The Beautiful Bride

This entry relates events that happened June 26th. We have flown from Chennai to Dehli finally to arrive at our destination: Agra and the Taj Mahal.
After Akbar's tomb we were nearly there. Road signs began to read Taj Mahal, and we got excited. Without warning, our driver pulls over at the side of road and this gentleman hops into the combi:

This A.K. Mudgal, our Official Taj Mahal Tour Escort. His nickname was Arri, but his full name is a word that means "sun". He introduced himself in a convivial, animated fashion that was in stark contrast to out tactiturn driver Harpeet. After some basic notes he asked us if it was straight to the Taj or did we want lunch first? Up to this point food was the furthest thing from my mind, but once he said it, it sounded like an amazingly good idea. We readily agreed and went to lunch at a place he chose.
We have done this enough to understand that drivers and tour guides get paid to tout certain stores and hook in the touristas like us. The place he took us to was clean, cool and nice enough. The food wasn't great, but we got to try some more Northern dishes. Good fresh lime soda, though.
Afterwards we drove to the Taj parking lot. It was a quarter mile or so from the compound; they don't allow cars too close because of the pollution. So from there we hop on a small electric bus with Japanese tourists and buzz over. We get out and walk the gauntlet of shops and hawkers.
Arri had warned us about this of course and also of the photographers we would face inside. We were unconcerned and shook them off easily. The oppressor that we couldn't dodge that day was the sun. Arri would joke that due to his name we faced two suns that day, but the one in te sky already felt double strength. Let me tell you, kids: it got to 47 degrees C, which is 117 back in the USA and that was tough work. I was glad that we had had lunch and moved an hour later into the afternoon, because that was a corker. And Arri said the previous day had been hotter.
As Arri navigated us to a shady spot to explain some things, I was staring at the gate you see below and tripped over a pothole in the pavement. Aha, Arri told us: the Taj is all about Love and in Love you must be very careful all the time!


As you surely know, the Taj Mahal was built by the Mughul emporer Shah Jahan as a mausoleum to his wife Mumtaz Mahal. She was a baby-making machine to him, but finally died giving birth to their fourteenth child. Grief-striken, his hair turned gray and he set about to build a monument to her and to love.
The story takes a Shakespearean turn later as the Shah's son throws him in prison and makes war on his brother. The brother is killed, humilated and beheaded, his head sent to the still-greiving shah in prison.
But hey - this is a love story. The gate you see above is red sandstone, like Akbar's tomb. The guide said it was red because it was metaphoric of the Hindu bridal veil: the red veil outside and the white beauty inside. He explained the themes of the day were symmetry, pattern and inlays. He also mentioned more than once that these were crafts still being practiced here in tax-free Agra. Hmm. Tax-free you say?


Even after the first quick speech, Arri was visibly sweating. But he always kept his compure even as he said things like "the compound is broken into four symmetrical gardens which are then broken themselves into four gardens each, right there beyond the men fighting there"


But that happened later and wasn't really a big deal. After the talk at the South Gate, we passed through and saw the Taj for the first time.

I've seen many pictures of the monument and they fail to move me. It's like seeing pictures of the Grand Canyon or reproductions of the Mona Lisa. They don't express it correctly. They don't express it at all. Stepping through the dark cooridor and seein the Taj took my breath away. I said "Oh my God" out loud. I was astounded in just the way that seeing this picture now will completely fail to do to you. It is an astounding, somehow personal experience completely at odds with the magnitude of it.


Some buildings have a specific, stirring feeling to them. The Lincoln Memorial for example seems to crystalize a very true, primal thing about the American experience. You feel proud and sad and understand the burden, the price and even a little shame. You have a great sympathy for the man and the country being there. You feel your Americanness sharply there. Or maybe that's just my Northern view of it.
In any case, the monument has singularity to it. The Taj was powerful in that way. Even across cultures, centuries, languages and beliefs there was something strong. You felt in the presence of something far beyond you. Like it was not of this place. I don't know if I'm over-selling it, but it took my breath away.

Now, the Taj is a symmetrical building on symmetrical grounds. The one exception is the Shah's tomb which was added later. The whole thing radiates around her grave. He sits alongside, perhaps stealing the spotlight by not conforming. It really was about him after all. His grief, his love. His empire.

