Friday, October 22, 2010
“We talk of growth.”
All of my posts about the orphanage, specifically, will have to remain private. We just want to make sure we don't wind up burning bridges if someone sees this stuff. So I'll have several posts that are just titles, and if you want to read them, just shoot me an email. I may come up with some sort of distribution list or something. We'll see.
Indian GPS
Sanju will no doubt read this at some point, so I’ll preface this by saying she’s a great driver, and any problems navigating are the result of an absurd city layout, not any fault of hers. But boy, getting around is a chore.
First, all of the streets wind around on each other. There’s no grid. So navigating in Bangalore isn’t just a matter of heading in one direction until you hit your road, then taking that to your destination. No. You get to the main street, hopefully take that to your desired neighborhood, then take several side streets until you get where you’re going.
There are also tons of one-way streets and others where you can’t turn both ways onto them. In Hyde Park, they did that to keep Blacks out of the neighborhood (no joke). In Bangalore, it seems to be done for no particular reason. You counteract this by being able to U-turn anywhere you want, though.
With this crazy layout, though, you’ve really got no chance of knowing how to get around unless you’re a professional, so Sanju has to ask for directions. A lot. At best, this consists of pulling up next to a parked rickshaw and asking in Hindi for directions. These guys tend to know what they’re doing, but explaining things isn’t simple, and usually consists of a “go straight, then right.” Which means bupkes on these roads. So when that fails, Sanju goes to plan B, which is driving another 50m and asking whatever dude she can find on the side of the road. Again, this is either in Hindi or way too simple, so I can’t be of much help. When that fails in another 50m, the plan devolves into matching the speed of a rickshaw and asking for directions in moving traffic. Or waiving out the window and honking until the car next to us stops, thus totally blocking traffic to all but 2-wheelers.
Tonight, Sanju seemed to stumble on a way to get better directions, though. When we pulled up to some guys on the street, asking how to get to a particular road, one said “what landmarks are there?” Sanju knew of a cricket player’s house that was right near where we were heading, and upon that tip, the guy gave us dead-on directions. Maybe the way to go is to just navigate by proximity to cricket landmarks.
First, all of the streets wind around on each other. There’s no grid. So navigating in Bangalore isn’t just a matter of heading in one direction until you hit your road, then taking that to your destination. No. You get to the main street, hopefully take that to your desired neighborhood, then take several side streets until you get where you’re going.
There are also tons of one-way streets and others where you can’t turn both ways onto them. In Hyde Park, they did that to keep Blacks out of the neighborhood (no joke). In Bangalore, it seems to be done for no particular reason. You counteract this by being able to U-turn anywhere you want, though.
With this crazy layout, though, you’ve really got no chance of knowing how to get around unless you’re a professional, so Sanju has to ask for directions. A lot. At best, this consists of pulling up next to a parked rickshaw and asking in Hindi for directions. These guys tend to know what they’re doing, but explaining things isn’t simple, and usually consists of a “go straight, then right.” Which means bupkes on these roads. So when that fails, Sanju goes to plan B, which is driving another 50m and asking whatever dude she can find on the side of the road. Again, this is either in Hindi or way too simple, so I can’t be of much help. When that fails in another 50m, the plan devolves into matching the speed of a rickshaw and asking for directions in moving traffic. Or waiving out the window and honking until the car next to us stops, thus totally blocking traffic to all but 2-wheelers.
Tonight, Sanju seemed to stumble on a way to get better directions, though. When we pulled up to some guys on the street, asking how to get to a particular road, one said “what landmarks are there?” Sanju knew of a cricket player’s house that was right near where we were heading, and upon that tip, the guy gave us dead-on directions. Maybe the way to go is to just navigate by proximity to cricket landmarks.
“You don’t need language to appreciate this wonderful robot musical”
My first night here, Sanju, her friend, and I went to see Endhiran, a new movie that they said was huge in South India. All I knew going into it was it dealt with robots, was the first sci fi movie from Kollywood, and was sweeping South India. Oh, and it was going to be in Tamil with no subtitles, which means not only would I not understand it, but Sanju and her friend wouldn’t either. Good times.
