Lesson Number One All Over Again

Lesson Number One: I don't know anything.

Recently I was at some cultural performance and a woman who is a chennai socialite said something to me that rang true.

"Whatever you know about India, the opposite is also true."

As far as I can tell, she's right. But then again, I don't know anything. Not only do I not know anything, no one else really knows anything either. People who have lived here their whole lives tell me that they can never understand India, but only accept what the regional rules are where they live. I read a lot about India before I got here. I know these things:

There are many official languages, many states, many political parties, many different cuisines, many different climates, many different geographies, many religions etc. One would think that this answers the question of "the one and the many," but not in India. I'll appeal to a famous quote (I attribute this to Feynman, but could be another famous physicist) "Some things you never understand, you just get used to them."

India is a land of dichotomy. Here, in south india you can see some of the world's most exquisite natural beauty alongside some of the most wretched filth. There is fabulous wealth and destitute poverty. There are many crowded cities. Densely populated cities beyond imagination and just outside are deserts, plains, open spaces without a human soul for hundreds of miles. India contains some research institutes housing some of the world's greatest minds and a literacy rate of less than 50%. Food is never mild. It must always have a lot of flavor, but the flavor can go from cloying sweetness to overpowering heat to mind-numbing savory curried rice.

I can speak like this for longer than I have left in India, but I now know only one thing about India: (aside from the previous statement) I know nothing about India, but then again, no one else does either.

Why India will rule the world

First of all, India won't really rule the world, China will. China has more money, a lot more, several thousand times India worth more. That aside, here is the first bit of my treatise on why India will rule the world.

The western world for a long time has had a hold on western things such as science. Modern Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Engineering, Computer Technologies, etc are all western things. North America and Western Europe (and russia) have had a stronghold on these things for a long time, several hundred year to be precise. That is all changing and quickly. With their respective populations India and China are graduating 100x the scientists the united states is each year. That adds up to a formidable job force. We've seen it for some time in the United States that computer jobs are outsourced to India because minimum wage here, is truly minimal. My salary (at a research institute) is approximately $1/hr. I get other benefits of course, but you can bet your ass I'd like to be making $6/hr right about now!

Well, a natural question arises: What the hell is India going to do with all its engineers and scientists? I present to you, the first answer I've seen:


Tata Computer Insitute


Tata Computer Institute


What you are witnessing above is construction on a computer engineers' institute funded by the corporate giant Tata (think yamaha plus sony plus honda plus boeing all roled into one). This institute is directly across the street from the beautiful Chennai Mathematical Institute which is another of Chennai's 4 large mathematics departments. CMI is 25 km south of the actual city of Chennai and this being India, there is a lot of space and urban sprawl. Tata is building this enormous, literally bigger than any football stadium I've ever seen gigantic institute for computer engineering alone. Once this construction is complete, 20,000 computer engineers will be hired here. I'm not even kidding! Along with that comes cleaning staff, cooks, food courts, all sorts of other facilities, a huge mental capital, hotels, parking spots, trains, you name it. It takes a lot of work to set up something this enormous. All told I have a hard time imagining this will create fewer than 100,000 jobs. This is one of several steps which is in place for Chennai to wrest away from Bangalore India distinction of "I.T. capitol."


More construction

Here is more construction less than 2 miles from the computer institute. Do you think they're building condos and apartments for all these engineers? That would be my guess!

India, might not rule the world, but they are becoming a huge economic player and fast. The cost at which India can provide world class engineering projects is going to beat out anyone else. No other country can fathom building such an enormous project as cheaply as India can do it. Stateside engineers and scientists hold on to your hats. You're in for some serious competition!

