Books - One Night @ the Call Center and Ancient Promises

Jaishree Misra's Ancient Promises tells the story of a Delhi girl who spends summers with grandparents in Kerala. Although she goes to an all girl parochial school, she manages to fall in love with a boy from the connected boys school. When he leaves for three years in England, she is sure she'll never see him again, and acquieces to a proposal from a 'good family' in Kerala that has been looking for a suitable wife for their son. The marriage doesn't go so well in this beautifully written story about families in India.






One Night @ the Call Center by Chetan Bhagat was on the India best seller list. It follows several characters one night (with flashbacks to other times) at a call center in Gaurgon, the tech suburb of New Delhi. It's a glimpse of those now infamous call centers from the other side. While there are comments about the American callers on the other side (they use a 30:10 ratio in the training class to remind the workers to be patient because a 30 year old American has the intelligence of a 10 year old Indian) much of it is about the relationships of the workers, working for a stupid, ambitious boss, and how the good salaries they make entices them to put up with all sorts of humiliations. (Note, this seems to answer a question I had in an earlier post about how much call center workers make. In the book they make 15,000 Rupees per month (about $336).

Bhagat's first book - Five Point Someone - follows three classmates at India's extremely hard to get into Indian Institute of Technology, where students' status is based on the grade level. If you are a Five point something, you are definitely lower caste. This book is less polished than Call Center, but it is an interesting glimpse at life in this exclusive university.

Awazdo

This is a follow up on the earlier post "Blow Horn" While driving back from Ellora Caves we saw AWAZDO on the back of a truck. I asked Surendra, the driver, what it meant. He said, "Awaz" - horn. "Do" - and with his hand gesturing palm up fingers curling toward him - 'give me.' So there it was in romanized Hindi.





And then there was this one - a combination of Hindi and English! (The 'de' is part of the 'do' from what I can tell)






And just as proof that the world works in mysterious ways, while looking for blogger help (I'm back on Safari browser on Mac and blogger doesn't have an automated link insert for Safari) to do the link, I peeked at their highlighted blog -
pimped-japanese-trucks.

Back Home

Here I am at the computer at home after nearly six weeks of traveling. It seems like nothing has changed, yet much has - for the better. It was low 30s when we got here, pretty much what it was when we left. The visit in Seattle got us a little closer to this weather, so it didn't really feel cold. I've got lots of India processing in my head and will try to post more pictures and thoughts. In the meantime, here's Kona, Joel and Carrie's new dog, with Monica (and Joel's feet), and solo.

Leaving Delhi. Arriving LA, Beach

(Whoops, thought I'd published this, only saved it as a draft. So it comes after I've posted that we are home.)

There were a few times in India when I thought I would be ready for that airplane home. But as time got closer, I really didn't want to leave. The return to Delhi after the trip to the caves was wonderful. Nishant and Nitin picked us up at the airport and we went back to the guest house we'd been to before. The staff was welcoming. Delhi was familiar, but seemed cleaner, less chaotic, and much easier to be in. (More a reflection on our changes, not Delhi's, is my guess.) It was cooler than when we first came (low's around 15C(@60F), highs around 30C(85F), and considerably cooler and drier than south India. Nishant and Nitin were fantastic, as they were the whole time.

We somehow managed to land in New Jersey just after the storm left. Despite the pilot's warning that things would get turbulent (they served breakfast early and didn't serve hot tea or coffee), there was no turbulence, and the the sky was clear and the day beautiful. Santa Monica beach was glorious.


Most of the flight to LA we looked down thru crystal clear air at the dramatic landscape of the US. LA was spectacularly clear and just slightly cooler than Delhi, and much drier. Flying in you could see forever - including Catalina Island. It was good to see my Mom, and we didn't know our son would be there too. We'll see him again Tuesday in Seattle.

Drving back to my Mom's house last night on the Ventura and San Diego Freeways (I know, modern Angelinos use the numbers, but in the old days we used the names of the freeways, and that's how I know them), I was struck by how quiet it was. All I could hear was the whoosing noise of tires on the pavement. There were no loud engine noises. Cars stayed in their lanes. No autorickshaws. And the whole 20 minute drive I never heard a single car horn!

Word has been it's been 20 below F (-29C) in Anchorage. We're hoping it's warmed up before we get home Wednesday.

