Blog 10: “dirty work, literally and figuratively.”

I'm writing this blog immediately after my previous blog and as you might have put together by the writing style, I am not in the mood to tell elaborate stories. With that said, this blog is going to be more of a set of short statements and anecdotal stories that do not warrant an entire blog.

There is pretty much no public urination law in India. Guys will just hop off their motorcycles wherever they want and do their thing. It is not a drive to the plant without seeing at least five guys taking a whiz. It is so bad that some walls clearly have to state “NO URINATING” on them. Up until a few days ago, I had only seen men peeing... Well, that one fateful day, there she was, this Indian woman with her skirt hiked up and popping a squat right on the side of the road. Yep, there that was.

A few days after that, I thought I had seen it all. On the way home from the plant, we drive down this little access road along a toll road. The access road is dotted with quarries, farms, and really small huts put together by leaves, sticks, and mud for the most part. It's like the second little piggy was contracted to build the low income housing in India. I was just looking off into the distance, my mind a complete blank, when we pass a hut. As we pass, I see a little girl squatting and looking at the ground. I was curious what she possibly could be looking at and then I saw what you have probably guessed by now. There, right underneath the girl, was a small brown pile. Ewwwwwwww!

There are buses and public transportation everywhere here. So many people ride the buses that sometimes they fill to capacity. That does not deter a brave Indian though. You see, these buses have no windows and no closeable doors since it is so hot here. What they do have are horizontal bars in place of windows. I have literally seen four guys hanging out the door of a bus, holding onto the bars as the bus barrels down the road. There are two doors on a bus here, two in the passenger side near the front and back and it is not uncommon to see three or four guys at each door hanging out the side. It's insane.

I thought after the first couple paragraphs it might be a good idea to shy away from the bathroom but after talking about it and now buses, it brings me to another story. On the way home from the plant one day we passed a bus. I looked up at the people riding the bus and noticed a teenage girl looking absolutely miserable. She had a small string of drool hanging from her mouth that was rolling down the side of the bus. I was wondering to myself what was wrong with her; then I saw her mother begin to rub her head and her back and came to the conclusion that the girl had, or was going to, throw up. I kept my eye on the situation considering how stupid traffic is here because if this girl throws up, something is probably going to get thrown up on.

The bus, in a power move, cut us off so I could no longer directly monitor what was going on, but I kept my gaze in the general direction. A couple seconds after we stop, suddenly I see projectile vomit emerge from the side of the bus. It flies about seven or eight feet with respect to the horizontal and splashes on the concrete median. Since we had just stopped at a stop light, this meant people were going to try to jam in everywhere they could and I was one of the few people who had the knowledge of this girl with the projectile vomit powers. The bus had left just enough room for a couple motorcycles to squeeze in and squeeze in they did. They began rolling through the liquid on the ground and one by one stopped at the front of the bus and formed a line. As the line got longer and longer I began to estimate how many motorcyclists it would take to reach where the girl was sitting on the bus. Unfortunately, the line never grew back to where the girl was sitting and her projectile vomit turned into fairly tame vomit that just trickled off the side of the bus and made a pool near the back tire.

There is a concrete supply company here that has billboards. Their name is Vajram. I will leave it at that and let you think up where I am going with that.

Okay, back to the bathroom. The major toilet and sink manufacturer here is called Hindware. I have a Hindware toilet in my hotel bathroom. I have been trying to figure out if that is a smash up of the words “Hindi” and “Ware” or if it is literally meant to be ware for my hind.

Speaking of the toilet in my hotel room, there is a telephone next to it like they have in most fancy hotels. That is gross and I am upset that I accidentally touched it and talked on it when the front desk called up to ask how things were going. I had just opened a new bar of soap and I washed my hands with it until I could no longer see the Courtyard by Marriott logo stamped in it.

Also, the things you hear about the left hand in India (don't shake anyone's left hand), seem to be true. I have not come out and asked it, but I am going to put together an argument for the “never shake an Indian's left hand” theory.

Exhibit A) When we all eat lunch in the cafeteria, a lot of them do not use utensils even though there are forks and spoons available. It is very interesting watching people use their hands to eat rice, but it is how it is done here. They get the rice a bit moist so it sticks together, form a ball with it, then eat. All while this is happening, their left hand is sitting in their lap. Only the right arm is on the table. It is also interesting to watch them rip flat bread into pieces with one hand so that they can dunk it in the gravy/vegetables/spices mixture. They kind of have to pin it down with their third and fourth fingers curled in and then use their thumb and index finger to grab the flat bread and pull upwards. I just use both my hands, you know, because toilet paper and I are really good buddies.

Xzibit B) You've officially been pimped.

Exhibit C) There is no toilet paper in any bathrooms in the plant. I have been forced to smuggle a roll or two out of my hotel bathroom because of this. This seems fairly common as I have seen it in some public bathrooms too. Now, what is next to the toilet are three things: a bucket, a spray hose (sort of like the one typically seen at a kitchen sink), and a drain. The other thing I have always noticed is that this triad of bathroom accessories is always on the right side of the toilet. This is what I have concluded: you turn on the spray hose with your right hand and fill the bucket. You then use your left hand to do the dirty work, literally and figuratively.

Exhibit D) For some reason, about 75% of all Indian men have a single long fingernail on their left hand. Usually it is on the thumb or pinky finger and it is longer than your typical American woman's fingernail. I am still trying to figure out what it is for, but it is always on the left hand, and I do not know if I really want to figure out what it is used for.

I think I sufficiently presented enough evidence to prove my point, especially point B.

