My Old Blog

I’m losing pretty badly to India. It is a tough competitor, difficult to pin down exactly the strategy its using to humiliate me over and over. Everytime I think I score a small victory, India finds a way to snatch it from my grip.

Take today for instance:

Everyday we are driven to and from work. Everyday I wonder whether someone will be there to pick me up. We all complained because very often we get left without transportation, so (to my company’s credit) they changed our transportation vendor after many useless meetings and broken promises. Regardless, I was rid of Routes (the name of the vendor)……..but then India stepped in to thwart me.

Before it was just Routes, so if anything went wrong I could call them and lose my temper…not that it did any good since they still never showed up, but there was at least the illusion that it might have an impact.

The new arrangement is that if you are on a fixed schedule you go through the hotel, if you need something different you will get a spot rental through a new vendor. If you need to get yourself on a schedule you send an Excel spreadsheet to either the secretary, or one of the two travel desks, who then communicate the information to people at the hotel or new spot-rental vendor. Thus far there is no way to contact the car companies directly so outside of business hours if your schedule changes you just need to pray that a car shows up. And remember, this is the IMPROVED way of getting to and from work.

So we complain that transportation sucks and it gets changed, but then India steps in and ensures that the new arragement is actually worse than the original. But the real kicker is this: The hotel actually subcontracts its transportation as well…….to Routes.

So we replaced Routes with Routes and added a few layers of complexity and more points of contact in the process. Now I don’t even know who to yell at when things to go wrong…and they always do. Like this morning: 1 car for six people.

On the way out the door I give detailed instructions to the smiling vacant faces at Guest Services on where I want to redeem my Taj Inner Cirle Rewards points. I could write a whole book on the Taj points debacle. By the way, debacle and fiasco have become my new favorite words.

The girl promises me everything and I tell her in advance, “Don’t call me and tell me that you’re sorry, but X or Y and Z. That’s all you people ever do is tell me what you CAN’T do. I have like a billion Taj points but I can’t redeem them anywhere. What good are they then??” My ire is already up. That is before we fit into the car like clowns into a phone booth.

We stop at Citibank at the ATM. It is out of money. We stop at a different one. It asks you to swipe your card and then you put in your pin number and then at the end right before the money comes out, it asks you to swipe your card again. Why??? Has my card somehow changed in the intervening 13 seconds since I inserted it the first time?? Did it expire maybe? India….that’s what it is. Complicating everything, with cable TV in the ATM booth but no trash can to put your receipts in, so everyone just throws them on the floor.

I have alot of papers on my desk at work in a very Elliott-centric filing system that works for me, but falls apart if someone moves my stuff…..so I got someone to write a post-it note in Hindi for the cleaners that says “Don’t touch the papers on this desk while cleaning.” All the cleaners know how to read Hindi….I asked.

Every flipping day my papers are moved, stacked neatly in weird places, far away from where they were the day before. They even pull up the post-it note from where it is taped and stack that too, so they obviously look at it. I got someone to write the note on a large piece of paper too and highlighted it with stars and tacked it up on the wall of my workspace….no dice. It isn’t the cleaners that move my shit everynight…..its India. It sneaks in and mocks my puny efforts to get something done……and it steals my damn pens.

So a Fortune 500 company should have more right?? Nope. We’ve all got great new computers and videoconferencing and ergonomic chairs….but nothing to write with. Pens are like currency in the office they are so scarce. I’ve only found one place on our two floors that has them, and they are locked up. They used to be in a different place when I first arrived, but India moved that and now I have to find someone to unlock the secret Pen Cabinet.

You think I’m making this shit up, but I’m not.

So they give us cell phones too. Mine sucks and the battery dies after less than 24 hours, so I can’t ever call anyone at night to fuss when my car doesn’t show up. I just borrow someone else’s phone. So I asked about getting a new battery thinking I would get the upper-hand, you know, score 1 for Elliott……how do you think that ended up? I got the battery….but it dies in a day too. They just replaced one old crappy battery with another one. I know how they got the replacement battery too. It was one another person had given back to them after making the same complaint I just had. Score another one for India.