But for such a symmetrical building, it has a lot of unexpected vistas and angles to offer. Looking at my snaps, there are many where it's not obvious that they are even the same building. On a cooler day I could have spent a long time there. Being in the Taj's presence was amazing.

We went through the tomb and around the back. Stepping out of the dark onto the palisade I thought my retinas would explode it was so bright. We had to get back to the shade and the car. But we lingered and delayed as long as we could. There were people who wanted pictures with Americans after all!

But in the end we had to head for shelter.

We went back through the gauntlet, the electric bus and back to the car.

In the AC we fell down. melted through and dumbstruck. A fly was in the car buzzing around and Arri pointed it out. "Ah, a fly has come for a kiss- to give you his love" he said. I smiled and said "Ah, in love you have to be very careful all the time!" Arri chuckled at the mild jape, but the driver Harpeet shook his sad head. "Love has been left back there" he said, pointing back to the Taj.

Next: Tax free, you say? And we see how the other half lives

The Tomb of Akbar the Great

This is the third entry about our trip to the Taj Mahal. These events take place on Saturday, June 26. We have flown to Dehli from Chennai and are on the outskirts of our destination, the city of Agra.

A while after the border crossing our driver Harpreet mentions that we are approaching the tomb of Akbar the Great, do we want to see it or drive on? Yes, we say. What we should have said was "Yes, we want to see it". Harpreet interepretted "yes" as "yes, drive on to Agra".
So he drove past the tomb. We squawked as we realized the misunderstanding. Oh, you want to see it? Yes, please. But by now we are past the tomb and Harpreet tells us in his laconic way that there is no u-turn.
At this point he has stopped the car half on the shoulder of a two-lane one-way road. We are about 150 yards past the gate to the tomb. In a bold move, Harpreet simply puts the car in reverse and begins backing us up a one-way street into oncoming traffic. He does this with complete calm, as though this was the normal proceedure for visiting the burial site of a Mughal emporer.
We exchange quick glances, like: is this really happening? But it is and his calm makes us think it might be ok until we hear the trucks bear down on us. Shawn and I look out the window onto the busy street with crazy whizzing traffic and see a man squatting down and defecating. We roll by him in reverse. As we chuckle and exchange japes I realize again that none of the rules I know apply and let go of the fear of the approaching trucks.
And soon enough we turn into the parking lot of the site where Akbar was laid down, and everything was fine.
Akbar was the third Mughal emporer. He consolidated rule in Northern and Central India in the late 1500's. A Muslim, he was originally intolerant of other religions. But after accepting a Hindu into his harem and a series of marriage alliances with Hindus he became a force for consolidation between the two groups. He is known and loved for his acceptance of all the various religions in his kingdom. Or at least that's what I read on the internet. Our driver isn't a guide anymore and we were pretty much on our own here.


The walled compound can be accessed by a series of gates like the one above. The gates are big deals themselves. This is red sandstone with marble inlays for the details. The decorations are very different from the Hindu style as you can likely spot. Islam prohibits anthropomorphic depictions, so most of the decoration is floral, geometric or calligraphic. Compare with the Hindu temples chock-a-block with people, gods and animals. We'll see this all again at the Taj.

Exiting the gate we see the main compound. Off to the right of this were a herd of ring horned deer gamboling in the limited shade of an expansive garden. At this point I had some camera troubles and was working to resolve them when we ran into another recurring theme: Indian tourists excited to see foreigners, especially Shawn.

We first saw the group above as the guy was taking snaps of the girls jumping up and down in front of the tomb. He was visibly excited to see Shawn and made a squawking bird-like laugh noise. Would we pose in photos together with them? Sure! A great swapping of photos ensued. He liked my camera, I checked out his D3000, we had a good time, clowned around and parted ways. This happened about 15 times this weekend everywhere we went. Usually it was the tourists, not the locals that were interested in us this way. Locals might ask where we were from or scam us for cash, but to other tourists we seemed to become part of the attraction. We were so busy being agog at the scene that we perhaps hadn't realized that we were part of it, not just observers. It was fun.

The domes are called chhatris. It means umbrella and they apparently are pretty popular in Muslim and Hindu architecture. It's cool to see them here on multiple levels like this.

