 1 was Karnataka Day, the state’s celebration of itself. Some people observed this, but not all, so my first day in our office space was me alone. Compare this to Diwali, when the office was locked. The day after Diwali, though, is also some sort of Holiday, which was observed by Citibank, but only Karnataka Citibanks, which created some problems for Sanju. Neither of us can explain this, because this wasn’t Karnataka Day, this was a Hindu holiday, which supposedly wasn’t a big deal in this state. Are you confused yet? I sure am. I figure this is only about as confusing as trying to explain Casimir Pulaski Day to someone from outside Illinois, though, so I can’t totally fault the Indians as backwards on this one.
Anyway, the general system is that everyone takes off the three national holidays, while the rest of the holidays are sort of hit or miss. Spin the wheel and see if a particular business is closing for a particular holiday. Or just hope that that business dealt with it by having a diverse enough employee pool that they can absorb some off-days. Sorta like how we have Jewish doctors to work on Christmas. I think India probably does pretty well with that. Citibanks may have been closed today, but most stores were open even yesterday, with reduced hours. And of course Sanju’s Muslim maid came. We’ll see what she does when Eid al-Fitr rolls around
Friday, November 5, 2010
Lost in Suburban Bangalore, Part 3: BR Pura
I went on my second slum tour the other day, to BR Pura. It’s actually some sort of much larger name, but it’s abbreviated and spoken as BR Pura. The Indians may have really long names, but they aren’t shy about abbreviations and initials. Some famous actors and politicians are simply known by two initials and a last name.
Anyway, this one was much closer than Channapatna, so Sanju just dropped me off at it. Again, I was on the back of a two-wheeler, this time with a 250-300lb woman up front in place of Mr. Kumar. Sanju said this would’ve made the perfect profile shot for Facebook, but sadly, I wasn’t thinking of that. We headed off and wound around some country roads before arriving at the first house.
These slums in BR Pura weren’t really even slums, though, which was sort of anticlimactic. Channapatna was definitely worse. Of the five houses I visited, at least 3 had TVs, and one seemed nice enough to live in, with a washing machine to boot. The houses this time were all well-molded concrete, rather than the lumpy, slanty clay of Channapatna. There was even a school. At about 1:00, the streets were full of kids in uniforms, and one of the meetings was right next to the playground during recess for, I’ll say, 3rd or 4th graders. Several women were late to the second meeting because they were stuck at their jobs. Whereas in Channapatna I had no idea what people did with their time, these women (not dressed all in black this time) had what seemed to be stable jobs.
So this wound up being more of a neighborhood tour than a slum show. But I actually really appreciated that aspect of this. I don’t know what any of these women were actually using the money for, but it could’ve been a lot of things. Most of us think of microfinance as lending to women to buy a sewing machine, but here a lot of it is just basic household loans. Some use the money to send their kids to school, and I was told of at least one person who’d bought a two-wheeler with Ujjivan providing the credit. Which is, really, exactly what we’d use loans for. Most Americans are repaying loans, be they student loans, car loans, or a mortgage. Access to credit is a necessity. Microfinance just brings that access to the destitute, as in Channapatna, and the lower class, as in BR Pura. It is somewhat jarring to think that even somewhat well-to-do, employed people can’t get credit, even in a country with a state bank. You could make a pretty good argument that the poor stay poor just because they can’t borrow at reasonable rates, and that access to banking services is one of the third world’s most critical needs. Think of all that we can do because of loans that we couldn’t otherwise do. Think of how many rungs we would drop on the social ladder if we had to pay cash up front for college, housing, and cars. That’s how many rungs we can raise people through loans.
The women at the last meeting apaprently really wanted to talk to me, but we had nothing close to a shared language. One was able to yell “sir! Hello!” at me, which worked. Couldn’t exchange many ideas that way. Honestly, I wanted to ask them why the hell they like the Chicago Bulls so much, since I’d seen more motorcycles in BR Pura with Bulls stickers on them. For a country that plays no basketball, they do like the Bulls. Maybe they’re just into surplus 90s memorabilia. My mom speculates that it's a Hindu thing, what with the cow worship and all. Could be right.
When we were done, we stopped at a small... convenience store food stall thing... to split a pack of biscuits and some juice. Don’t worry-–it was a juice box. The guy behind the counter started talking in Kanada, and I picked out Obama. He saw me and mentioned about Obama coming to visit India. A couple days later, I was with some friends here, and one was unaware of Obama’s coming visit. So he’s beaten on current events by... the biscuit/juice guy in BR Pura.
