My new tabla set... now I just have to learn how to play it.
Jan 16, 2005
Jan 15, 2005
It's been a lazy weekend, and today promises to be more of the same. I went to a drum store yesterday, and bought a tabla set. Now, I don't know how to play tabla, but it is a northern Indian style of drum, that makes a beautifully high-pitched sound. I just need to learn how to play it. Anyone out there know how to play tabla? There's a couple of us here now that have sets, so we might be able to get a teacher to come and show us the basics. Brian, I hope you like drums :)
We went out to a bar last night, and I met the CEO of a sales organization here. He was one of the least pleasant people I have met since arriving here. All he could talk about was the need to hire lots of Indian workers for his call center, with the expectation of firing 25% of them, and then the need to spend a month breaking down their cultural norms. I was appalled, but he seemed to think that this was completely normal. My experience here has been quite different, but I gather that many of the MNCs here think similarly to that CEO, which makes me think about what the cultural effect of the proliferation of call centers here will be.
I talked for a while with Leigh Anne last night about the modern Indian woman under 30. This is a demographic that I see a lot at work, as this segment of the population is very well represented in the office. The women at work are self-confident, highly intelligent, independent, and ambitious, which I think is the antithesis of the stereotype of Indian women. This generation is rejecting many of the traditional norms, in pursuit of their own futures, which is fascinating to see. At the same time, there are many examples of the enduring traditionalism of this society, such as the average age of marriage being about 21. One of the women in the office, Uma, was telling me that whenever her mother is out of town, she can't make any plans, because she is expected to cook and keep house for her brother and father, which takes up most of the evening and weekends. She is my age, and when I think about what my reaction would be to such an expectation, well, sorry Dad, I think you'd be left high and dry :)
We went out to a bar last night, and I met the CEO of a sales organization here. He was one of the least pleasant people I have met since arriving here. All he could talk about was the need to hire lots of Indian workers for his call center, with the expectation of firing 25% of them, and then the need to spend a month breaking down their cultural norms. I was appalled, but he seemed to think that this was completely normal. My experience here has been quite different, but I gather that many of the MNCs here think similarly to that CEO, which makes me think about what the cultural effect of the proliferation of call centers here will be.
I talked for a while with Leigh Anne last night about the modern Indian woman under 30. This is a demographic that I see a lot at work, as this segment of the population is very well represented in the office. The women at work are self-confident, highly intelligent, independent, and ambitious, which I think is the antithesis of the stereotype of Indian women. This generation is rejecting many of the traditional norms, in pursuit of their own futures, which is fascinating to see. At the same time, there are many examples of the enduring traditionalism of this society, such as the average age of marriage being about 21. One of the women in the office, Uma, was telling me that whenever her mother is out of town, she can't make any plans, because she is expected to cook and keep house for her brother and father, which takes up most of the evening and weekends. She is my age, and when I think about what my reaction would be to such an expectation, well, sorry Dad, I think you'd be left high and dry :)
Jan 14, 2005
Jan 13, 2005
Hey guys, not much to write this time, just wanted to give a shout out to the new blog I've created with my friends. That's right, I've influenced the creation of a new blog. As if I weren't already the resident techno-geek. However, I think that Anne will probably soon surpass me, as she has already figured out photoposting, and will likely rewrite the entire code of the blog tomorrow.
The past two weeks have been hectic at work, running around doing a lot, and feeling like I'm accomplishing very little. I guess when I look back at the past couple weeks though, I have done a lot. I won't bore you with details. We have a long weekend this weekend, which will be excellent for sleeping and doing some more gift shopping. I'm going to a store that sells tablas today (Brian, look out, I'm bringing home a drum...).
Next weekend is a trip to Hampi, which is home to some amazing temples and a former 'Royal Center,' which I gather is something like a palace. In any case it will be my first trip in India outside of Hyderabad, so I'm pretty excited. We're taking the train...
Will post some more pictures above, and I'll leave you with a quote from Jack Handley:
"Instead of trying to build newer and bigger weapons of destruction, we should be thinking about getting more use out of the ones we already have." [for more 'Deep Thoughts' check this page out: http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/4220/deepthoughts.html ]
The past two weeks have been hectic at work, running around doing a lot, and feeling like I'm accomplishing very little. I guess when I look back at the past couple weeks though, I have done a lot. I won't bore you with details. We have a long weekend this weekend, which will be excellent for sleeping and doing some more gift shopping. I'm going to a store that sells tablas today (Brian, look out, I'm bringing home a drum...).
