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I’ve been here close to 48 hours, though it feels like at least a week. I think it is the constant interaction with people.

As I write this, I’m watching the election results roll in at fivethirtyeight.com and a few men sweeping the busy street below my window. Delhi wakes up at 7, but I’ve been up since 5AM. With as many people as there are, here, it is interesting that there is ever a time when they aren’t all roaming the streets, but apparently the city is still sleepy at 5AM, though not entirely.

Now hours later at the office. The election has been called in Obama’s favor, and I’m breathless. Thankful, but a little bit nervous that this is not reality.

So, about India…
I’ve tired of the interaction with people. Dinner two nights ago, the waiter brought our dinner to the table then served each of us by spooning curry onto our plates. Once he’d spooned what he considered enough, he retreated 5 steps behind me, where he stood until I depleted the water in my glass and the food on my plate to an unacceptable level, at which point he appeared into view to refill both my glass and my plate before stepping slightly out of view, again. This cycle continued until I retreated to my room and locked the door. There are people here to do everything. There is the man in the office whose job it is to fetch water. A separate man fetches tea. Others man doors. And though I’m a tad less cared for, as there are not 4 people dedicated to my well-being, as there had been in Bangalore, I’m still feeling a little claustrophobic. I would never have survived proper wealth.

We lunched yesterday at a tiny restaurant in Defense Colony. The highlight of the restaurant was the tiny lift that shuttles people directly into the restaurant. The thing is tiny – as in it barely fit 4 rather thin people. Thank god there was no power failure during our ascent or descent. I ate Dal Makhinal and Palak Paneer. And just as I was expecting, they were wonderful. Major learning for the day is that I don’t like kaffir limes which seem to be present in all Rajasthan veggie dishes. I also learned that although it seems intuitive to walk on the sidewalk, after almost being run over, I realized I should probably always walk with the natives, who incidentally were out of harms way walking in the road against parked cars.

Some pictures from my morning commute:
Apparently no longer useful:

Home office:

Commuting to work:

In general, I’m finding Delhi to be more English speaking, more international, and more established than Bangalore. I’m sure some of this is the people with whom we’ve been surrounded, but much of it is the simple fact that Delhi has been an internationally recognized capital of business for thousands of years. But, I’m also noticing a different sad fact – that the poor seem to be much more poor here than in Bangalore. Perhaps the more colorful dress in Bangalore makes the poor appear more affluent or at least happy. How can you be unhappy wrapped in bright saffron and fuschia? I’ll venture that in Bangalore, since money and affluence is close to 10 years old, trickle down economics is happening and actually elevating the lower classes. Suddenly, there are buildings to be built, roads to be constructed, services to be performed for the new affluent, … and all of these services require workforces that didn’t exist before. In Delhi, where there has always been a strong upper class, there has likewise always been well established places for the wealthy to spend their money. There is no great influx of jobs originating from anything other than the subway (which by the way is tres cool). Anyway, I have work to do.

India is a very resourceful country. I understand they have to be considering the sheer number of inhabitants – imagine the trash problem if the population of India took on the wasteful, disposable United States way of living. This resourcefulness is apparent in everything – from the miniature single ply tissues on my bathroom vanity (most natives use handkerchiefs) to the fact that my coworker is getting a new keyboard installed in his laptop because a few keys have stopped working. In the states, we’d have lived with the key problem until it became troublesome and then tossed the machine as the cost to replace it would be less expensive than the trouble one would go to replacing the keyboard of the machine. Can’t wait to see the frankenstein laptop after the keyboard surgery.

I’m in the office right now. Unlike my Yodlee Bangalore office, this one is in an industrial part of town, but by that they mean it is mixed in with factories. On our commute to and from the area we pass mechanics working on autorickshaws, bays of bicycles and the occasional Samsung or Intel service center. By Service Center, I expect that means call center, as that used to be much of the tech business, here, until development shops tired of the rat race in Bangalore. In contrast to Bangalore which seems to have very first world offices for their first world investors, the Samsung building, here, blends in. I’ve been looking for proper factories – large first world warehouses – but this is just an example of why I find India so amazing – of course, factories, here, will not be large warehouses.

The office is a strange mix of colors – flesh, canary yellow, toothpaste turquoise, orange, with burgundy accents. The floor is orange tile. The office furnishings look just as you’d expect a start-up’s in the states to be – older, second generation furnishings. Though these are covered in drippings and dirt. Everything here is covered in dirt. Even the paved roads have split open revealing puddles of dirt. I wonder if the aesthetics of the furnishings is simply a reflection of the fact that the nightly cleaning staff – if there is nightly cleaning staff – lives in dirt floored shacks and has very different expectations of cleanliness, or if the state of cleanliness, here, is simply a result of use. As I mentioned with the laptop keyboard – I suspect everything, here, is on at least a second or third life.
Writing that I wonder if recycling, here, really is resourcefulness or if it is a reflection of their belief in reincarnation. And our wastefulness in the states is just a reflection of our belief in an afterlife beyond the body.

Dealing with pollution, all vehicles here are Propelled Be Clean Fuel. Some are Be Clean Fuee.