On the way back, I couldn’t find a rickshaw to take me all the way to Koramangala, our neighborhood which is on the opposite end of town. I was able to, however, get one to take to MG Road (super bonus points if you can figure out what MG stands for... don’t overthink it). MG Road is a sort of downtown, although this town has many. It’s near the Tibetan Marketplace where I bought my phone, and is a haven for beggars who have no qualms with leaning inside your rickshaw and touching you (I carry sanitizer, don’t worry). From MG Road I got another rickshaw back to Koramangala, all for about $3 US. That’s pretty much all the way across Bangalore. Meat and milk are expensive in this country, but sweet Jesus are the services cheap.
Note: To repeat, I’m not working in microfinance. Sanju used to work for Ujjivan and set up these tours for me. That’s my only connection to this industry.
Anyway, this one was much closer than Channapatna, so Sanju just dropped me off at it. Again, I was on the back of a two-wheeler, this time with a 250-300lb woman up front in place of Mr. Kumar. Sanju said this would’ve made the perfect profile shot for Facebook, but sadly, I wasn’t thinking of that. We headed off and wound around some country roads before arriving at the first house.
These slums in BR Pura weren’t really even slums, though, which was sort of anticlimactic. Channapatna was definitely worse. Of the five houses I visited, at least 3 had TVs, and one seemed nice enough to live in, with a washing machine to boot. The houses this time were all well-molded concrete, rather than the lumpy, slanty clay of Channapatna. There was even a school. At about 1:00, the streets were full of kids in uniforms, and one of the meetings was right next to the playground during recess for, I’ll say, 3rd or 4th graders. Several women were late to the second meeting because they were stuck at their jobs. Whereas in Channapatna I had no idea what people did with their time, these women (not dressed all in black this time) had what seemed to be stable jobs.
So this wound up being more of a neighborhood tour than a slum show. But I actually really appreciated that aspect of this. I don’t know what any of these women were actually using the money for, but it could’ve been a lot of things. Most of us think of microfinance as lending to women to buy a sewing machine, but here a lot of it is just basic household loans. Some use the money to send their kids to school, and I was told of at least one person who’d bought a two-wheeler with Ujjivan providing the credit. Which is, really, exactly what we’d use loans for. Most Americans are repaying loans, be they student loans, car loans, or a mortgage. Access to credit is a necessity. Microfinance just brings that access to the destitute, as in Channapatna, and the lower class, as in BR Pura. It is somewhat jarring to think that even somewhat well-to-do, employed people can’t get credit, even in a country with a state bank. You could make a pretty good argument that the poor stay poor just because they can’t borrow at reasonable rates, and that access to banking services is one of the third world’s most critical needs. Think of all that we can do because of loans that we couldn’t otherwise do. Think of how many rungs we would drop on the social ladder if we had to pay cash up front for college, housing, and cars. That’s how many rungs we can raise people through loans.
The women at the last meeting apaprently really wanted to talk to me, but we had nothing close to a shared language. One was able to yell “sir! Hello!” at me, which worked. Couldn’t exchange many ideas that way. Honestly, I wanted to ask them why the hell they like the Chicago Bulls so much, since I’d seen more motorcycles in BR Pura with Bulls stickers on them. For a country that plays no basketball, they do like the Bulls. Maybe they’re just into surplus 90s memorabilia. My mom speculates that it's a Hindu thing, what with the cow worship and all. Could be right.
When we were done, we stopped at a small... convenience store food stall thing... to split a pack of biscuits and some juice. Don’t worry-–it was a juice box. The guy behind the counter started talking in Kanada, and I picked out Obama. He saw me and mentioned about Obama coming to visit India. A couple days later, I was with some friends here, and one was unaware of Obama’s coming visit. So he’s beaten on current events by... the biscuit/juice guy in BR Pura.
On the way back, I couldn’t find a rickshaw to take me all the way to Koramangala, our neighborhood which is on the opposite end of town. I was able to, however, get one to take to MG Road (super bonus points if you can figure out what MG stands for... don’t overthink it). MG Road is a sort of downtown, although this town has many. It’s near the Tibetan Marketplace where I bought my phone, and is a haven for beggars who have no qualms with leaning inside your rickshaw and touching you (I carry sanitizer, don’t worry). From MG Road I got another rickshaw back to Koramangala, all for about $3 US. That’s pretty much all the way across Bangalore. Meat and milk are expensive in this country, but sweet Jesus are the services cheap.
Note: To repeat, I’m not working in microfinance. Sanju used to work for Ujjivan and set up these tours for me. That’s my only connection to this industry.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Indian Halloween
I went to a Halloween party last weekend, and I must say, the Indians pulled it together.