When we got inside the main compound we wound our way through dark corridors to the basement tomb. Here was where they laid Akbar to rest. It was dark and clearly not intended for visitors: there was no decoration. But it wasn't anti-climatic becase of the gentleman you see here.

The hollow where the tomb was laid domed and had great acoustics. We know that because this dude did that Islamic keening wail. He'd sing the "Alllaaaaaah ah laaaaaa" song and it would reverberate through the building. Of course he had to compete with all the wisenheimers who would yell Echo and such in there, but when he got a moment of silence and did it it was pretty cool. Of course a gratuity was always welcome, as you see next to him there. What do you do for a living? I sit in the dark and sing to Allah in the tomb of an emporer who died 400 years ago for tourists. Ah, India, I don't know you at all but you are rich and strange.

Next, we arrive at the Taj, meet our guide and contend with a terrific challenge. Plus maybe some shopping.

The Road to Agra

This entry follows the previous and tells the tale of our trip to the Taj Mahal on Saturday, June 26th. At this point, we are in the car and headed on the four hour trip from Dehli to Agra, the site of the famous monument.


The road to Agra is in some ways like roads in the states. You have stretches of rural countryside interupted by intense areas activity. Usually where roads crossed. We didn't see this for the first few hours because it took that long to get out of Dehli. The traffic there was very stop and go. At the stops, I'd take snaps out the window but they never seem to capture the intense mix that was going on. People of all stripes and styles going places and buzzing about. And there were a lot of people everywhere. We wondered idly where they were all going on an early Saturday morning.

Every vehicle was packed: well beyond the capacity of what would be legal in the States. In my college days, we got pulled over by the police once for too many people in the back of a pickup truck. Here they fit five on a moped without a problem. It was so common a sight that it must be ordinary, but to us it seemed amazing.

Eventually the city gave way and we saw more rural farmland. There were a lot of huts like these. And a bunch made from mud. I couldn't tell for sure the purpose of the structures. Often there would be four or five of them right on top of each other. Were they storage? Domiciles? Animal shelter? I couldn't tell. We saw people living in less than this quite a bit, so I wasn't ruling anything out.

We stopped briefly for a stretch at a dhaba- a roadside restaurant with light fare. These were usual dirt floor affairs with plastic chairs and a grill going. We had already eaten so we just nosed around and took in their stares. I went in for a lime soda. "Lime soda please" I'd say, pointing to it in the cooler. The guy would pick up a coke. No, no. Lime. Lime soda. He picks up the coke again. This happened on two separate occassions during the trip, so I think I'm doing something wrong. After I visited the facilities and found them just fine. The guy cleaning up gestured magnamously at the sink after I had finished and I nodded my thanks. He moved his thumb up and down rapidly in a gesture that looked like he was flipped a coin. I knew enough by now to know that that was the gesture for money so I tipped him and went on.

Now we saw a lot of random sights on the road that are hard to describe, but the part I must tell you about is the border crossing.

The driver pulled over and explained that we were at a border crossing and we needed to pay a road tax of 1,000 rupees. No problem. I give him the loot and he steps out of the car to go talk to some unseen toll collector. Almost as an afterthought, he turns back to the car and says "Don't open your windows." Then he limps off.

Ten seconds later the street vendor kids hit us. They pound on the windows and show us their wares. Window coolers, beads, junk. We shake it off and they shuffle off to another car. Then they hit us in our weak spot: our insane love of monkeys. A guy shows up with a monkey on a leash. He yanks the chain a bit and the monkey starts doing flips. Sweet! Hard to resist taking a snap, so up comes the camera and click click.

Gotchya. Once I click, the monkey stops jumping and the men start pounding on the glass and yelling. 500 rupees they want for the privilege of shooting their monkeys. No way, I say: too much. I won't pay- 100 rupes is plenty for this. They yell for 500 in a manner most rude and I saw no no no. I get out a 100 and crack the window open to pay them off.

I opened the window.

The scene was like Dawn of the Dead where the zombies attack the car. Every hand goes in the window crack and grasps after the loot. I only opened it a crack, but they were in now, and they weren't taking 100 to go away. Curses. I paid them the ransom and they retreated. But then they got us again. Momma Monkey right on the car.

Click click, another 500 rupees please. What a sucker I am.