The whole thing was spectacular. I mean, awful awful movie, but I got the full experience, and today I successfully relayed the plot to Sanju’s roommate. It was so visual and over the top that it was understandable either way, and frankly, my guess is the dialogue sucked. Rajni Kanth plays a robotics professor who, despite being goofy, aged, and career-obsessed, is dating Aishwarya Rai. He builds a robot in his own image, thus doubling his screen time. When some evil Chinese rival professor thwarts Rajni’s success by noting the robot’s lack of morality, Rajni is able to teach the robot feelings. But that allows him to fall in love with Aishwarya Rai, whom he prevented from being gang-raped in the first act (pre-morality) by fending off a crowd of savages on a train. After Aishwarya spurns him, evil Chinese professor is able to get a hold of him and implants him with some sort of evil destruction chip, so he can be sold to German arms dealers (that German dialogue was the only stuff I understood, aside from the brief spurts of English). At this point, queue the musical number “2.0,” heavily influenced by Boom Boom Pow. Next, robot revolts, kills evil Chinese guy, abducts Aishwarya Rai, and makes tons of copies of himself. Queue extremely long musical number wherein Aishwarya tries to drain the robots’ batteries by seducing them, and also does a lot of rapping in English. “Watch me robo shake it, you know you want to break it.” This is the second point when Aishwarya Rai is almost gang-raped. Real Rajnit Kanth comes back, implants a virus in the robots, and reduces the robots to one, from which he removes the destruction chip. Queue the melodramatic ending where the robot dismantles himself upon orders, somewhat akin to the dismantling of Hal.
The next day, everyone we met reacted to this with “Oh! You saw Endhiran! How was it?!” Apparently this movie’s huge, largely because of Rajnit Kanth. He’s a famous actor who’s also gotten into politics, and is somewhat deified here because he’s so famous. When he first got on screen, and when he’d get solos in the musical numbers, the crowd of Tamils would hoot and whistle. Sorta like my experience seeing Wanted in Milwaukee, except with Rajnit Kanth instead of absurd bullet movements and with the Wisconsiners replaced by a bunch of Tamils. But the best way to describe Rajnit Kanth would have to be as the Indian Chuck Norris. When we saw the trust’s lawyers the next day, one told us “You know, Rajnit Kanth doesn’t breathe–air just hides in his lungs. When he does push-ups, he isn’t pushing himself up–he’s pushing the earth down.” My jaw kinda dropped. Now if we could only get Chuck Norris to do some huge musical epics. And get involved in politics beyond endorsing Mike Huckabee.
The whole thing was spectacular. I mean, awful awful movie, but I got the full experience, and today I successfully relayed the plot to Sanju’s roommate. It was so visual and over the top that it was understandable either way, and frankly, my guess is the dialogue sucked. Rajni Kanth plays a robotics professor who, despite being goofy, aged, and career-obsessed, is dating Aishwarya Rai. He builds a robot in his own image, thus doubling his screen time. When some evil Chinese rival professor thwarts Rajni’s success by noting the robot’s lack of morality, Rajni is able to teach the robot feelings. But that allows him to fall in love with Aishwarya Rai, whom he prevented from being gang-raped in the first act (pre-morality) by fending off a crowd of savages on a train. After Aishwarya spurns him, evil Chinese professor is able to get a hold of him and implants him with some sort of evil destruction chip, so he can be sold to German arms dealers (that German dialogue was the only stuff I understood, aside from the brief spurts of English). At this point, queue the musical number “2.0,” heavily influenced by Boom Boom Pow. Next, robot revolts, kills evil Chinese guy, abducts Aishwarya Rai, and makes tons of copies of himself. Queue extremely long musical number wherein Aishwarya tries to drain the robots’ batteries by seducing them, and also does a lot of rapping in English. “Watch me robo shake it, you know you want to break it.” This is the second point when Aishwarya Rai is almost gang-raped. Real Rajnit Kanth comes back, implants a virus in the robots, and reduces the robots to one, from which he removes the destruction chip. Queue the melodramatic ending where the robot dismantles himself upon orders, somewhat akin to the dismantling of Hal.