A "peaceful" night's sleep

I don't have a clock. I don't have a watch. I don't have a phone. I don't take my computer back with me every night, since I don't have internet. Most of the day (and night) I have no idea what time it is except for the clock on my computer. In some ways I like it a little better that way as it helps me to forget that night life here is completely non-existent. While sleeping I use an insect repellent called "All Out." I think it basically releases trace amount of insecticides into the room and the mosquitoes among other things leave or die. I've been sleeping with my feet very near the source because they have been marred the worst since I got here. Last night, in the midst of my sleep, the electricity went out. I had no insecticide, no fan, no lights, no watch, and for the first time in India, no real sound. I happened to be awake at that time because I don't sleep well here. But last night in the middle of the night, there were no crows cawing, no dogs barking, no cats howling, no machines operating, not even a motorcycle to be heard. It was silent. That is, until you consider the intense ringing in my ears. My ears have been bombarded here as much as my nose and eyes, and I finally realized how much that had affected me. I tried to lie motionless for as long as possible so as to not hear anything. I could hear every harmonic in the audible range. I have been subjected to so much noise pollution in this country I can't begin to imagine the permanent damage done to my hearing in only one month. I thought I was asking people to repeat themselves all the time because they speak with such a heavy accent. Now I know it's all the damn car and truck horns and loud speakers incessantly wailing that have caused my hearing to suffer. Nonetheless I was allowed nearly 15 minutes (so it seemed) without much external sound. That was the first real peace I've had in one month.

America is like this BIG place

Sai Baba on the right


On one of my trips back from BOI I was waiting for a train to bring me back down to work. This was before I realized that immigration was official business of the institute and I could get a driver for that purpose, oh well. While sitting on the platform some kid sat down right next to me (the whole personal space thing not having any merit here) and starts attempting to talk to me. It's clear that he's not well educated. His english is worse than my Tamil. I'm not kidding, it was easier for me to talk to him in Tamil than in English. So he asks the question everyone is fond of asking:
Native?

Which means, "of which nation are you a citizen?" or "where did you grow up?" Something along these lines. I of course say USA. This was sort of before I got the whole Lebanon thing down. So the next question he asks me is:
Christian?

Now I don't want to go on a diatribe to this kid about the history of christianity and how I'm a member of the American branch of the Church of England and all my theological underpinnings so I go with the answer we both understand "amma." Which simply means "yes" but is used the same way we use "yeah."

He gets really excited and asks if I know Benny Hinn. (For those of you unaware of Benny Hinn and his fraudulent ministry See here: Benny Hinn Wiki entry.) I only know about him because I pay a lot of attention to televangelists. I fervently believe that televangelists are all fraudulent and harbor great disdain for them. My apologies to those of you who are offended by these accusations.

Anyway, this kid says "Benny Hinn, number 1 ministry in USA." How very American of him to think in these terms. I tried in my woefully limited Tamil to explain to him that Benny Hinn is "ille nulla" (no good) and that his ministry is all about money. That was an complete failure. He just thought that I didn't know what I was saying. But some thoughts really hit me about this sort of religious fervor.

In one sense I should not disparage those who truly gain something from believing in frauds. I should allow them to have their peace however they should get it.
In another sense it completely burns me up inside that people are becoming fabulously wealthy off of this sort of ill-informed devotion. I think they should be exposed for the frauds and cheats that they are.

India (even with Benny Hinn having his embarrassing influence here) certainly has plenty of their own religious personalities. Hinduism is an ancient and strange religion that I don't even pretend to understand; not even one iota of understanding.
There is a man I'd mentioned before they call him Sai Baba (see here Sai Baba Wiki entry). He is the man I'd mentioned before who looks to me like an Indian Richard Simmons. I asked several dozens of Indians about him so far. Some people wish to be polite and tell me "oh yes, Sai Baba has many followers." The rest of them are outright with it and say "he is nothing, but a fraud." I really don't know anything about him, so nothing neither confirm nor deny his fraudulent status. I always get suspicious though when religious folks start telling their followers they can't read certain publications or look on the internet because in those publications there are bad things written about said leader. Sai Baba has asked this of his followers. To my mind, that's a red flag. Now, one doesn't want to offend, but come on...