By then the driver was back, and he had someone in tow. And this person was harranging him for a payoff too. Right away I knew what it was: a hijra, one of India's famous third gender. She was not pretty with very hairy strong arms, crude makeup and sharp, pointy teeth. The driver was being hectored and flipped her a ten. She stormed off immediately. I wanted to take a snap, but after the somewhat unsettling scene before I hestitated and missed my chance.

We were excited to have seen a hijra, though. I had seen a show on National Geographic about them. We started to remark about the incident and the driver felt the need to explain. "That.. that wasn't a woman" he said slowly. We all knew that but shut up to let him continue. "That wasn't a woman" he repeated. "That was... nothing.."

I couldn't tell 100% what he meant or how he felt but I felt bad about the whole thing. He put the car in gear and pulled away towards the final stretch to Agra. All you can do is accept it.

Next: We arrive in Agra and visit Akbar's tomb and the Taj.

Chennai to Dehli

This entry is the start of several notes about our trip to see the Taj Mahal.

It was an weekend filled with adventure moments; some good, some ugly, many unforgettable. Both for good reasons and ones that were harder to bear. But I'm getting ahead of myself dear blog. Let's just start at the start.

Friday morning we got up, ate a bit and hopped the car to the airport. Our hotel is nearby, so it was a short trip. We had worked late the night before, though so even getting up at 10 we were a bit groggy. The plane we were taking was a regular size, but they bus you from the terminal across the tarmack to your plane. When they do this, as anytime that there is a crowd in India, people push against each other in a manner that would seem very rude and aggressive in the West. People will actually push their way from the back of the plane up the aisle to get on the bus first. There isn't much polite standing and waiting anywhere. I guess with a billion people you have to step lively. Anyway, this detail is important because you begin to accept people crushing into you and touching you everywhere.

As we debarked the first bus, in the intense crush Val looped her thumb onto my belt loop so that we didn't get separated in the crowd. They will pull you along and apart if you aren't careful. So when we land in Dehli we again board a bus on the runway and drive to the terminal. As the bus arrives we are again crushed into by people. A woman bumps into Val. She turns as she feels the contact and the woman defensively clutches her purse as though she thought Val might have taken it. Meanwhile I am moving along in the dense crowd and I feel a hand in my back pocket. Must be Val holding on again I assume and move forward. But the hand moves deeper into my pocket and I know that it isn't my coworker anymore. I whip around as I step off the bus and the action pops my wallet out. The woman who had accosted Val and her male friend helpfully point to the wallet as they rush by. Yeah, I got it. You tried to pick my pocket by first separating us and then having the man dip into my shorts.

I scooped up the wallet and put it into my front pocket, chastened by the incident.

Having no checked bags, we went straight through and located our driver.

His name was Hardeep. He was a quiet, nice man but sort of a sad case. He had lost a leg in an accident and now limped along slowly with a prosthetic. He had droopy, tired eyelids and always seemed a little depressed. He used to be a guide, but now he could only drive. He had to rely on partners to give us the tours and explain things when we got there.

He took us to our hotel; a swank affair called the Taj Palace. It was perhaps a bit too swank for our purposes. Having packed light we were underdressed and could only eat in one of the four restaurants. Which is too bad, because one of them was a theme place designed to look like the inside of a Pullman car on the Orient Express.

But we were reunited with our friends and coworkers Shawn and Rose who had flown up from Bangalore earlier in the day. We had a fine repast, caught up on each other and retired early to get up for the long drive to Agra.

Next time: the road to Agra reveals itself to a sightseeing destination itself as we encounter strangers, shakedowns and funny critters.

Almost Agra

We're falling into the work routine here. Work until 3am, sleep around 4, wake up at noon or so, find lunch around 1, get ready and go into work again around 4:30pm.
I've been up and down with Traveller's Trouble, a sore throat, jet lag and general exhaustion. I'm beat up and this is just starting.
But look at that fancy shirt! Li'l bowtie there. And here's a shot of the lobby!

Ok, it should be clear that I don't have much to blog about right now.

But - tomorrow morning I'm flying up to Dehli. Several us are meeting up there. We'll spend the night in the city and then head over to Agra in the morning to check out the Taj Mahal. Then it's back to Dehli for the night and we can check out the city for the day before flying back Sunday night. Whirlwind thrills. Hopefully some cool snaps and not just pix of old dudes with their shirts off.