Next weekend is a trip to Hampi, which is home to some amazing temples and a former 'Royal Center,' which I gather is something like a palace. In any case it will be my first trip in India outside of Hyderabad, so I'm pretty excited. We're taking the train...
Will post some more pictures above, and I'll leave you with a quote from Jack Handley:
"Instead of trying to build newer and bigger weapons of destruction, we should be thinking about getting more use out of the ones we already have." [for more 'Deep Thoughts' check this page out: http://www.geocities.com/Wellesley/4220/deepthoughts.html ]
Jan 3, 2005
Everyone has been hearing news about the tsunami, and many of you have emailed to make sure that my mom and I are ok. I really appreciate everyone's concern, and I just wanted to express how thankful I am to have such wonderful friends and family. Happy New Year to everyone!
My mom and I were in Sri Lanka when the tsunami hit, but were luckily on the opposite side of the island, in Colombo, the commercial capital of the island. Life went on almost completely as normal for an entire day, until everyone realized how much damage the tsunami had done. And then the news reports just became more and more gruesome, and the stories got scarier and scarier, until the world realized the enormity of what had happened.
When I got to the airport on Monday night, I saw two British tourists without anything, without even their own clothing, let alone passports or money. They had so clearly barely escaped with their lives, I felt guilty having a suitcase of belongings. Still, they were among the lucky, as they had a person from the British consulate there to assist them, and they were not injured. There were other people at the airport in wheelchairs, with bandages and dazed looks, as if they couldn't quite understand what was going on around them. It was totally surreal. When I returned, I found out that everyone here in Hyderabad had been frantic for half of Sunday, because my 'We're OK' email didn't end up making it to anyone's inbox until a few hours after I sent it.
In any case, I was glad to come back to Hyderabad; even in this short amount of time, it's started to feel like my home away from home. Which I guess is a good thing, considering I'll be here for a bit longer ;) My mom returned from Sri Lanka on Friday, and we spent the weekend together. The first night she was here was New Year's Eve, which was a festival of huge fireworks (set off by Chris and DJ), and champagne that my mom managed to bring from the duty free shop. It is literally impossible to find wine here, let alone champagne. In fact, the one time someone did find red wine here, it was carbonated.... Somehow I don't think that's really a good thing.
On Saturday, my mom and I went back to the fabric store where I had previously gone a little crazy with ordering custom made shirts. You can give the tailors here a model, and have them make copies of almost any clothing. Now, occasionally, the copies are a little, um, blurry... But they're cheap, so you really can't complain. I also managed to get into a little bit of trouble buying silk for Caroline. Yes, Caroline, if you're reading this, start thinking about what you want to do with 12 meters of various colors of silk :)
Saturday night found 9 of us at Peshawri, otherwise known as the land of giant na'an. See the picture below for a visual representation. It's ginormous. And oh so delicious. We ate almost the whole thing... The food at Peshawri is so good that everyone has a stomachache when they leave, it's that hard to stop eating. And boy, do you regret it the next day. But at the time it just seems so worth it!
On Sunday morning, we visited Golkonda Fort (lots of pictures of that below too), which is one of the oldest structures I've ever seen. Some of the ruins are 800 years old, and the grounds of the fort are huge. We were accosted by a lot of wannabe guides when we entered, which was kind of a bummer, but once we got inside a bit, they left us alone. The view from the top of the fort was spectacular, almost 360 degrees, and of the entire city. There was this amazing Hindu temple built into the boulders too, which had an incredible mural of Shiva (at least I'm pretty sure it's Shiva) painted on the rock (picture below).
Sunday evening found the whole gang at Prasad's, the entertainment complex/mall, which has an IMAX theatre. They were showing the Polar Express in IMAX, which was quite fun. The 3-D glasses were quite entertaining on their own. We also got to spend some quality time in the arcade, playing video games, and watching Gopal play video games. I think I had more fun watching him than I did playing myself!