Back in Delhi

Since I posted last, we haven't had access to the internet. But we toured Goa with

Savio and Ashwin (part of the package Nishant arranged),








met a bunch more interesting people, including Yakub, a South African businessman

who was buying maerial in Bombay, flew to Bombay, then got picked up by Surendra and driven to Pune (pronounced there 'puna') where we toured Philip Jose's (remember him, he was taking his grandfather back to Kerela after the housewarming) rubber factories

and new house and met his parents, wife, brother, and brother in law.

The next day we drove to Ajanta Caves and the next day to Ellora Caves.
I can't believe that everyone knows about an erector set tower in Paris, but hardly anyone knows about these two sets of caves.


Though cave is hardly the right description.



These are temples carved into solid rock over about 900 years altogether. More on this later. In fact, we leave India for the US tomorrow night and we've barely scratched the surface of India, and this blog has barely scratched the surface of our trip.


I'll try to put some of the better pics and interesting stories up in the next couple of weeks when we get home. A couple of pics in the mean time.

Catchup pictures

Salesmen in a sandal/shoe shop in Jaipur clowning for the camera.














Raghu, the owner the of place we stayed in Pushkar. We talked about the problems of tourism on this holy lake town.






Thapa and Thomas worked at the Illikkalam Lake Resort in Kummarakom. I guess Thomas was shy. And this computer is uploading really slow. So, Thomas will remain hiding til later.
















Our driver Pawan.

Bambolim Beach Resort

The 'resort' in Goa is quite nice. I'll try to get some pictures up. The colonial architecture and rich colors - yellows, brick reds, organges, whites - along with the lush tropical vegitation and beautiful blue pool are a nice relaxing respite. And we are on an almost deserted beach. The place hovers between elegant and shabby. Most of the guests are Indian. We met a young couple from Bangalore. Sareem is going to Chicago for three months late Dec. or early Jan. We also met an interesting Iranian couple. Both have spent considerable time in their lives outside of Iran. She's an architect and he's an academic who is currently a lecturer in Delhi. Ramin Jahanbegloo was released in September from four months in prison in Teheran. You can read more about it in the link. We had hours of interesting discussion. He's doing work on Gandhian non-violent ways of dealing with conflict as well as looking at the larger issue of cultural conflict and ways to reduce such conflict.

[Note: I posted pictures later at Bambolim Beach Resort.]

India Road Motto: Blow Horn

If we want to find some mottoes for India, Blow Horn would certainly be one. Not only is this motto plastered on the back of most trucks, every other vehicle driver practices it religiously. Basically it appears a way of saying, I'm behind you (or passing you) and I want you to move over or just know I'm here. There's no malice.




There is also the variation "Horn Please." In Kerrela we also saw, "Sound Horn."


See follow-up post Awazdo.

A Quickie from Goa

I'm in the 500 year old house of the travel guy Kenneth who picked us up atthe airport. It's huge, with very high ceilings. He's getting our credit card imprint. We met an Indian-American couple - Alex and Neetu - at the Kochi airport this morning. They are visiting relatives for two weeks, covering some of the same ground we have. Will post their pic soon. The airport guard told me pics were forbidden after I took it. They were on a connecting flight toi Delhi. We had 4 hours till our flight to Goa. So we walked to a Shiva temple someone in an airport shop told usabout. I don't know how to describe it. You walk past a numberof little exhibits about Shiva's life. 10 Rupees for flowers, 2 more to store your shoes, 20 more to go thru this grotto like space below the statue of Shiva (areally big statue). The grotto was a little like a Halloween haunted house - cave like.
Then 40 more Rupees to get coins to put into 109 cups while chanting a mantra.

I don't really know what it all means. It was connected to Kemp Fort Departmentstore where we were almostthe only customers and I bought a shirt. The guy there says the man who owns the store also owns the temple and the profits of the store go tothe temple.

Illikkalam Resort Kummarakom - Backwater

Here's an early morning view from our cottage. We were glad to see the rain had stopped and we were seeing blue sky for the first time since we got to India. Not that it has been cloudy, just the 'fog' and pollution hid the sky in the North.


We walked to the bird sanctuary thru the delightful village and canals.
Part of the sanctuary tour included a ride in a pole boat.