Taste the Unexpected

So, one of the things travel teaches you I suppose is to notice how you experience things. One of the things I’ve caught myself doing again and again is letting expectation interact with experience. What do I mean? Food is a great example. Picture a big slice of chocolate cake on a plate. It has chocolate sauce drizzled all over it and chocolate flakes crumbled across the top. Mmm. So you take a bite. But it’s not chocolate cake, it’s fig. And the texture isn’t moist and soft and cakey, it’s only sort-of soft and biscuity. “Bleagh” you say “This isn’t chocolate cake!”. No, it isn’t. But no one said it was: it just looked like chocolate cake so you assumed it was. Now, semi-moist fig cake tastes great! It’s a wonderful delight; there is no reason not to like it.

Except that it isn’t chocolate cake.

I’d like to say I could just get over it, but it’s very hard once your brain is set to taste the not-chocolate cakeness of it. In fact, sometimes that’s all you can taste: the gap between what you expected and what you got.

Now, this isn’t a metaphor for my Indian experiences, it’s really just about cake. Things here have a habit of being close to their Western counterparts, but not quite. When you set an expectation, it’s hard not to hold them to it. If you think I’m being snobby, just bite into a mushy apple and tell me that it’s as good as a crisp one. You brain is dismayed by the gap between expectation and reality and cries out.

Eventually, with enough experience, the brain will learn to expect something different and the sensation and anticipation will match up, resulting in real satisfaction.

There are plenty of the opposite experiences here, too. At lunch we often have the buffet. There are many terrines of mysterious yellow-brown food that I have no expectations of whatsoever. Maybe something lentily? Or corn? Could be hot, might be sweet. There is no way to know. So you take a ladleful and see what’s what. Usually, it’s great! Once in a while, you get caught by a weird eggy thing, but not so often. And you do begin to expect. These days if I see a lentil dish over in the veg section, I have a pretty good hunch that I will like it. I like dal. Those of you who know me recognize this statement for the true confessional it is. I like a lentil dish and typically have it instead of the meat dishes here. And that’s unexpected.

Then there were four

We went to get Jona from the airport last night. This time I brought a camera and took a couple snaps. The place was mobbed by US standards, but not that bad compared to the other night when I got Mike. Still left the place with my shirt soaked through, though.
One of the the places you see the emphasis on family is here at the airport. Whole families come to pick people up. There were a number of older, frail women that would have stayed home at midnight in the US. My heart went out to them in the heat and congestion at the late hour.

We stood next to these girls, their mother and theirt grandmother. I assume the men were someplace, too, but I didn't see them. The grandmother had a white burka-style outfit but I don't think she was Muslim. It must have been hot and like us, they waited for hours.

She sat on the floor most of the time while the girls amused themselves on the luggage carrier. At one point, they all got up to rearrange themselves. One of the girls went to sit down on the luggage thing and Granny deftly swung it aside at the last minute, dumping the girl on her butt. I'm not 100% sure she intended it, but I like to think austere Granny in the shawl was up for playing a late-night prank.

Good news is that Jona got in fine and we are getting ready to get down to the meat of the business.

Bad news is that the Dehli Belly is going around. I'm on the anti-bacterial, but only a day into the three-day protocol. Can't say I'm very psyched about lunch. The place in the hotel we usually eat at isn't that great, but not for the reasons you'd expect. It's actually too bland. I prefer the Indian restaurant in the hotel, but in my current state I want to avoid the spicy. Hopefully it turns out tomorrow.

Palm Leaves and Palm Designs

Today we went to DakshinaChitra, which is artist's village about 45 minutes out of town.

See the scoop at http://www.dakshinachitra.net/

The idea is there are traditional arts and crafts, dancing, and recreations of old-style living from different parts of India. It was interesting and fun, but at first I thought we had driven there for just the usual hard sell. Lots of friendly vendors with many wares. But the first thing we saw I liked. It was traditional palm leaf art. They dry the palm leaves and cut them into rectangular strips. The strips are strung together like blinds. But first they are decorated.

The shot above shows one of the steps. They sketch in the design and then cut it into the palm with a thin, precise knife; like an Xacto.

Then the wash it with an ink. The ink goes in the cut like a tattoo and washes off the slick surface of the palm. He was describing this as he did it, carelessly sketching in some swirls. When he washed off the ink, a delicate, swan with perfect lines appearred.