Then there is the meeting room fiasco. You’re supposed to reserve your rooms in advance through this computer system we have that is fairly easy to use. Indians don’t do well with the concept of “in advance” so they just squat the rooms, or put a post-it note on the door saying its reserved like 2 minutes before they’re about to use it. This adds to my general feeling of panic during the day when I know nothing will ever happen in India.

Since I coach lots of people, I need large rooms…usually with projectors. I schedule these meetings days in advance and prepare and everything is ready, but then some group is in our fucking room when the time comes. It never fails.

So I started reserving through computer and with a post-it note. They don’t care about the computer reservation and they remove the post-it note….smiling the whole time like they’ve accomplished something just because they were able to get everyone together in one place, never mind they stole my room.

Then I got someone to be accountable for the rooms, so I would have someone to yell at when stuff went wrong. It doesn’t matter though, people are still there. They were there today too…..and the projector didn’t work. Nothing ever works. These rooms have hundreds of plugs and outlets….all useless. They like run an extension cord from the utility closet next door, and want you to thank them when they drag in a ten pound voltage converter from 1950 to help you plug in your American laptop, when the entire room is wired with American plugs….if only they worked.

So I kick the other people out of the room, and we start and then my phone rings. Everyone leaves their cell phones on in India, even in meetings, and they always answer them, no matter what. So I’ve started doing it too.

Its one of the Guest Services minions. They are useless, so I brace myself for what I already knew was coming: They cannot book my room with my inner circle points. That hotel is booked till next year. Which is complete bullshit.

Its like when I went to Amritsar and tried to buy a train ticket back to Delhi and they told me every train was sold out….impossible. We were booking two days in advance and Indians never do anything in advance. Of course we did catch the train back to Delhi….and of course it wasn’t full. India had temporarily bought all the tickets and was laughing at me. India squats my rooms too, and is hoarding my pens. I bet it runs Routes as well.

I “talk” to the Guest Services girl for a while and give her more detailed instructions which I am sure she then promptly forgot….I’m still waiting to see what happens. I can already say for certain though that Taj Inner Circle is the devil and I’m not even sure the program really exists. Last Saturday we were out at a bar jamming to a techno version of Livin’ On A Prayer by Bon Jovi with the guys from the bomb squad and we met a girl that had just been hired by Taj Inner Circle. I could not laugh hard enough. I told her to run…quickly.

So I’ll skip stories about my actual work day…which should be the most stressful time of day….but it certainly isn’t. Work is easy compared to everything else.

Its time to go home then….so I get on the elevator. The elevators are great. Like everything in India, there are a great many of them, but which one will actually get you what you want?? There is the rub.

There are 8 elevators but the buttons to call the elevators do not call ALL the elevators, but just some of them. So you have to go press all the buttons. The elevators, in true Indian fashion, are spaced in such a way that you can’t see them all from one location, so you never know if one of the doors is opening or not. You have to keep turning around and walking back and forth to know if something arrives.

Well…the bell dings if a door opens, but it also dings if the elevator changes floors, and the walls are thinly insulated so you can hear the bells dinging for the floor above and below….so basically the damn thing dings all the time and never know if an elevator is there or not.

Also, only 4 of the elevators go to the parking garages, but everyone gets picked up/dropped off on these floors, so really only 4 elevators are useful. I find it quicker to take the elevator to zero, get out, walk outside, and then down some stairs to the parking levels. Score another one for India.

But what good does it do me to get to the parking level, because the car is never there. So you have to start making phone calls to all the foreigners and then the car people. I don’t even know who to call about the cars anymore….and my battery is always dead anyway and recpetion is shit on the parking levels. I usually just take my anti-seizure medicine and rock and back and forth in the corner like an invalid. Score some more for India.

Today the car actually showed up, but there were three of them instead of one. And one of them was for a girl at another hotel, but they called us to say the car was here…..or maybe India called.

Yeah…the ride home. That’s great too. No one obeys the traffic laws. No one drives in the lanes. Indian drivers seem to think its some kind of race or video game. They have these nifty street signs that say “Lane Driving is Safe Driving”, as if people need to be reminded that it is dangerous to fit 4 cars across on a two lane road.

