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.”