The other odd thing about the bathroom in the plant are the stalls. The usual stalls in America have a toilet, then the door has about an eight to twelve inch gap underneath it. Well, it's not like that here. There are full size doors so you feel like you are locked in a closet when going to the bathroom. What is REALLY odd though, is that of the four stalls, there is only one with a toilet that you and I would be familiar with. The other three? Well, they have porcelain structures in them, but they are simply bowls in the floors with a hole in the bottom. On the sides of the bowls, there are rippled areas that look like they are there to provide gripping for your feet. Most Indians grow up learning that the way to go number 2 is to squat. Interestingly, when I was doing some research into this, I found some websites that endorsed (and actually sold attachments for toilets to help those acquainted with toilets do this) the squatting method as better for your body. Apparently it straightens out your colon more where as sitting on a toilet causes a slight curve near the end that can trap some of the solid waste there. I will not take any legal responsibility if next time you go to the bathroom you try to squat on your seat and injure yourself in the process.

Let me preface this short story by saying that I actually quite enjoy eating at Subway. I know I will get called out because I like to call it Swootway (for those uninitiated, “swoot” is defined as the exact opposite of sweet by Covino & Rich on Sirius/XM Radio), but it is not that bad. The real reason I call it Swootway is simply because I think Quizno's is far superior. Plus, let's be honest, Subway's meatball subs are really good, but meatball subs by definition are really good. I was walking through a shopping center and saw a Subway and determined that it sounded really good to eat at. It wasn't, but I'll get there in another blog. What I will fill you in on now is the fact they were jamming some Akon all up in there over their speakers. Not only that, it was unedited and for those of you familiar with the non-radio-friendly version of “I Wanna Love You,” you'll know why I was a bit shocked. Since I try to keep this blog PG-13 or so, I am going to let you do the research there.

Lastly, there is a laundry service at my hotel where I can place my laundry in a bag, fill out a form, it magically disappears, and comes back clean when I get back from work. According the the rate sheet they give me, I can get my Safari Suit cleaned for 90 INR! That right there is a deal, now if only I had a Safari Suit...

That is enough for now. Let's close up the short stories book, tuck you in, and turn out the light. Nighty night!

Blog 9: “the black peppercorn was special”

It seems that every long term job that I go on (two to three months), there is always something I find out about in the second half of the trip that would have made the first half way better. It might be a restaurant that has fantastic breadsticks or that my room key gets me six free wings at a sports bar (actually, the latter we knew about at the beginning of the job and took full advantage of it). Indeed, it happened again on this job.

For gold level members of the Marriott rewards program, you get access to the executive lounge on the tenth floor. Going into this job, I was a brand new member of Marriott's rewards program but after staying here ten days, I became a gold member. With that said, I thought I had to wait for the points in the program to apply to my stay before I officially became gold but apparently that's not true. A few nights ago, I finally checked out the executive lounge and I am a little upset I have not been visiting this place since my eleventh night here.

You walk into the lounge and are greeted by a guy that asks for your room number to verify you are clear to be in the lounge. I was cleared. The entire front and side walls of the room are windows and you get a really nice view of Chennai. At night, it has that Las Vegas effect I was talking about. The city just looks incredibly nice at night.

In front on me was a spread of appetizers: nachos and salsa, bruschetta, mini-sandwiches, and other things of that nature. Then, I looked to the left and there it was, lo and behold, free vodka, rum, whiskey, gin, and beer. What!? Really? Apparently my free vodka radar doesn't work if I am separated by more than four floors from it (my room is on the fifth floor). Well, this couldn't get much better, but then I looked next to that and there were onion rings! It was like for a split second I was back in America. There was also beef tenderloin with peppers, these fried mashed potato things, and chicken with crushed black peppercorn. The chicken with the black peppercorn was special because in the pepper shakers here, they only have white pepper. Sure, white pepper is good, but black pepper was one of those tastes that had eluded me for nearly forty days up until that point; and that is far too long.

Naturally, I poured myself a vodka and diet. Next, I grabbed a little bit of everything from the food buffet they had set up. Lastly, I found myself a comfy couch in front of a television and just forgot about the fact I was in India for a while. After downing the vodka and diet, I grabbed a whiskey and diet. After hanging out in the lounge for about a half hour to forty-five minutes, I decided it was time to head back tot he room.

Of course though, free alcohol beckons other people and there shows up a couple guys from the plant. We decided then it would be a fantastic idea to split a few Kingfishers (pretty much the official beer of Chennai) and b.s. for a while. A few beers in then, somehow euchre is brought up and two of the guys from Indianapolis challenge myself and a guy from Michigan to an “Indiana vs. the World” euchre match. We, of course, gladly accepted but we had a problem. We had, and still have, no cards. That is what I am on my way to do as I type this in the backseat of a Ford Ikon. I am on my way to find a deck of cards so I can show someone who is boss at euchre. I'll let you know how that turns out.

Hmm, that was an abrupt ending.

Blog 8: “number four with a bullet”

What it really comes down to is that one of the best parts about my job is experiencing food all over the place. My company will pay for my meals while I am out of town, assuming of course that the amount I spend is reasonable. This has afforded me the luxury to try a lot of different foods and expand the overall smorgasbord of things that I enjoy to consume. Sometimes I don't like what I get and when I am in America, I can just hop on over to a Taco Bell and still come in close to my food allowance for the day.