And all the trucks say “Please Honk” on them. That is how they keep from hitting each other when they drive with a death wish. They constantly honk as if to say “Hello, my horn still works”. I saw two transfer trucks hit each other tonight in a fit of glass and bent metal. It was a non-incident. No one cared.

To give an idea how bad it is, you just have to look for the puke. The driving is so erratic, so stop and go, the roads so full of potholes….that people often get carsick, and they just puke out the windows and you see it on the sides of cars, buses, and public transport. Unless the view is blocked by the cows, or people peeing on the side of the street, or the family of 5 balanced on the scooter beside you all staring like they’ve never seen a white person.

When I get back to the hotel the girl who is now working at the Guest Relations desk knows nothing about the conversation that happened earlier and asks that I wait till tomorrow. Tomorrow I bet I get told the same thing. India is stuck in an eternal present.

Then I go back to my room and the Internet is out…again. Guess who I have to call to get the IT guy up??? Guest Relations. After calling them two more times, them replying “The guy is there” or “He already called you” when obviously nothing has happened….the guy finally shows up.

Its the same dude from yesterday and he immediately offers me the same crappy temporary fix he did yesterday with great satisfaction. I say, “So am I supposed to call you everyday for the next two months to come up here and rig my internet to work? Wouldn’t it make more sense to REALLY fix it?” I guess not though. He is definitely in cahoots with India. It is useless to resist. I am beaten again.

I know it seems like I am making all this up, but I’m not. I will get the upper hand eventually though. Even a broke clock is right twice a day…except in India.

I occurs to me that I live in India for a fair amount of time. I am here longer than most people. I know something about India and life as an expat.

I said when I lived in Taiwan that “This is probably the best I’ll ever live, the richest I’ll ever be.” Teachers are well respected in Asia, and so are foreigners. I made good money; I lived like a king. I worked 25 hours a week or less and had no real responsibility. Its hard to compete with that.

I think India is better though, or at least as good. I work more here, but I make more too. I do better work and help more people. I am still very well respected and I definitely live like a king. Work is fun because I do lots of stuff, but I have no real accountability….so I can make up whatever I like, whatever I think is useful. That makes it both lazy and super productive at the same time….depending on what I like.

For the first, and perhaps only, time in my life I don’t think work sucks. Work is just a part of everything else I do and as long as its useful….then its worth it. I like living at a 5 star hotel and I like the weekends where I sleep till noon and call room service to serve me brunch in bed…..but I also like going to work for the most part. Its well worth the money I make to do it….which isn’t that much.

Pete tells me that it loses its draw, the whole travel thing. I agree and disagree. It isn’t the same….but it is always different. Take today for instance. I was out and passed some shops, some grocery-type stores, and I thought “You know, I buy alot of the same shit back home…..but its somehow more interesting to buy it here.”

Just walking down the street is different…educational, entertaining. You see hundreds of small nuances that make you more aware of where you are…more present in what you’re doing.

Take last weekend, my last post. I could’ve gone rafting in Atlanta. But on the Ganges you wash your sins away, you see hippies leftover from the 60’s in Rishikesk, you see the Himalaya….and you see dead people. Its the same as Atlanta….but different.

I keep thinking that somehow I have failed to understand the draw of the US…..why I can’t seem to stay. There is my answer: Everything…even going to buy groceries, is somehow more than it is back home.

They say if you bathe in the Ganges that all your sins are washed away. This guy/gall must’ve needed a lot of forgiving. We found him/her on the banks, apparently buried under/crushed by a large rock.

This is the first full-on dead person I’ve ever seen. We were taking a little walk and Situ said, “Hey. Is that a dead person?” I thought for sure it had to be fake or something, but in India why fake a dead person when there are plenty of real ones to save yourself the trouble?

We showed two Indian guys. They weren’t impressed; in fact, they just shrugged their shoulders and went about their way like it was a non-event. They commented on the green sweater was all.

I honestly wondered about the person. How old? A guy or a girl? Buried or accidental death? Why is there no tissue? How long has it been there? Were they wearing any jewelry?