We had today off of work (Monday), and I had asked our apartment manager to get all the household staff (yes, we have a staff of people that work in our apartments...) together so that we could meet everyone and have someone translate. There are two main languages other than English that people in Hyderabad speak, Hindi and Telugu. Since those of us here from the US don't speak either, it is often quite difficult to communicate things like, "Please don't forget to give us toilet paper." Our meeting went generally well, although everyone here is quite timid a lot of the time, and they think that anytime we ask to speak to them, there is something wrong and they will get in trouble. I really wish I could communicate with them better, so that I could reassure them. By the end of the meeting, I think that the people who could speak some English understood that we really just wanted to make sure that they understood what we were asking for, and I hope that they communicated that to the rest of the staff. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
My mom left today to go back to Addis Ababa, and tomorrow it's back to work. Check out the pictures below, there are some fun ones ;)
My mom and I were in Sri Lanka when the tsunami hit, but were luckily on the opposite side of the island, in Colombo, the commercial capital of the island. Life went on almost completely as normal for an entire day, until everyone realized how much damage the tsunami had done. And then the news reports just became more and more gruesome, and the stories got scarier and scarier, until the world realized the enormity of what had happened.
When I got to the airport on Monday night, I saw two British tourists without anything, without even their own clothing, let alone passports or money. They had so clearly barely escaped with their lives, I felt guilty having a suitcase of belongings. Still, they were among the lucky, as they had a person from the British consulate there to assist them, and they were not injured. There were other people at the airport in wheelchairs, with bandages and dazed looks, as if they couldn't quite understand what was going on around them. It was totally surreal. When I returned, I found out that everyone here in Hyderabad had been frantic for half of Sunday, because my 'We're OK' email didn't end up making it to anyone's inbox until a few hours after I sent it.
In any case, I was glad to come back to Hyderabad; even in this short amount of time, it's started to feel like my home away from home. Which I guess is a good thing, considering I'll be here for a bit longer ;) My mom returned from Sri Lanka on Friday, and we spent the weekend together. The first night she was here was New Year's Eve, which was a festival of huge fireworks (set off by Chris and DJ), and champagne that my mom managed to bring from the duty free shop. It is literally impossible to find wine here, let alone champagne. In fact, the one time someone did find red wine here, it was carbonated.... Somehow I don't think that's really a good thing.
On Saturday, my mom and I went back to the fabric store where I had previously gone a little crazy with ordering custom made shirts. You can give the tailors here a model, and have them make copies of almost any clothing. Now, occasionally, the copies are a little, um, blurry... But they're cheap, so you really can't complain. I also managed to get into a little bit of trouble buying silk for Caroline. Yes, Caroline, if you're reading this, start thinking about what you want to do with 12 meters of various colors of silk :)
Saturday night found 9 of us at Peshawri, otherwise known as the land of giant na'an. See the picture below for a visual representation. It's ginormous. And oh so delicious. We ate almost the whole thing... The food at Peshawri is so good that everyone has a stomachache when they leave, it's that hard to stop eating. And boy, do you regret it the next day. But at the time it just seems so worth it!
On Sunday morning, we visited Golkonda Fort (lots of pictures of that below too), which is one of the oldest structures I've ever seen. Some of the ruins are 800 years old, and the grounds of the fort are huge. We were accosted by a lot of wannabe guides when we entered, which was kind of a bummer, but once we got inside a bit, they left us alone. The view from the top of the fort was spectacular, almost 360 degrees, and of the entire city. There was this amazing Hindu temple built into the boulders too, which had an incredible mural of Shiva (at least I'm pretty sure it's Shiva) painted on the rock (picture below).
Sunday evening found the whole gang at Prasad's, the entertainment complex/mall, which has an IMAX theatre. They were showing the Polar Express in IMAX, which was quite fun. The 3-D glasses were quite entertaining on their own. We also got to spend some quality time in the arcade, playing video games, and watching Gopal play video games. I think I had more fun watching him than I did playing myself!
We had today off of work (Monday), and I had asked our apartment manager to get all the household staff (yes, we have a staff of people that work in our apartments...) together so that we could meet everyone and have someone translate. There are two main languages other than English that people in Hyderabad speak, Hindi and Telugu. Since those of us here from the US don't speak either, it is often quite difficult to communicate things like, "Please don't forget to give us toilet paper." Our meeting went generally well, although everyone here is quite timid a lot of the time, and they think that anytime we ask to speak to them, there is something wrong and they will get in trouble. I really wish I could communicate with them better, so that I could reassure them. By the end of the meeting, I think that the people who could speak some English understood that we really just wanted to make sure that they understood what we were asking for, and I hope that they communicated that to the rest of the staff. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
My mom left today to go back to Addis Ababa, and tomorrow it's back to work. Check out the pictures below, there are some fun ones ;)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)