Up until this point, all of my traveling has been in the United States or Canada. Outside of Canadian's difficulty pronouncing words like “socks” (sawks), “sorry” (sore-ee), and “about” (a boat), there really is not anything too adventurous about being there. Sore-ee a boat ripping a hole in your sawks, buddy! One time I tried to have a serious (or maybe slightly drunken) conversation about the pronunciation of the word “socks” with some Canadians, real Canadians, the ones that live about eight hours north of the border. We shot back and forth how we would pronounce the word. Finally I looked over at Carl, my co-worker, and said “Okay, so how do you pronounce 'socks'?” What I should have seen was the massive bus coming that Carl was going to toss me under. He looks back with a straight face and says “Sawks, of course.” Fantastic. Canada – 1, America – 0. Don't even get me started on when we started arguing over the word “hockey.” I'm fairly confident I automatically lost that one since they pretty much invented the sport. Stupid hawkey. Canada – 2, America – 0.

Before getting into the food at the hotel, the plant, and things like that, I want to talk about foods that are common to both India and America. You can find potato chips, soft drinks like Pepsi and Coke, and bottled water like Aquafina in India with no problem. First off, the Aquafina tastes exactly the same as it does back home so that is not very exciting. The Pepsi, on the other hand, tastes different. I cannot quite put my finger on it, but it seems to have a more earthy taste to it, like there is something extra herb-y about it. That, or one of the ingredients is dirt. I have purposely only had two cans of Pepsi here for that reason. I did have a Diet Pepsi and it tasted a lot more like the Diet Pepsi that I know and love. Weird. I did check the nutrition label to read the ingredients and there were only four: carbonated water, sugar, natural and artificial flavors, and citric acid. I think I can say that dirt might fit under the heading “natural flavors.” Under that, there is the giant warning “CONTAINS CAFFEINE.” That's just in case you didn't know that most sodas contain caffeine.

Potato chips are one of those things that are extremely regional no matter where you go. The potato chip flavors are different in all countries to appeal more to the local tastes. Lays is specifically good at coming up with different flavors. For example, two flavors I found in Canada not available in America were All Dressed and Ketchup. First off, if you find All Dressed chips, buy them and love them. They are oil, onion, and red pepper flavored and one of the best chips flavors I've ever had. Ketchup, avoid that like the plague. It makes sense really, french fries get dipped in ketchup, right? So naturally, why wouldn't it make sense to flavor another fried potato like ketchup? Unless you are a fan of squirting packets of ketchup directly into you mouth, I reiterate, avoid these like the plague. On my list of top five things I regret most in life, right at number four with a bullet is getting Ketchup Lays instead of this bag of Doritos sitting right next to it. I am going to deflect blame to the kid in the pro shop that told me to get them because I would love them while all along knowing I was about to get duped. I bet he still laughs about that to this day.

They do have a couple potato chip flavors in India that are the same as back home but branded under different names. For example, American Style Cream and Onion is exactly the same as Sour Cream and Onion. The three chip flavors I have gotten the chance to indulge in and want to talk about are: Lime & Masala, Spanish Tomato Tango, and Caribbean Sweet 'N' Spicy Pepper.

After being in India for a while, you get used to most of the food having this one particular aftertaste. It's that same earthiness I was talking about when describing Pepsi. I am not sure if it is curry or a specific herb that is being used in the food, but it is there in nearly everything you eat. Lime & Masala flavored chips are the epitome of this. It was a weird experience eating these chips because at first when you eat them, you think, “Wow, these are good!” Then, as you keep chewing the taste evolves. It starts as this slightly spicy and zesty herb flavor spiked with a hint of lime. As the chewed chip remnants move towards the back of your mouth, ready to be swallowed, this overwhelming earthy herb taste fills your entire mouth. It's quite the sensation and amazing they can pack so many different taste experiences into one chip. It was also extremely hard to determine whether I liked it or not. I kept eating and finished the bag, thinking about quitting before I got to the end. I still had not determined by the time the bag was done whether I not I liked them or not. If it helps you figure it out at all, I haven't bought the chips again since then.

Spanish Tomato Tango, where do I start with you? I know exactly where. You are the equally evil cousin of Ketchup Lays. I'm never eating you again. I should have known with the word “Tomato” in the flavor name. Duped again!

As the saying goes, I saved the best for last. Caribbean Sweet 'N' Spicy Pepper is where it is at! Let me tell you, they are better than All Dressed chips. There is a flavor of Ruffles I remember fondly from my childhood simply called Cajun Style. They were and still are my favorite chip flavor of all time. Then they stopped making them. My second of all time is 1/3 Less Fat BBQ Pringles. Then they stopped making them (and no Reduced Fat BBQ is not the same). My third favorite of all time isn't even a potato chip but Pepperoni Pizza flavor Pizzerias made by those Keebler elves. Then they stopped making them. I can keep this going... My favorite band ever is Virgos Merlot. Then they broke up. My favorite 5-Piece dipping sauce ever at Wendy's is Sweet and Spicy Hawaiian. Then they stopped making it. My favorite soup at Quizno's of all time is Corn and Chicken Chowder. Then the franchisees voted on it and they stopped making it. Here's the deal, your best bet is to avoid anything I like because sooner or later it is going to become a thing of the past. I'm 100% surprised that Moe's Southwest Grill hasn't gone belly up yet. I give it 5 years.

Immediately upon gently placing a Caribbean Sweet 'N' Spicy chip on my tongue, I was instantly transported back to when I was three years old. I am sitting at this glass table my parents used to have in our dining room with a half eaten bag of Cajun Style Ruffles sitting just out of my reach if I am sitting in the chair. Because of this, I am sitting on my knees, leaning over the table and grabbing a handful of Ruffles. All the while my trusty can of Pepsi is sitting to my right, ready to fan the flames of the Cajun Style chips in case they get a bit too intense. You know, America's tastes are really shifting towards spicier foods. Taco Bell has the Volcano menu, Burger King has introduced the Angry Whopper and Angry Chicken Sandwich, and Wendy's has dominated the scene for quite a while with their Spicy Chicken Sandwich (and have you had the new Spicy 5-Piece!? Buddy, let me tell ya!). What I am trying to say is that this is a plea to Ruffles to consider putting Cajun Style back on the market, maybe branded under a new and more hip sounding name.