Sai Baba of course isn't the only religious celebrity in India, there are hundreds, just like America, but my intuition tells me this phenomenon of complete religious devotion to television stars somehow started with the televangelist movement in the states. I could be wrong. It would certainly be wrong to state that religious fanaticism started in the states, because we all know stories from long ago about religious wars and prophets and martyrs and sages, etc, but I think THIS PARTICULAR BRAND of religious fanaticism stems from the United States. Yet another crappy thing we've contributed to the world. Because you know, like America is like this BIG place.

The Importance of Being Earnest

"And there wasn't even a single 'know what I mean verne?' in the whole thing. Bogus." If you can tell me where that quote comes from, then
a) I'm totally impressed
b) I'm a little frightened
c) The rest of this post is for you

The last week was full of performances all over the city. It was in part hosted by our ultra-swank hotel "the Park" and had modern dance and other sorts of things. I am mildly averse to the Park Hotel because they boast having the best bar in the city, "the Leather Bar" and also boast some of the cities "best" restaurants. Basically they are tooting their own horn. I'm not impressed with them. Plain and simple, they wouldn't cut it in Chicago or New York. That's probably another gripe for another day. For all my misgivings with the Park, at least they do have the gumption to put on a nice festival.

I got to see the final three performances. The first was the aforementioned "From Madison to Madurai." The final two were dance performances, with the final night also having a musical selection preceding the dancing.

OPEN ADMISSION: I am an uncultured swine when it comes to dance. I know nothing, and I don't really appreciate it. If I do appreciate it, it's because it appeals to my untrained eye and those who understand it would probably ridicule me as being "childish" with the tastes. Now that THAT is over I'll continue with what I really meant to say.

The dancing didn't do it for me. The first night was traditional indian dance "turned on it's head." I can't tell if the dancers were good or not. I appreciated how difficult what they were doing was, but the dance itself made no sense to me. I thought a couple of the dancers were always late with their motions too, but then again I don't know anything. The second night was "avant-garde german dance" I knew with a description like that I'd hate it. It actually was mildly entertaining, despite the fact that it made NO F-ing SENSE! I was sort of done with the whole ordeal when one of the "dancers" who had done very little dancing up to that point starting vomiting on the microphone while "singing" moon river. I thought that was slightly over the line of decent taste. Nonetheless, I really did get something important out of the festival.

I realized the importance an attending cultural activities around Chennai. I will soon truly abandon my hope of nightlife and good times past 10:30 PM, but to supplement that Chennai has loads of performances. Again, I don't understand Karnatic music, but it sort of has a home here in Chennai. Films, plays, and dancing are also prevalent here. These are the things that Chennai's socialites attend. Without these things, the social structure of Chennai would be nothing. So indeed it is important to attend them at least from a social perspective. Truth be told, music is something I've always loved seeing live, I just haven't gone so much recently in the states because ticketmaster has caused prices to be eight-bajillion dollars for popular acts and 4 bajillion dollars for acts that I really want to see. Underground music is ok, but you have to know where to find it.

Chennai has LOTS of musical performances, and I might just get something out of them. If nothing else it is pleasant to veg out and listen for a while. Since the sense of urgency in America doesn't prevail here (outside of traffic and queues) most concerts have "nice" seating and one can just veg and listen.

All in all, the importance is being cultural in a new culture. I don't get it, and most of the time I won't like it, but it's better than being bored and close-minded.

Getting Run Over for the Second Time

I'd gotten an insider's tip that the Sheraton on TTK road (actually the corner of TTK and Chamiers road) has a night club and happy hour on Wednesday. Last night, being Wednesday, I decided to go check it out. It's the same story everywhere in Chennai apparently. Nightclubs charge double for a 12 oz kingfisher as regular bars charge for a 650 ml. That being said I decided I'd go in anyway and see what the buzz was about. Perhaps it's a weekend type place. I did happen to see a few westerners in there. They were all men (shock and awe). There were in fact women dancing though. There were three of them (surrounded by 5 more men). The music was way too loud to do anything other than eat the bar snacks, drink beer, and watch the crcket highlites of the day, so that's what I did. I suppose this place will be more lively on the weekends at 10PM.