Everyone has a story…..and human skulls make you ponder, you know? I considered taking a rib or something as a souvenir until I realized no one wants a human bone as a present….not even me.

But I did want a picture:

I really don’t enjoy starting any conversation with “No one can understand….” but really, unless you’ve lived here you can’t possibly imagine the inefficiency, the madness, the illogic of India.

If in America our motto is “In God We Trust” or “For Money We Slave Away”, in India it is certainly “Let’s make this as complicated as possible and have 8 people do the job of 1 to the point that nothing will every happen,” or “If there is a pothole in the road, don’t fix it, drive around it until that becomes a pothole too, then hire someone to stand in the road and direct the traffic jam that resulted from not fixing the pothole in the first place.”

Ohh India….how I love thee.

Here is India’s archetype conversation. Put this on repeat everyday and you will begin to glimpse what it is like to live here.

Me: What time is it?
India: Thank you, Mr. Dykes. I hope you are enjoying your time here sir.
Me: Uhh….its fine, thank you. What time is it?
India: Yes sir, sir. (nodding head profusely in deference)
Me: No, really. What time is it?
India (digging in its disorganize mess of papers): Here is you calendar. Thank you Mr. Dykes. Is there anything else we can assist you with Mr. Dykes?
Me: hehehehehehehehehe. No seriously, what time is it?
India: Let me check with my colleague. He will be in shortly with your answer. Please have a seat sir and we will be right with you right away.
Me: I have to go to work. I’ll be back in the evening though. Please just send a note with my answer up to the room so I can have it when I get back.
India: Yes sir. We will get that for you right away. (smiling as if they had just handed me the keys to a new car).
Me (later that evening): Ahh…what a day. Do you have an answer for me?
India: Of course, sir. My colleague informed me of your query.
Me: So the information is up in my room?
India: Here is your calendar sir. Is there anything else we can assist you with Mr. Dykes??
Me: You can tell me what time it is like I asked in the first place.
India (shuffling through its desk for a mess of notes): Yes sir. We have that information for you and will send it up as soon as my colleague gets in tomorrow.
Me: But you said that yesterday. I keep asking the same question. Why can’t you just tell me what time it is? What is so hard about that? Why do you keep giving me everything I DON’T want and nothing I DO?
India (always smiling): I am very sorry Mr. Dykes for the misunderstanding….
Me (interrupting India): And why didn’t you send a note up to my room like you said you would??
India: The note is in your suite Mr. Dykes (holding up an indecipherable mess of Hindi).
Me: Let me check (I walk up to my room and find there is a note waiting for me. It says “Guest Services would like to see you about the information you requested. Please see Guest Relations at your earliest convenience.” )
Me (back downstairs with steam coming out my ears): What time is it?
India (eager as ever): Did you get your note Mr. Dykes? I hope you found it to you convenience sir, please, thank you.
Me: WHAT FUCKING TIME IS IT? I AM GOING TO REACH MY ARM DOWN YOUR THROAT AND RIP YOUR HEART OUT IF YOU DON’T HELP ME!!! W-H-A-T T-I-M-E I-S I-T?
India: Yes sir, sir. I have the clock you requested right away and we will send it up to your room.
Me: Arghhh…..this is worse than Charlie Brown and Lucy with the football.
India (blank stare and sideways head nod): I am not sure I understand sir. Would you like a Charlie Brown DVD? The concierge can arrange that for you immediately for tomorrow.
Me: TIME…..WHAT TIME. PLEASE. I’M LOSING MY MIND. I’m going to the bar to get a drink. When I get back, please have an answer to my question.
India: Yes sir Mr. Dykes. Thank you and we will have that for you right away Mr. Dykes.
Me (after a few beers): Ok…what do you have for me? A watch, a clock, a calendar, TV Guide, a fucking solar dial and a little Indian guy to follow me around holding up a flashlight? What?
India (beaming like the dawn): I was able to speak to my colleague and she said it was 10:45am on 9/26.
Me (on the verge of insanity): Yes. That is right. When I originally asked, it was 10:45am. That was yesterday. What time is it NOW?
India: Yes sir. We will get that for you right away Mr. Dykes. Please have a seat.
Me (huddled in the corner in a fetal position): I give up. I’m just going to sit here for a while and collect my thoughts while I am still sane enough to have some.