When eating a Caribbean Sweet 'N' Spicy chip, the first thing you get is a bit of spice at the front of your tongue but your mind quickly shifts to the very subtle sweetness near the middle of your mouth. At the end, you get the wonderful taste of potato as the chip has come completely together as one of the best chips out there. As you eat more, the spiciness comes a little more to the forefront and the sweet flavor takes a bit of a backseat. I love these chips and I hope to buy ten bags of them before I come home. That will only cost me 100 INR, or about $2.25. Jackpot.

The food at the hotel has been a really nice assortment of Indian food and Indian versions of what could be American foods. Before I say anything, what I have discovered is that if there is a dessert in India and the name ends with “pudding,” you are in for a treat. It's not like pudding we know, like the Jello pudding endorsed by Bill Cosby back in the day. This stuff is closer to a bread pudding. Think of a cake but ten times more moist. Moist to a point where some of it is like a syrup while other parts are closer to cake. Indian puddings have scooted up right behind crème brulee as my second favorite dessert ever. Sorry butter sugar cookies, you've fallen to number three. So far, I have had the pleasure of indulging in Choco Pudding, Walnut Pudding, Almond Pudding, Carrot Pudding, Date Pudding, Honey and Ginger Pudding, Apple Pudding, Pear Pudding, Coconut Pudding, and Banana Pudding. And they all made me swoon like a girl at an *N'Sync concert. And I'm not even a big banana fan!

I have also had my share of curried chicken and curried mutton. I like the chicken better. They have a weird habit of leaving broken bones in chicken here. That is my only problem with eating some of the chicken dishes, avoiding bones. Also, one of the big Indian staples, other than rice, are pickles. And no, not pickles like dill pickles. Here, they take herbs and roast them, then take an ingredient like garlic and pickle it with vinegar and the herbs. It turns out awesome and spicy. They also have mango pickle that doesn't really taste like mangos but is more just super spicy.

With all of the spicy foods here, you may be wondering about my bathroom habits. I am happy to report that everything has been coming out solid except for one time. I am also more regular here than at home so that is a bonus. Oh, you weren't wondering about that? Sorry about that.

Flat breads are a must at most Indian meals. The wait staff as the Paprika Cafe at the hotel have introduced me to garlic naan which is absolutely what is up. It's really just a flat bread drizzled with some olive oil and some minced garlic. The flat bread is then toasted a bit and then serves only as a medium to transport garlic to my mouth. I love garlic. I have to throw major props to the waiters at the restaurant for introducing me to garlic naan and bringing me chilled Qua (bottled water) every night without even having to ask. Eswar, Barath, Mahesh – you guys are some of the coolest Indians I've ever met.

Breakfast at the hotel has been pretty standard. My usual breakfast is bacon, these stuffed flat breads, oatmeal, and potatoes. They are all terrific. The one thing I do not eat is the chicken sausage. Chicken sausage looks like they cut a little fat kid's thumbs off and are feeding them to you too. It also sort of feels like that when you are eating them too. I'm not a cannibal so you can quit asking yourself how I know what that feels like. I just know. Imagine a small white tube of meat about two inches long that has the texture of a hotdog in your mouth. It makes me shutter thinking about it. Gross.

That brings me to lunch at the plant. We've all watched cartoons or sitcoms that depict the horrors of fictional high school cafeterias with the obese lunch ladies and the moles all over their faces. Usually, they sniffle to make sure that little bit of snot and boogers poking out of their nostrils doesn't fall into your food. That's pretty considerate I guess. Their teeth are yellow and they always look angry as they dip their ladles into buckets of unidentified glop. Okay, so I always thought things like this didn't exist. At my high school, we had some fairly decent food options like a snack bar where you could buy bagels and/or bags of chips (a staple of my high school lunch diet was an everything bagel with a layer of Nacho Cheesier Doritos stuffed in the middle – DELICIOUS). We had two different lunch lines, one usually with the healthier sandwich bar option and the other with the more unhealthy counterparts of Itza Pizza, french fries, and mashed potatoes and gravy (you could get french fries with gravy on them if your heart desired and normally your heart did desire).

Okay, well lunch at the plant is sort of like the first half of the previous paragraph but instead of gross lunch ladies, there are some fairly regular looking Indians doing the food serving. You start out with a metal tray about one foot by one and a half feet in dimensions. The front two-thirds of the tray has two sections, one about a third of the size of the other. The larger side is for the main course and the second side is for the large side dish. On the back one-third of the tray, there are four circular compartments all the same diameter.

So I have this metal tray in hand and it is wet from washing it so I grab a paper napkin and wipe the water off. I have been trying to avoid the water here unless it is bottled because they always say to not drink native water in lesser developed countries. Next, I grab a fork and spoon and wipe any excess water off of those too. After that, you come to two big pots with lids. “I wonder what is in those?” I ask myself. The first lid is removed and the guy pulls out two flat breads and sticks them in the smaller of the two large compartments on the lunch tray. The next lid is removed and inside is a huge mound of white rice. The guy then proceeds to scoops an unbelievably large amount of rice into the larger compartment. Whoa whoa whoa, there buddy! One scoop would have been fine, so in response I have been waving my hand after one scoop since that first fateful day. There are guys at the plant, likely because this will be their biggest meal of the day, who have them keep piling on the rice. It's too much rice. Some of the equipment operators at the plant have asked me what a typical meal is like in the States. That is a really a hard question to answer when someone unfamiliar with our lifestyle asks it. Think about it, how would you answer what you typically have for dinner every night? We are lucky enough at home to have access to nearly every ethnic food out there, sure some of it has been Americanized, but still has its roots in another country. If you are like me, you are having Mexican one night, a steak the next, Italian the next, maybe some Chinese takeout the next, perhaps some wings and a few beers to round out the week. Well, after doing my best to explain all of the food options we have, he then asks me how often I eat rice. I think really hard about it and think that probably once a week on average sounds about right. After I said that, his eyes grew wide with disbelief, “You only eat rice once a week!?” Here, like many cultures, rice is at every single meal. EVERY meal, which is probably why they have pickle to make it less boring.