But the kicker was that the art also has these circular doors built into it. You flip them open like advent calendars and the picture changes. Each one flips both ways, so you get three pictures in all. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening he quiped as he flipped them over.

Themactically, the art has a slick, linear quality that reminds me of Japanese prints. Of course most of the work is around religious themes and stories. Krishna was a popular subject, and his pieces often had little couples inside the little windows, all Karma Sutra style. You know I bought one of those.

I also picked up a painting on silk of a bird from a different vendor. Very fine detail and line work.

And speaking of ink sublimation and line work; along the way we encountered an old woman doing mendhi. Val had wanted to get some of this henna art and signed up right away.

The process seemed effortless to the woman, who spoke very little English. She just looped her brush and the perfectly-even chocolatey lines flowed into an intricate pattern.

It took probably five minutes and cost about a dollar. After a half hour or so, Val washed off the henna and revealed a surprisingly-orange pattern. It should last a few weeks.
The woman was gracious and amused and probably the highlight of the morning.

Afterwards, in a theme that is becoming popular, we went back to the hotel to bum around the pool. After a while of doing nothing, a movie crew suddenly showed up and started filming a scene of a couple talking near the pool. We couldn't understand it; something to do with treasure? When the exited on camera, they walked by us, so I gave them the thumbs up. There was no re-take so look for me in a scene from something called E Action from Kollywood sometime soon! Yes! Art and theater all around me!

Picking up Mike

I went to get Mikey at the airport tonight.
His flight arrived at 11:30, so the driver suggested we leave around 10:30 as it could take 45 minutes to get to the airport. Well, it took 30 minutes, so I got there around 11pm. Let me just tell you; I’m used to it now so I didn’t think much of it , but that was some of the most congested traffic I’d ever seen. But it all flowed and I hopped out of the car into the steamy foreign air.
I picked my way through the throng of people to locate arrivals. Here’s the set up. You aren’t allowed to enter the airport without a ticket. So they set up a gate aside the long building where people exit and the crowds pile in four deep all the way along it waiting for their friends and family. This is a line four to six deep and easily 100 yards
It was quite a scene and I wish I had brought my camera. One gentleman I saw talking on his cell had a thumbnail easily two inches long. There was a young Sikh who had had some serious eye injury recently. Blood oozed out the sides of his puffy bandage. I stood near a family where they had “uglied” their daughter. This is a thing where the parents do to protect a child from the evil eye. The idea is that beauty attracts envy and thus evil magic. So, they cut a girl’s hair short and give her big, fake moles and black spots on the face. It’s startling to see, as it has the desired effect; the child is not pretty.
So I stood there for about two hours in the throng. I hadn’t eaten and in the heat I got woozy. Groups of young men would gather around me, gawking and joking with each other, and eventually peel off. I get open stares a lot, even at work. It happened on the first trip, too. You get used to it and I had kind of forgotten about it. But in the human sauna that was the Chennai airport, the last thing I wanted was four extra people in my space. Maybe I should make that clear, too. When I said people were four deep, I meant that there were four people in about five feet of space. People are close and think nothing of squeezing into inhumanly tight spaces. They just sidle in until they are a hair’s breadth from you. Somehow, though the mild vibe makes it more bearable. Like, in the States if people were that close the crowd might take a aggravated, dangerous mood. I’ve been shoved in bars for accidentally being that close to people before. Here people accept it and feel no malice because they don’t have the same sense of personal space.
At the time, I was tired and just wanted it to be over, but it was a pretty interesting experience. And I have to do it again Sunday. Maybe this time I’ll remember a camera.

Le Meridian

This strange device, dear readers, is the Master Control Unit for my hotel room. Want some light by the bar? Push a button. Want the room a little cooler? Push a button. Want some light over by the desk? Push a button and then have it not work, call the front desk, have them come change the lamp and then jiggle the handle and have it work for a little bit and then not work again and give up on it. Want the teevee on? Well, there's no button on the Master Control, but that doesn't work either.

I'm not really upset by that. I pretty much dont have time for television and there isn't anything on anyway. But it does give you a little flavor of our situation. The power goes out several times a day. Even at the office we have internet in one room and international phone in the other: not both. Little things slow us down all the time.