Luckily, said Sheraton is walking distance (a longish walk) from my apartment. So I took the train toward the apartment and walked instead toward the hotel. In the meantime I'd heard there is a nice Thai restaurant (nothing beats eating curry, like eating more curry!) just up the road. I walked up to it and must have seemed very awkward because I was dining alone. Oh well. The food was tasty and overpriced by Indian standards. I paid about half of what I would have for an identical meal in the states. But I was happy to eat non-Indian fare for a night.

On the way, however, I got run over for the second time, this time by a small car. I can't say run over properly, but I was walking and this guy tried to get ahead of me and hit my arm with his car. This merits some mention:

An Indian friend of mine tries to explain some of the Indian mentality to me by saying, "might is right." I've seen a similar style of driving in the middle east before. Whomever has the loudest horn has the right of way. Yikes! What I notice over and over and over again is that I'll be walking along and there is CLEARLY much more room to go behind me than in front of me. Generally speaking I walk pretty close to the sidewalk (sidewalks here are not made for walking, that's another post). When I cross the street at a T-crossing or whatever I go directly from one side to the other. I'm not comfortable dilly-dallying in the street. The traffic is too crazy. More often than not, and I mean something like 9 to 1 if a motorcycle of car is coming out of the side street they will drive IN FRONT of me crossing the street to get into the road. Are you kidding? Give me one second and I won't even be in the road at all. It makes matters harder to comprehend when about half the time the motorcycles are driving into the road on the wrong side for traffic flow. I don't understand what the rush is. I never have, I never will (Insh'allah). A few Americans have mentioned that I might be able to afford a car here. While it is true, that my financial savings would not take much of a hit at all buying a car here, my nerves would. I'd be in a wreck every damn day. I'm already the only person I know who has been in any sort of an accident (completely amazing to me, since I tend to be rather careful).

Last night's run over was even more peculiar in that I was standing on the street corner at a busy intersection waiting for a time to go. I wasn't even moving and this car came by and hit my right arm. DOUBLE U, T, and F? It happened a bit too quickly for me to react as well. The traffic was so busy I couldn't fathom someone just turning left into it, but apparently that is the way things are done here. I saw in that same minute about 3 near miss accidents, but I was the only one who got hit. Go figure!

Pissing in the Street

I'll apologize first that I have no pictures of said activity. I'm not really brave enough to whip out the camera and take a photo of a guy urinating.

I also need to concede firstly that the United States is not free from street urination. In fact, what man, who regularly attends bars late in the evening, hasn't been walking home from the pub or bar and had to pull over for a moment of reprieve? I'd venture to say many men have done so. The difference in the two approaches is this:
In America we still try to hide the act even when no one else is around. Toilet duties have in our minds become a very private issue. In India this is generally true, but one cannot walk around for a day without seeing a dozen men relieving their bladders in public.

An Indian friend of mine seems to be embarrassed by this truth. However, I don't see why he should feel this embarrassment. The way sewage seems to work in this part of India is that waste gets dumped directly into a river or a canal or the bay of bengal. The idea of urinating directly into a canal shouldn't be such a big issue given the sewage management. I don't see the problem.

Again, a disclaimer: I am too American to pee in the street as openly as it is accepted here. At the same time I don't really see a problem with it socially, I can't bring myself to do it. Even when I was on the bus back from Pondicherry there were several unannounced stops in which men jumped off, peed in the bushes and jumped back on the bus. Sanitary, no. Useful, absolutely!

I don't think there's too terribly much more to say about it. It's just another phenomenon that is totally usual and commonplace here, but would be considered quite out of place back home.