Okay, now I have the front two-thirds of my tray filled with flat bread and rice. Next in line? Here is where I am transported to that loveable sitcom based in the 1960's and the confrontation between good and evil, our show's star and the lunch lady. I'm probably referencing The Wonder Years there. In my formative years, Winnie Cooper was where it was at! Who's with me? That's right, I see you! Anyway, the lids are removed from the buffet/banquet style metal serving dishes. You know the type, the kind they keep warm with a big pool of hot water underneath. Inside, there are two vats of something I am still unsure of what it is. One looks like baby diarrhea and the other looks like Hawaiian pizza after it has been thrown up by a drunk college kid – yes, I have seen that before.

I looked at them both for the first three days I was there and passed on them immediately. Now, I eat them. They actually taste good and are kind of like a gravy with a few vegetables here and there. I grabbed one ladle and started pouring it over my rice and the guy behind the counter waves me off and says “No, that is for the bread!” I look at the other and he says “That is for the rice.” Well, hell, I guess I should have known that.

Next down the line, there is a revolving guest star such as potatoes in curry and Indian spices or fried onions or cauliflower. That goes into a circular section of the tray. Then you can get a banana if you are a big banana fan. Bananas here are about half the size they are in a America. It's kind of funny to see. Grapes are also skinnier than the grapes I usually eat. They are about the same length, but half the width.

After that comes something that I have become quite fond of (never end a sentence with a preposition). If you have ever had the wonderful potato snack called Munchos, imagine a giant unsalted Muncho, about six inches in diameter. They usually have a giant bowl of those at the end of the cafeteria line. If I had salt, I would just salt those things up and eat giant Munchos for lunch.

All in all, the food here has been really good. I still find myself missing food back home though. The things that stand out are buffalo wings, Mexican food, and delivery style pizza. If I could only find a restaurant that serves those... Speaking of buffalo wings, when I told a guy at the plant that we eat those, his eyes got wide and said “Not many people here eat buffalo or cows.” I then had to explain what wings really are and why they are called buffalo wings. Ahh, let's wrap this up with the quote that has overseen this entire blog so far: “Calm as Hindu cows.”

Blog 7: “they found a jackpot of trash”

Stupid. That is the single word that comes to mind when I think of driving in India. To be quite honest, I am hella-glad that my company was willing to pay for me to have a driver while I am out here. It makes me so glad, that I, in a rare act, used “hella-” to modify an adjective. Before I get on with this blog about what it is like to drive in India, I need to pull a Hilary Duff and come clean on something. At the end of the last blog, I said that I went to bed on my first night ready to begin my India adventure the following day. Well, for the sake of efficient story telling, that was a bit of a white lie. A white lie though, really isn't that bad, right? I mean, white is right, you know? Orrrr, uhh... Apparently I forgot to leave white supremacist Joe back in the States.

In all seriousness though, my first actual day here was spent trying to adjust to the ten and a half hour time difference. I pretty much had to reverse my entire sleep pattern because of it. The first night I was awake until about 6:30AM (8:00PM at home) and slept until about 4:30PM (6:00AM at home). I got up, checked out what was on the television, had some dinner, and then was right back in bed a little before 10:00PM (11:30AM at home). I woke up at 5:30AM (7:00PM at home) the next morning, ready to truly start my India adventure. I find that just adding 1.5 hours to my current time and flip-flopping the AM and PM works the best for converting back to Eastern Standard Time. It is way easier than subtracting ten and a half hours, for real. If I convert from AM to PM, I know it is still yesterday at home and if I convert from PM to AM, it is the same day here and home.

I met up with my co-worker for breakfast and we discussed what was on the schedule to be completed at work that day. We wrapped up eating, I headed back up to my room for a few, then it was time to go to work. We walked outside under the canopy and informed this man out at a podium of the room number our car was registered under. A white Ford Ikon pulled around under the canopy and a man dressed in all white got out and opened the doors for us and put our laptop bags in the trunk. The man in white hopped back into the driver seat and pulled around to the big metal gate at the exit of the hotel. A guard opened it and the stupidity began.

So, this car is coming down the road that the hotel is on. He is driving fast and... Our driver pulls out in front of the guy. Seriously!? This is where I wish my keyboard had the interrobang symbol. The interrobang, for those unaware of the grammar hispters who tried to make it an official punctuation mark in the 60's, is a marriage of the exclamation point and the question mark. Imagine that the exclamation point and the question mark were sharing the same dot and the rest of the symbol overlapped. Or you could not use your imagination and look at the picture at the end of the blog. I decided not to include the picture immediately after this paragraph so you would have to use your imagination when I said “Imagine” at the beginning of my sentence a little earlier. I, in a subtle way, just had mind control over you. I had mind control in the same way I think I have mind control over people when I am at a stop light and I inch forward a little bit. Then I glance in my rearview mirror and watch the person behind me begin to inch forward once I come to a stop. Pwned, sucker.