But the lobby is palatial. The ceiling is a two story tall dome with illuminated stars. There is a great view of palm trees and the pool in the back. It's nice, but as I write this the bellman is delivering my pressed clothes. Why didn't I iron my own clothes? Because I'm a fancy gentleman too good for manual labor? Well, kinda, but really it's because after repeated requests, they still can't locate an iron and an ironing board for me. The front desk guy smiles and tells you each time that yes, they will bring one up to you post-haste, but then the dude shows up and so sorry, the iron that was promised cannot be located. They are probably charging me for the pressing.
Ah, well. Got to go. My driver is here. So fancy!

New Jersey with a Breeze

Today our routine started. It was the first day on the job. So, the first time commuting to the job site, first interaction with our counterparts and all that. It was hard not to make comparisons between this trip and the previous one. And Chennai fared poorly in the comparison.

In previous posts, I described Bangalore as 1970's New York meets dusty cowtown. If you follow this metaphore, Chennai is more like a New Jersey. Bangalore has a buzz, a sense that things are going places and will be alright. You could walk to shopping and fine dining easily. Chennai doesn't give you that vibe. It has a little more menace, a little more desperation. A major landmark on the commute is the gigantic landfill. And it doesn't help that our hotel is out by the airport, so nothing is close by.

Now in fairness, we really have only driven around four or five hours in the city, so it's hard to tell. I have hopes that I can find fun and adventure in sunny Chennai, but perhaps it's more the base of opperations than a source of adventure.

To complete the comparison, the vendor this time is very different as well. In the previous engagement we were in a smallish office building worling with a staff of a dozen or so. This time the complex is sprawling and labyrnthyine. There are two security checkpoints to get to the bathroom. Even the staff got lost leading us to the lunchroom. When we arrived it took six or eight security guys to get us checked in, log our laptops and check us for thumb drives and such.

Good news though is that the staff are very bright and we know and like many of them. Good news also that the weather has been milder than expected. It's still a steamy sauna, but it's been tempered by a cool breeze here and there. So, New Jersey with a breeze. That's not so bad.

Saint Thomas and the Fishes

We got up this morning and decided to see the city. So after breakfast we went to the travel desk and arranged for one of the packaged tours. Our driver turned out to be the one who had picked us up in the airport, a jovial sort named Namril.
He started the tour by confiding that he was a Christian and asked if we were, too. Sure, we're Christians, why do you ask? Ah, because Chennai boasts several unique Christian elements and here we go with those items now. Chennai is the location of the martrydom of St Thomas, who came to India in 52AD. We saw a number of relics involved related to this, including the spear that killed him and a cross that bleeds his blood. Mmm hmm.
So, the first stop is a church on the hill where Thomas had his missionary in life. It's on a hill near the hotel that boasts a commanding view of the surrounding country. Getting there we drove through some poor areas and at one point had to get out of the car to shoo some lazy goats out of the road. The church itself was very small inside, barely more than the size of a large conference room. And plain. You could picture a poor, roaming priest setting up shop there. Now, the outside of the church was a different story with a gold Jesus crucifix, and creepy life size statues of Pope John Paul and Mother Theresa. Halfway down the hill there was also a giant Jesus sculpture of him praying under a tree. It reminded me of Buddah a bit, the way he was being shaded. Oh, and the story is when the martyred him they speared him in the back of the head as he prayed, he got some blood on the cross he was praying in front of and later they found that the cross weeped his blood so they have an annual dealie about that. We also saw a bit of his skull fragment later, but that's a different church.