India: Yes sir, Mr. Dykes. Would you like anything while you are waiting??

I figure the Golden Temple is the World’s Most Practical Holy Place. I think that is a great distinction and says a lot about Sikhs, who are some of the most successful folks in India.

Sikkhism was a warrior club that eventually turned into a religion. To be orthodox, you must 1) wear a turban, 2) never cut your hair/beard, 3) wear long underwear (I haven’t the slightest idea about this one), 4) wear metal bracelet/s, and 5) wear a sword (however small) at all times. The Sikhs were incredibly nice people, rather tall for Indians, and very interested in foreigners.

So I’ve been to the Dome of the Rock in Jeruselum. It is a very pretty building; inside there is a rock surrounded by an altar. You can walk around and pray. That is pretty much it. At Mecca, you can walk around a big square and pray too. At most churches, no matter how holy, you can really only sit and pray. Walk and pray or sit and pray. Those are your only two options. Religion has never been known for its practicality.

The Golden Temple though is made for using. You can sleep for free at the Golden Temple in dorm-like rooms in a surrounding marble building which is itself part of the temple complex, so its not like they put you up on the other side of town in a crappy hotel. You can also sleep on the floor of the temple surrounding the lake. It is made of inlaid marble, so is quite hard, but they’ll let you sleep there all the same. Imagine if the Cathedral of Notre Dame allowed people to sleep in the aisles?.?.

You can eat for free at the temple too. They feed an estimated 30,000 people a day from steel bowls. The food is dispensed from a large machine brought from Italy that they are very proud of. There is also a dishwashing facility in the temple where pilgrims volunteer to wash the dishes they just ate from with rock powder. Of course, water is free too and available to everyone.

You can bathe at the temple. There are shower facilities. There is also a beautiful lake that you can take a dip in which is said to wash away all of your sins……and yes, you can still walk around and pray.

Another curious fact about the Sikhs is that they still have their original holy scripture, which is kept in the golden building on the lake. So the Sikhs are a very conscientious people too.

I mean, think about the Jews. They lost the Ark of the Covenant. In essence, they lost the vessel that housed God…..how do you lose God? What day do you wake up and say, “Oops, hey guys, we forgot God and that big gold box that shoots lightning bolts that we’ve been carrying around for centuries and is the single most important item to our people.”

And the Christians…..its hard to lose what we never had in the first place. We don’t have the cross, never did. The Holy Grail is a legend. The Shroud of Turin is a fake. It is debated whether the tomb of Jesus at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the real site or not. The Bible was compiled centuries after the fact.

So, all in all, I am very impressed with Sikhism. I haven’t the slighest idea what the tenents of the religion are, but I can say they are a practical, friendly bunch with a very beautiful Holiest of Holy sites. And yes, the walls of the temple are said to be made of real gold.

Remember the Challenge of the Superfriends cartoon? Well, there was a character, Bizarro Superman, who reminds me a bit of India.

In my ongoing and likely futile attempt to document the subtleties of India, I will share these pictures of my bizarro universe. The pictures don’t really need captions, as they are funny on their own…but I will add them anyway.

India must be very proud indeed of the Army Man who would steal a gold medal off a Greek guy at gunpoint. It doesn’t say much for his marksmanship either that he would need to aim so intently from point blank range.

A winner for life huh?? What do they win? A year’s supply of cotton candy and an oversized pink bunny rabbit that starts leaking styrofoam pellets before you make it to the car?

What do circus skills have to do with being in the Army anyway? I am unaware of the deadly art of fitting clowns into a Volkswagon. I guess the knife throwing could come in handy though…if your enemy happens to be on a spinning wheel.

Everyday may not be a pleasant day in India, but it is always an amusing day if you’re observant.

And yes, just in case you were wondering: There are cows in the streets. And the guys who drive my car look like the crew of the Love Boat.