The next day, everyone we met reacted to this with “Oh! You saw Endhiran! How was it?!” Apparently this movie’s huge, largely because of Rajnit Kanth. He’s a famous actor who’s also gotten into politics, and is somewhat deified here because he’s so famous. When he first got on screen, and when he’d get solos in the musical numbers, the crowd of Tamils would hoot and whistle. Sorta like my experience seeing Wanted in Milwaukee, except with Rajnit Kanth instead of absurd bullet movements and with the Wisconsiners replaced by a bunch of Tamils. But the best way to describe Rajnit Kanth would have to be as the Indian Chuck Norris. When we saw the trust’s lawyers the next day, one told us “You know, Rajnit Kanth doesn’t breathe–air just hides in his lungs. When he does push-ups, he isn’t pushing himself up–he’s pushing the earth down.” My jaw kinda dropped. Now if we could only get Chuck Norris to do some huge musical epics. And get involved in politics beyond endorsing Mike Huckabee.
The Biggest Thing on the Subcontinent
Sanju’s been keeping 91.9 Indigo Radio on in the car, and it’s a dead copy of American top 40 radio. It’s fantastic. The music is the same mix of upbeat pop and 80s music that you get on any top 40 radio station, but it goes well beyond that. They have the same DJs who don’t play a lot of music, but instead just do a lot of annoying talking. Their morning guy is an American named “Kenny Jones.” There’s no way that’s his real name. No more so than “The Goose” who lasted about 4 months in 96.3 in Champaign. They have the same recorded voiceover as in American stations, saying things like “The biggest thing on the subcontinent... RADIO INDIGO” and “Commercials off, music ON” while a bunch of bleeps and bloops play in the background. They have people from local businesses calling in to talk about their promotions. Today that was someone from Sanju’s dad’s company talking about how they had people around the city giving out prizes to good drivers. Literally everything they did and said was straight out of American radio, to the point I suspect it’s owned by Clear Channel. But whatever. It’s one thing to give me a fix of Katy Perry, Nelly, and Ke$ha, but it’s quite another to put it in a totally American package.
“Do You Hate Your Own Ass?”
Still no Delhi Belly, but I’ve had my first take-out Indian food, and it was pretty spicy. We spent all day Friday bouncing between various offices, having tons of meetings and signing things, and wound up ordering lunch while at the office of the lawyers. Sanju spent some time figuring out what would be both clean and acceptable to a foreigner, and decided on this dish of steamed rice patties, a bunch of green chili goo, and what was basically a doughnut that, instead of being sweet, was just flavored Indian style. There was also soup. This was an idli plate.
After Sanju explained to me that you take a bit of rice patty, spread some chili goo on it, and dip it all in the soup, literally everyone in the break room stopped and fell silent to watch me take the first bite. Which was spicy, but well within tolerance, so I disappointed anyone hoping for steam to come out of my ears (my ears if we’re lucky...). My experience downing blazin’ wings at Buffalo Wild Wings seems to have paid off, as I eventually eat the whole thing, including all of the chili goo. I fared a lot better than the guy in Outsourced who ate “the pepper stuff.” By the end, Sanju said my face was getting pretty red. But cmon. When your skin starts out so white, of course you’ll notice any redness. All of the brown people around me have a natural camouflage. No fair.
After Sanju explained to me that you take a bit of rice patty, spread some chili goo on it, and dip it all in the soup, literally everyone in the break room stopped and fell silent to watch me take the first bite. Which was spicy, but well within tolerance, so I disappointed anyone hoping for steam to come out of my ears (my ears if we’re lucky...). My experience downing blazin’ wings at Buffalo Wild Wings seems to have paid off, as I eventually eat the whole thing, including all of the chili goo. I fared a lot better than the guy in Outsourced who ate “the pepper stuff.” By the end, Sanju said my face was getting pretty red. But cmon. When your skin starts out so white, of course you’ll notice any redness. All of the brown people around me have a natural camouflage. No fair.
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