Ok, so. Next it's off to a snake park. We weren't very excited about that, but we put ourselves in our guide's hands and went. It was pretty shabby and small. You couldnt see most of the snakes and they were just in these very basic terrariums. There were some crocs there, too and they were more interesting because you could see them, but in the heat they just sat there looking so much like statues.
Deeper into the city we go; next to a historic temple where we hooked up with a creepy temple guide. He had rotten teeth and lightning bolts shaved into his head. This would have been fine if he didn't browbeat us for bigger and bigger donations for the temple and his "services" which mostly consisted of asking us where we were from and gesturing to the temple. We couldn't go in so it was a quick stop. The wrinkle here is that the temple overlooked a large, fenced in pool of algae-green water. In the center was a small island with another temple where they keep some ceremonial lamp lit. The pool is populated with thousands of catfish that swarm like sharks in a feeding frenzy whenever anyone tosses any food in the water.
From there we saw the Basillica of St Thomas. This is a Western-style church which has the distinction of being one of only three churches built on the tomb of an apostle. Being Sunday, church was in session. Our guide ushered us in and encouraged us to take photos in the middle of the ceremony. This seemed bad to us, but I took a few quick snaps anyway. Then we went down below and saw the actual tomb, where another mass was in session. Again, we marched down the center aisle with our guide, watched the service for a bit and sauntered out. No pictures this time, not allowed. Of course there was a St Thomas museum too, where we saw the skull fragment and the spear that killed the doubting apostle.
Next was the highlight of the tour for me: the fish market. Chennai is in the beach and the local catch is sold in a shanty-style market by the wives of the fishermen. This was down and dirty India. The sounds and smells of the market were intense. To Western sensibility, the hygiene level was a concern as the sun was warming up the day pretty well and there was no refrigeration anywhere. The flies were everywhere.
It was also interesting to see the makeshift houses the fishermen and their families lived in on the opposite side of the street. The area was hit by the tsunami and you could see areas that were just wiped out. The people just did what the could and kept on. Their boats were the large, open affairs that you see everywhere in local fishermen. But you got the whole thing; they live here, they fish there from those boats, and relax under that tent while the wives sell the fish on turned-over boxes there.
At this point the blog gets boring I'm afraid: we went back to the hotel, sat by the pool, counted our blessings ate a tasty buffet and slept most of the afternoon.

Coming to Chennai

All right, bloginistas: here we go again. I’m back in India and ready for adventure. Getting here was as close to a breeze as flying 9,000 miles can be. Got into Philly, hooked up with my colleague, and buzzed off to Frankfort.
We fly Lufthansa this time. It’s a German airline, so the button for “flush” on the plane’s toilet says “Splorgee” or something like that. I found this amusing. Here is a fun habit our German flight crew had: They come up to you and ask you something in German. You blink stupidly back at them so they repeat it in English. Then they come back and do it again. And again. They must have fed and pampered us 150 times in six hours and each encounter was started with a phrase in German and then a sly smile. As if to say “Oh, ja ja: you still haven’t learned German since the last time I came undt offered you a hot towel, now I must say it again in baby talk English because you are so stupid and lazy that you only know one language.”
Or maybe I’m reading a little into that.
In Frankfurt we had a confusing layover (why go through security when you get off the plane?) and enjoyed a very German breakfast of mixed sausages, potato salad and sauerkraut. Then it’s back on another plane with a friendlier crew- including a nice woman who I’m pretty sure was named Brunehilda- and then a mere nine hours later, here we are.
First impressions at midnight? The place is steamy. The bad heat has passed, but it was still sweaty in the middle of the night. The hotel looks swanky in the lobby, but the rooms are kind of meh. The lights in the rooms are on some kind of weird switchboard and you need your room key to get light and AC. I’m sure I’ll figure it out.
Meanwhile, it’s six am and I’m starving.
First impressions at 8am? The place is steamy. We took a walk down the road to get the lay of the land and I was moisty after 200 yards. There isn’t much around the hotel. It was a dusty road to nowhere.

Forks

So tomorrow I fly to India.

When I get back Deb and Maria will be gone. We ate lunch together pretty much every day for five years.

I will be the last person left from the Graphics team when I get back. It's true that many of them are in other jobs with the company now, but what was once a good group that I was proud of will be completely gone and I will sit in a sea of empty cubes where they once were.

Last night we all met up for drinks and it was good. Some were moving on with the job search, some had found things, some were wondering what to do. But a lot of people showed up and we had a lot of laughs. People are the same and people are different but for a moment we were back together.

I'm really glad we did it. I think we needed something or someone to say goodbye to that part of our lives and recognize that it was good. Our department broke up slowly and we never had a good bye party or anything. This was it.

Maybe I'm over-doing the Wonder Years dialog here, but I was very sad to walk out of the building today because I knew when I came back it would be completely different. I learned a lot from my team mates there and as a vendor over the years. I'm grateful and sad and will miss them.

Deb and Maria, it's been a pleasure. We had a lot of laughs, worked hard and fought the wars. You're my comrades and I will miss you both.