Imagine taking this bus to work:

Our office front door:

Our office is off a not-recently paved road, across from what appears to be impromptu tent shops, but are more likely just well established tent shops. (Unfathomable to my western brain that one could keep shop in a tent for YEARS!) The outside is covered in glass. Behind the door above, one climbs what in the states would be a service stairwell into the office. This one is marbled like I might marble it – with no beveling or particular attention to grout aesthetics. The tile walls are splashed with what I assume is the red stain of betelnut. Last night we left after dark and had to descend the stairs in complete darkness. For good measure, they draped some hoses across the steps, making the descent even more treacherous. We’ll be leaving earlier today.

Last Tuesday Indians celebrated the equivalent of their new year – Divali. Just like our Christmas, the country takes off between three days and a week for the celebrations. As we flew in this morning I could see many houses and apartments were still strung with blinking lights in celebration. Tonight, I’m falling asleep to a left over fireworks display about one half mile away through my window.

So that we didn’t completely miss the celebrations, the team greeted us at the office this morning with bouquets of flowers and a ceremonial brow painting and rice toss. I’m not sure what the etiquette is, but I tolerated the red smear on my brow for most of the day, rushing to clean it off as soon as I stepped back into my room this evening. Hopefully they won’t be too shocked to see our bindi smears missing in the morning.

My hotel has a golf course…

an incredible swimming pool and slums:

Why is there a drain in the floor covered with a urinal cake between the toilet and the wall in the ladies water closet?

How do you ask for a wake up call as apparently “wake up call” translates to “come by with tea in the morning”? What are the chances I’ll get a phone call having tried to clarify that I want to be “rung” not “called”?

Where else can you find a Lotus, a Ferrari, a BMW 750 and a 50 year old ratty service truck parked next to each other? (outside my hotel)

The Lotus Temple through my fellow traveler’s window. Some of that haze is on the window; some of it is heavy in the air.

Where one goes to find Harikrishnas.

After 24 hours of travel and about 16 hours of sitting around waiting, I’m writing safely from my hotel room in Nehru Place, Delhi. From my coworker’s room, I can see Iskcon, a harikrishna temple, and the Lotus Temple. From my window, I’ve got a lovely view of traffic and ratty apartments.

I could tell from Heathrow that Delhi would be a much different city than Bangalore. For one, the Delhi terminal was prominent in the airport, close to all of the shops whereas the Bangalore flights were in an old, remote part of the airport, far from the shops, and in the case of my departing flight, with just a non-functional vending machine. The second clue was the people waiting to board our flight. My fellow Bangalore travelers were 90% Indian in traditional dress; 90% of the Delhi travelers were Europeans on holiday.

In general, Delhi is a real city and Bangalore is a tiny city attempting to live with a real city’s population. Delhi has a subway system; a real, large downtown; a wealthy class that proudly flashes it’s wealth in the form of luxury cars and giant, nicely kept houses; and Delhi has a healthy number of tourists. They both have the iconic Indian pollution, wild traffic, hand-painted municipal signs, and salwar/kamis/sari wearing population.

I’m off to the office. Pictures and more, later.

I’m working, packing and preparing for a halloween party, so no time to post, but here are some Halloween flash games and a crash course in Rocky Horror Picture Showing, in case that might be useful to you.

Two is such a sweet birthday. Sunday, we celebrated Sylvie’s second birthday with just us. She has a slightly larger celebration on Halloween with the locals. I remember Will looking so surprised and proud when his neighbors sang Happy Birthday on his second, and Sylvie was no different. As presents have trickled in, her reactions have been so sweet. You’d never guess this girl had ever received anything in her life! Her mouth literally dropped open when Will presented her the Obie Kenobi action figure to match his Yoda. She redefined bear hug with the strangle hold with which she received the bear Will stuffed for her. The girl who has yelled “Stop it!” only 5 times in her life – 4 food related and 1 when I tried to slide a tutu on her recently – re-enacted Cinderella’s receipt of her ball gown dancing about propping her dress against her chest when she opened her brand new twirly, shiny princess dress from her nanny on Monday. And oh, the convulsions of baby love as I struggled to release her brand new baby from it’s packaging last night! I wish I could package this pure joy, unfettered by expectations, for their teen years.

Tonight we’re carving pumpkins. Tomorrow we’ve planned a movie night for the kids so that one of us can clean the house while the other shops for Halloween party supplies. Friday, the day my son has been counting down to since September – all our goblins will come out in their true forms as we celebrate Sylvie’s big 2 with the neighbors over pizza, drinking blood (bordeaux or cran-grape juice) before the neighborhood candy begging begins. Can’t wait. If only I weren’t spending the following 24 hours sleeping off my candy coma on a trip to India.

Doug’s train of kiddos this past weekend:

“Mom, I heard on the radio that some guy loves his wife to the moon. That isn’t enough, is it, Mom? I love you to the sun and back. That’s enough, right?”

Swear I had nothing to do with this.

You’d think he was the kids’ favorite sports team with their spontaneous shouts of support and impromptu pennant waving parades in his honor. Last night when asked which movie they wanted to watch, Sylvie yelled out, “Barack Obama movie! Yeah!” So, today, the kids made Obama signs. “We’re lucky because our neighbors only have one, but we have two.”

Oh, and apparently Barack Omama is married to Barack Obama.