Right, so this guy is barreling down the road, coming straight at us, and our driver pulls out. The guy swerves and honks his horn a number of times, but nothing other than that. The guy didn't look at our driver and give him the whole hand, nor did he stare at him with his mouth agape. Nope, he just honked his horn a few times, didn't bother to look at the “idiot” that just cut him off, and continued on his merry way. I laughed nervously as I realized we had just avoided a car accident. Jeff, my traveling companion, was unfazed. I thought that was curious, but eventually I would learn there was nothing to be curious about.

We rounded a corner down a little alleyway and to a busier street. We turned left onto the next street that took us behind the hotel. This is where some of the slums/high-population housing is. It makes you amazed that people live this way – a way that I'll get to in another blog. I'm going to continue on with this blog for now about the Stupid. I call driving the Stupid in the same way I began calling this auxiliary piece of equipment to one of our pieces of equipment at the plant the Broken because, well, it was broken. It was so broken, that it was fixed once, we found out it was still broken, fixed it again, and it might be broken again as far as I know. Let me wrap up this portion of the story by saying that the Broken was by no means my or any of my co-worker's fault. I am pretty sure someone just decided it might be a good idea to hit it with a forklift while driving haphazardly around the plant.

If you have experienced the glaringly obvious difference in Ohio highways to Michigan highways (a perfect example being the drastic change on I-75 at the border), you have an idea of how jarring the sudden change can be. Here, road quality is just bad everywhere. It actually makes me realize just how much beating a car can take. We have hit potholes worse than anything I have ever seen back home. We have driven across medians to get to another road we needed to be on. Every time it sounds like the frame of the car just cracked, or surely at least the car bottomed out. But no, the car just keeps on chugging along like a trooper. Oh, and is that a tree growing out of the road? Yes, yes it is. At least they painted a black and white checker pattern around part of the trunk to make it more visible and help you avoid it.

Suddenly I hear what sounds like a cross between farting and the Hamster Dance. A small yellow rickshaw, called an auto, zooms up next to me. It is a three-wheeled little cart that steers like a scooter. The tailpipe is a measly three-quarters of an inch in diameter (this probably accounts for the farting while listening to the Hamster Dance effect). There is a backseat for passengers and a sticker reminding the driver that this auto runs on LPG (liquified petroleum gas) instead of diesel or regular gas. He doesn't have any passengers at the moment and I sure didn't want to be one in there. Who would? Have you seen the traffic out there? Of course, on another one of my adventures, I would get brave enough to become a passenger in one of the autos.

After driving down a street lined with autos, people walking around aimlessly, some of them brushing their teeth, and seeing a few dogs chase each other around, we made another quick left and returned to an intersection on the same road our hotel was on. It was time to make a right. Now, the only reason I knew this was the road our hotel was on was because I had a reasonable enough understanding of the area and the spatial ability to figure it out. If I would have been looking for a street sign to figure out that this was the same road, this quest would have ended in miserable failure. No street signs, no problem. At least not for the ridiculous number of people on the road.

The ridiculous number of people on the road, you say? Yeah, the ridiculous number of people on the road, I say. When you pull up to an intersection in India, forget about lanes. Sure, sometimes the good folks of IDOT (India Department of Transportation – I doubt it is actually called that to tell you the truth. Heck, I doubt there is even a remotely organized department dedicated to transportation here. Why? Because to have a remotely organized department of transportation, you should have a remotely organized set of roads to drive on. India does not) paint lines to try to make unwitting people from slightly more developed countries think there are rules to follow, but there aren't. I just included an entire paragraph's worth of information in a set of parentheses. What other blog can you find that in?

So you pull up to an intersection and suddenly it is a mad dash to try to find a spot to wait in. This road may technically be a six lane road (three going one way, three the other), but you are going to see a whole lot more than three cars jamming into those lanes on either side. One, two, three, sometimes four people all jammed on a motorcycle will navigate between cars in any open spots they can find to get the optimal starting position when the light turns green again. And that's another funny thing, the traffic lights. I still cannot figure out when it is and when it is not necessary to obey the traffic signals. My driver has gone through red lights, stopped at red lights, but has never stopped at green lights. Apparently stop lights here are like STOP signs that have white borders around them: they are optional. He has stopped for a traffic cop holding a wand with red blinking LEDs up and down the sides though.

Packed like sardines is the perfect phrase for sitting at a stop light on the roads. It's amazing how well these drivers know their vehicle dimensions. For example, my driver has his passenger side mirror turned in, so that means he is not using it. His rearview mirror is pointed right at his face. I am pretty sure he cannot see out the back window at all. Does it matter though? Not really. They say in America to always practice defensive driving and be aware of your surroundings. In India, they must tell you to practice offensive driving and if there is someone else near you, they will probably honk.

The honking, it's going to haunt me for years. Around 5:30AM you will hear a honk. Thirty seconds later, another honk. Eventually, 6:00AM rolls around and you hear a honk every two to three seconds. Wait until about 7:00AM and there's constant honking. Back home, honking is to let someone know they did something or are about to do something stupid and also to honk “hello” to Ricky when you see him on the sidewalk (that's a Mitch Hedberg reference if you are counting). Here, honking is to make people aware of their surroundings. If you are going to pass a dump truck, you honk. If you are going to pass someone and you are in their blind spot, you honk. If you have nothing better to do, you honk, because, well, if you weren't honking, it just wouldn't sound the same in India. Best I can tell, about half of the drivers here really care if a nearby driver is honking. They will take heed and get back into their “lane” (read: area of the road) if they hear you honk. Other people, they just cut you off. Usually this applies to buses and dump trucks because they are bigger than the cars. The car I was in was one time run off the road and into the grass by a dump truck that just didn't care.