Sanju went as some sort of she-devil, replacing her standard fare of going as a Jedi. I wanted to go as Manmohan Singh, but our attempts at putting a turban together just made me look like a fortune teller, and I also lacked the appropriate Indian dress clothing. I wound up just putting on a wife beater and my shades, which vaguely made me look like I was wearing some sort of costume. Look weird enough and it counts, right? It wasn’t nearly as good as my liquidity crisis costume from 2008, but it was the best I could do out of suitcases.
A few of the hosts were dressed as Chilean miners. I thought this was great, but when I got back, I found my facebook feed flooded with comments about Chilean miner costumes. So maybe they were only as creative as many others. I’d like to think, though, that since our party was 10.5 hours ahead, that everybody in the US must’ve been copying these guys.
When we arrived, there was a man standing next to the elevator to open the door for us. Somewhat standard fare, except in this building, the guy also opens the door for you, without riding the elevator with you. Which means that as soon as he closes the door, he bolts up a few flights of stairs to meet you. Really bizarre things happen with labor gets too cheap.
Sanju went as some sort of she-devil, replacing her standard fare of going as a Jedi. I wanted to go as Manmohan Singh, but our attempts at putting a turban together just made me look like a fortune teller, and I also lacked the appropriate Indian dress clothing. I wound up just putting on a wife beater and my shades, which vaguely made me look like I was wearing some sort of costume. Look weird enough and it counts, right? It wasn’t nearly as good as my liquidity crisis costume from 2008, but it was the best I could do out of suitcases.
A few of the hosts were dressed as Chilean miners. I thought this was great, but when I got back, I found my facebook feed flooded with comments about Chilean miner costumes. So maybe they were only as creative as many others. I’d like to think, though, that since our party was 10.5 hours ahead, that everybody in the US must’ve been copying these guys.
When we arrived, there was a man standing next to the elevator to open the door for us. Somewhat standard fare, except in this building, the guy also opens the door for you, without riding the elevator with you. Which means that as soon as he closes the door, he bolts up a few flights of stairs to meet you. Really bizarre things happen with labor gets too cheap.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Two Addenda: Beggars and Eunuchs
First, about the recent beggars post: you don’t give the kids large containers of biscuits. If they’re too large, they’ll try to sell them back to a local shop, defeating the purpose of giving the biscuits instead of change. But this raises more questions. If they sell the biscuits, doesn’t that indicate that they do, in fact, want the change more than the biscuits? And don’t we want to give the kids what they want? You give the biscuits because you assume the kid enjoys the biscuits, but is just giving the change away. But if they want the change instead of the biscuits, that indicates that they do get some utility out of the change, suggesting that the useless change hypothesis is false. I’d need to know more about the structure of these begging outfits to really know how to approach this.
Second, about the eunuchs. My mom asked, simply, “why are there still eunuchs?” Good question. First, many eunuchs are just transgendered men, living their lives as women. In those cases, the term "eunuch" is a misnomer. In addition, though, there are true eunuchs among them. The eunuchs are organized. I don’t want to say it’s like the Teamsters, but they have their own community and they stick together. When intersexual children are born, they are frequently shipped off to the eunuch community to be operated on and raised. So eunuchs are still “made,” but out of intersexual children.
According to Sanju’s roommate, the eunuchs have negotiated for their own time slots at pools where time is split between male swim and female swim. The eunuchs also have a pretty good racket of showing up to marriages and birth ceremonies and demanding money in exchange for not cursing the marriage/child. People are so superstitious that this tends to work. Just pay the eunuchs and get them the hell out of there.
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijra_(South_Asia)
Second, about the eunuchs. My mom asked, simply, “why are there still eunuchs?” Good question. First, many eunuchs are just transgendered men, living their lives as women. In those cases, the term "eunuch" is a misnomer. In addition, though, there are true eunuchs among them. The eunuchs are organized. I don’t want to say it’s like the Teamsters, but they have their own community and they stick together. When intersexual children are born, they are frequently shipped off to the eunuch community to be operated on and raised. So eunuchs are still “made,” but out of intersexual children.
According to Sanju’s roommate, the eunuchs have negotiated for their own time slots at pools where time is split between male swim and female swim. The eunuchs also have a pretty good racket of showing up to marriages and birth ceremonies and demanding money in exchange for not cursing the marriage/child. People are so superstitious that this tends to work. Just pay the eunuchs and get them the hell out of there.
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijra_(South_Asia)
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