This is an excerpt from an email I sent today. I’m going to post it because it sums up pretty well how a lot of my days go. Life here is really good…if it doesn’t drive me crazy.

I finally talked to the treehouse people today after like 6 calls and 2 emails. They were useless. All the guy said was “sure we’ll reserve a room for you.”

I asked him where the resort was. “In the middle of the jungle”

I asked him how to get there “From calicut by train or bus or taxi.”

I asked him how to get to calicut from delhi “By plane.”

I asked him about how much the plane ticket was “Don’t know, I just make reservations.”

I asked him which airlines flew to Calicut. “Don’t know, I make the reservations.”

I get really frustrated here by stuff like that.

I called the US embassy again today too. First they transfered me before I had a chance to even say anything…then they hung up on me.

My taxi service is late or doesn’t show up, or sends us 1 car for 8 people, or won’t leave when we tell it to, then they don’t know how to get to the office and drive like race car drivers in monsoons rain…….and it happens every single day.

Last night I asked for the FIFTH time about my rewards points at the hotel and blew up at the little guest services girl. I thought she was going to start crying. She said, “Yes sir. I will certainly get that for you right away,” and I fucking lost it and went on at her about the 4 other people I talked to that had said exactly the same thing, given me exactly the same sideways head nod, and vacant, smiling stare. Why was she any different? Why does nothing ever get done here?

The sad part, is that after 2 weeks of asking….I finally got my points like 30 minutes later. I am learning, in India, you don’t get shit unless you lose your temper and make people feel bad.

I don’t want to learn that lesson.

You know what’s really fucked up?? My points are wrong. I have almost none even though I’ve spent a sickening amount of money at the hotel. It’ll take me two more weeks and another busted blood vessel in my head to clear that up.

And then everytime I sit down and try to do something at work there is like a line of people at my desk asking me questions, half of which they already know the answer to. Today I told someone, “Can’t you people just make a decision on your own?”

Just as I finished “talking” on the phone with the US embassy I hung up and said to myself something along the lines of “blah, blah, blah……%$#*&^% idiots.” And this Project Manager (Indian) who actually has his shit together sat down right at that moment and laughed, “India is getting to you huh?”

I just said, “Yes. I am sorry. I get frustrated.”

Time management in India is almost an oxymoron. There is very little conception of time in the Western sense…..which begs the question: What is the Western conception of time?? Well…if you’ve never lived in the Orient, perhaps you’ll never have to think about it.

I could probably, given enough time (no pun inteneded), come up with a fair description of the differences…but really I want to talk about MY time management in India, or rather my lack of need for it.

I enjoy a lateral sense of time. I always have. Lateral time is not meant to accomplish anything. It simply comes and then passes….it is the gathering of a storm that may never actually happen. The clouds swirl, the wind picks up, the sky darkens, and there is a great anticipation….and then the weather packs up and decides to go home and try again another day.

I remember when I was young and my family was at Lake Hartwell. I was lounging on the dock enjoying time, and my father was mulling about doing something, fixing something, planning something, asking everyone if they wanted to DO this or DO that. I didn’t understand why he couldn’t just sit down and enjoy the day. It was magnificent and he was making me nervous.

His answer was typically vacant, but probably largely true. He said, “I don’t know. You just get used to doing things, and I guess its hard to stop.”

Having lived in Atlanta the last year, I totally understand that. One should never have to plan to relax. If you have to schedule “do nothing for two hours”…..you’re likely not really doing nothing. You’ll just be thinking about what you have to do in an hour and 59 minutes….58 minutes….57 minutes.

So, to come a little closer to my point, I will have a hard time going back to the US. I don’t need to come to my point too quickly though because in India “to beat around the bush” isn’t a negative….its a way of life. To ramble isn’t rambling. It is simply a regular conversation. This frustrates me to no end at work….however, outside of work or if nothing needs to get done, its sort of endearing.

So, even though I work a good bit here…..and my commute is an hour (on average) both ways each day…..I have tons of free time. I didn’t realize why until I started thinking about it this weekend.