Speaking of not caring, I'll drop the inevitable Fight Club reference again when Tyler Durden says “calm as Hindu cows.” That guy was not lying. Cows are pretty much allowed to do whatever they want here. They can also go wherever they want. Would you like to know where “wherever” is? Sure you would. “Wherever” could easily mean the street. Cows stand or sit in the road without a care in the world. Maybe they found a jackpot of trash that also happens to have some food in it. Or maybe they just found some paper that also seems to be delicious. Cows just don't care in India because they don't have to. You probably have a much better chance of being involved in a human vs. automobile car accident than you ever would a cow vs. automobile accident.

Let's pretend you are driving down the road at 50 km/h because that's about the fastest you will ever go. The average speed I probably drive home at is 20 km/h which is sluggishly slow. So, you are driving in India and then this group of cows with this blank look in their eyes just walk out onto the road. Cows ALWAYS have this blank look in their eyes. I have tried to examine their eyes as we pass them and I cannot make out any whites in their eyes. They are like a pit of black blankness. Oh, and their mouths NEVER stop chewing either. This group of cows with blank looks on their face walk out on the road chewing and chewing and chewing. You have three options: 1) stop, 2) swerve, or 3) honk. My guess, if you were Indian, you are going to do a combination of 1 and 3. Swerving likely isn't an option because there is still a good chance you could hit that cow.

Now, let's pretend you are no longer in that car. You are trying to cross the road in India. You are trying to cross four lanes of traffic and here comes six cars abreast down the road. What is going to happen? Well, three cars will ultimately win a game of chicken with the other cars and quickly zoom ahead to cut off the other drivers and swerve around you. Two of the cars just missed clipping you by two inches. The other three cars that lost the game of the Stupid chicken, will quickly slam on their brakes, begin to cut their wheel to make a move around you but have to stop completely. Next, you are gonna get glares and, you guessed it, a barrage of honks. A barrage of honks directed at you and only you. But really, this is all your fault in the first place because you decided to jaywalk in India. Bad idea, friend.

After a while, all the quick maneuvering, close calls, cutting people off, being cut off, and nearly being run off the road becomes commonplace in your mind. This is why I should not have found it curious that Jeff was unfazed by us pulling out in front of another car when first leaving the hotel. I have been privileged to have three different drivers out here and each has a slightly different profile of driving abilities. My main guy Ramesh Babu (who is the man, by the way) is very aggressive. He will find a way to magically fit his car anywhere it needs to be. Two buses with what appears to be four and a half feet between them. No problem at all, that car is going to fit. Now, my usual substitute driver is a little bit more cautious and a bit older. I've found after getting used to Ramesh's driving style that I was getting frustrated with the substitute's driving. Normally in America, I would be furious if I got cut off, plus I would never dream of cutting someone off. Here, I find myself rooting for our driver to cut people off. If I see a spot that I think the car may be just small enough to fit in, I'm thinking “Go for it! Who cares if we are trying not to get squished between a dump truck and large concrete barrier?”

The thing is, with all of the crazy driving here, there are a surprisingly low number of accidents. The Indian culture is just exceptionally good at seeing what is ahead of them in the road and avoiding it, even if it just so happens to be oncoming traffic. Yep, I have even been in the car driving straight into oncoming traffic for several kilometers and I have lived to tell about it. Needless to say, Indians are probably really good at the video games in the Burnout series. I guess they have been slightly helped by these random signs the Chennai Traffic Police have put in the road that say “Caution: Accident Prone Area.” Then again, these signs were placed right in the middle of the road and you must swerve to avoid them. Best I can figure out, these signs would cause more accidents than prevent them, but I digress.

To sum up: Driving in India, it's stupid.

Blog 7: “they found a jackpot of trash” Deleted Scenes:

I have seen signs that say “Wear Helmet to Avoid Death” here. That's good to know. If you see this guy coming,

just put on your helmet and you'll be A-okay.

Here is a video I took of driving in India. This video doesn't do it justice, you really need to be here to get it. There is certainly a lack of honking and swerving and general chaos that I was unable to capture.

Say hello to the interrobang.

Blog 6: “the two-handed credit card grab trick.”

It is 1:30 in the morning. Imagine hearing “na na na” repeated over and over and over again by 400 or 500 Indians. Some of them are holding signs with people's names and company names. Others are just standing there repeating “na na na.” Okay, so maybe they weren't just all standing there saying “na na na” on repeat but when there is a large gathering of people speaking a language you do not understand (or a broken version of your native language) it all starts to jumble together as “na na na.”

As I stood outside the automatic door, I was a little overwhelmed by this sight. I was separated from this massive crowd by a metal fence. The crowd was about 4 or 5 people deep and continued down the length of the fence about 200 feet. I began to walk along the fence while reading as many of the signs as I could. Finally, I located a man holding a sign with my name and the Courtyard by Marriott's logo neatly above it. My name was on a sign, I had finally made it in this world!

I pointed at the guy and then that guy and the guy behind him both pointed at themselves. They also both mouthed “ME?” at me. I redirected my eyesight to the guy behind my guy with the sign, waved my hand and said “No!” I then directed my eyesight back at the guy holding the sign with my name on it and said “You!” The guy behind my guy with the sign then looked at the ground, apparently upset that I was not his guy. The guy with my sign then pointed at himself again and smiled, I smiled, and he waved me towards the end of the metal fence to where the gaggle of Indians ended. Was that paragraph confusing enough?

We walked together, separated by the metal fencing. When I say metal fencing, picture queue lines at an amusement park. This was where I got my first look at what India was all about. India at night was now mine to behold. To my right was a large construction wall. The driver told me in broken English that some construction was going on behind that wall but I could not understand what he said it was they were building. Two armed guards with semi-automatics stood at the entrance of the construction wall. Along the curbs on our way to the parking lot, trash littered the drive. Something India could really benfit from is some kind of littering fine. You know how sometimes you will be walking down the street and used cigarette butts are in the road near the curb? Okay, now imagine that instead of cigarette butts, it is water bottles, wrappers, fruit rinds, and so on. We came to a crosswalk and the driver told me to wait there with my baggage while he went to get the car. The driver disappeared into the parking lot of about 150-200 cars.

The driver emerged from the parking lot with a silver Courtyard by Marriott minivan. The driver got out of the right side of the vehicle... Oh yeah, I thought, “They drive on the other side of the road here.” He grabbed my bag and tossed it in the back of the minivan and we were off.

The road out of the airport was congested with cars. All of them trying to leave at the same time. The concept of waiting in a line and staying in a lane is completely lost on the people here. I intend to upload a video in a future blog all about driving here so you can have a better idea of just how crazy it is. There is a single word that describes driving here, I'll let you in on that when I get to the driving blog. By my calculations, that should be the next one I do.

Every car that was trying to leave was jammed into this area big enough for what would normally allow four lanes of traffic. The only difference, there were about 9 cars across this road, all of them trying to get out of the airport. Finally, our driver was able to navigate out to the main road. In a stark contrast to the airport exit, the roads to the hotel were considerably empty.

I started the typical conversation starter with the driver that you use when you don't know someone. “So, the weather here is much warmer than it is back home.” Blah blah blah. Just then, I saw a giant tank to my left. Whoa! Oh wait, nevermind, that's just an army training center... With a tank out front! We continued and I got to see what Chennai was about at night. Chennai is a city that looks very nice at night. There are no tall skyscrapers here. The largest building I have seen is probably about 10 floors, the size of a modest business building. There is a lot of neon and rope lighting on the buildings that make things look quite exciting. That doesn't last during the day though. If you have ever been to downtown Las Vegas, you will know what I am talking about. During the day, downtown is pretty dumpy. At night though, the glowing neon cowboy and cowgirl are the backdrop to the glittering lights of the casinos. Of course, a better description of the city is for another blog.

A half hour or so after leaving the airport, we arrive at the hotel. The hotel has a large metal gate with three guards and a dog standing outside. A guard takes a look inside the minivan to make sure no shenanigans are going on. Meanwhile, another guard walks the dog all the way around the van. Don't forget about the third guard! He has a large mirror on a little push cart. He pushes the cart under the minivan to make sure there is nothing suspicious under the van. You know, like a bomb. That's comforting. I hand the driver 200 INR (approximatey $4.50 US) and thank him for the ride.

This is a view of the outside of the hotel (notice they don't show street level because it's not pretty - try to search chennai courtyard by marriott on Google and see what you get) and where I eat breakfast and dinner nearly everyday.

The canopy to the hotel has a nice glass window with water streaming down it. Fancy. I tote my rolling bag and laptop bag under the canopy and hand it off to one of the guys waiting. He tosses my bags onto an x-ray machine. I am then directed to a metal detector and promptly get wanded the guy waiting on the other side after proving I have no metal on me in the metal detector. The lady operating the x-ray machine looks over at me with a bit of concern on her face. Being a field service engineer means that you regularly carry tools in your luggage. Metallic tools. I quickly assured her that I only had my normal travel things and tools in the bag and she okayed my bag for entry into the hotel. That was easy. As I typed that, I heard the Easy Button voice in my head.

The man who wanded me opens the front door to the hotel and there is another cool water feature where water pours down the walls of the breezeway. Another hotel employee opens the next door for me and I proceed to the check-in desk.

After doing all the initial pleasantries and getting everything together, it was time to get my credit card on file. This is where I made my first Indian culture mistake. As I got my card out of my wallet and began to hand it to the clerk, I had only one hand on the card. He reached out both hands and grabbed the front two corners of the card, one in each hand. Oops, I forgot that when you hand things like that over, business cards, credit cards, you are supposed to use both your hands and “present” the card to the other party involved in the transaction. As the clerk handed the card back to me, I quickly adjusted to the culture and did the two-handed credit card grab trick. Good job, me.

I made my way to the three elevators and pressed the up arrow button. One of the elevators opened and I rode it to the fifth floor and headed out to room 532. I slid the keycard in the door and opened it up to try to see my home for the next few weeks. By this time it was just after two in the morning and I began fumbling around the room to find a light. What the hell? Do they not put light switches in rooms in India? After about what seemed like five minutes, but was in reality twenty seconds, looking for a light switch, I turned back to the door and opened it to let the light in from the hall. Just then, I saw this contraption about the size of a deck of playing cards on the wall with a slit in it. Under the slit, there was a small red arrow lit up and pointing downward. Well, at this point in time, I had an epiphany. That slit looks just big enough to fit my room keycard. And just like the cartoony light bulb that turns on when you have an epiphany, when I stuck my key into the slit, every single light in my room turned on.

As a celebrated in my discovery of how to work the lights, I also thought about how incredibly unnecessary it was for this thing to turn on every single light in my room. Next to the keycard holder, there was another deck of cards contraption. This one had buttons that said “Vestibule,” “TV Lamp,” “Bed Lamp,” and “Luggage Lamp.” I began pressing the buttons and lights in the room began to turn off and on. I put my luggage in the designated luggage area and plugged in my laptop with my international plug converter. I made a quick call to Krista on Skype and headed to bed. I found another deck of cards-sized light switch under my bed lamp that also controlled the lights. How convenient, I could climb into bed and at the touch of a button, kill all the lights in the room (and turn on a night light!). All the lights were out and I fell asleep, preparing to truly begin my India adventure the next day.