The biggest time saver here is that I live in a hotel. I never make my bed. I never pick up my clothes. I never put out my trash. I never clean anything. I just go away in the morning and I come back home and everything is just how I left it before I made it all dirty….like that movie Groundhog Day. There is a fruit bowl on my coffee table that always has fresh fruit in it….whether or not I actually eat it or let it all rot. It just reappears….always perfect.

I don’t check mail, because I don’t receive any. I don’t ever need to go to Target to get new toothpaste or towels or razors or shampoo or anything. It all just reappears perfectly, as if I had never touched the room.

I don’t go to the grocery store. I have 3 five star restaurants within a minute of my place. If that is too far away I can just call room service. I can get the concierge to bring me pretty much anything I can think up….24 hours a day.

No need to get in the car to go to the gym. I have one where I live….30 seconds away. There is also a sauna, hot tub, and massage parlor. Hell, there is even a salon downstairs if I want to get my hair cut.

No need to ever stop to get gas. My car will never break down here because I don’t drive one. Work pays to chauffeur me back and forth.

Friends?? They all live with me at the hotel. I don’t need to drive across town to go hang out with someone. They all live an elevator’s ride away. Need to go to a bar or club. There is already one here.

Imagine a world where you never did laundry, never stopped for gas, never cleaned or straightened anything, never checked mail, essentially had an army of errand boys if you ever needed anything, and was never able to stay late for work because the car was there to pick you up so you MUST leave.

Now imagine that you live in a 5 star hotel, work in office where everyone is amazed by your expertise (which isn’t all that great in my opinion), are surrounded by lots of other people that have plenty of free time, you’re living a foreign country that is amusing to no end, are essentially richer than you will ever be in your entire life……and that is getting close to what it is like to be here.

I mean……I might go crazy because India is still India….but….shit….even I can’t complain about this.

I know that the website has been unavailable for the past week or so. Adam was in Hawaii on his honeymoon and the hurricane knocked out the power at his house so he wasn’t around to turn this computer back on.

I’ll post tomorrow….or Saturday if I go out tomorrow and am not near a computer.

I am drinking over-priced Indian red wine from the mini-bar with left-over room service on the couch. I’ve slept about 14 of the last 24 hours, I eat all my meals at various 5 star hotels around town, and Lost in Translation is on TV.

I always thought the movie was funny and oddly like a travel documentary, but it is even more surreal when I am here in the Far East, watching it from a hotel room not much unlike the one they stay in. Its like seeing my life and wondering how I have not caved under the irreality of it all.

Joseph Conrad is one of my favorite authors. His self-proclaimed task in life was “By the power of the written word, before all, to make you SEE.”

That isn’t my task in life, but I understand it and want for it as well. I have said before “Science will put an astronaut on the moon, but only a book can send a janitor.” I think there is some magic to writing, because, when done well, it can make you feel something that perhaps your own life will never afford.

If you asked me what one simple thing could help us make the world a better place, I would reply, “Read a book.” In our lives of increasing specialization, we don’t know how to help each other, because we don’t understand each other. A book, written well, can help us see….it can move us to India.

Sadly, I don’t think I can write that well….or at least I don’t have the time to devote to it. People at the office ask me about India, people at home want to know too……what the hell is going on over there?? What are you doing? What’s it like?

I was out at a goodbye dinner the other night with all the other Americans. We were at one of the nicest restaurants in Delhi, passing the normal Indian amount of death, disease, and deformity in the taxi on the way.

We all took millions of pictures and commented on what a surreal experience this is….and someone said, “Yeah, its like Real World Delhi….all we lack are the confessionals where we all talk about how much we secretly hate each other. If only our company knew how much of our per diem is spent on alcohol and 5 star dining.” And it is so true.

This whole thing is like one long soap opera disconnect from real life. Except in my case…where I’ve done it so often that it actually IS my life.

So Lost in Translation is actually an immensely sad movie. I feel like both Bill Murray and Scarlett Johanson…both like a lost young traveler and a beaten old man.

Hmm….so as I live out my own version of the Real World India bouncing from one 5 star hotel to the next, I am reminded of Conrad, of poverty, of our inability to understand each other, and of my own shortcomings. I am thinking of you.