Monsoon shots...

Just the other day, I was returning back to Pune from Mumbai. Now it is the sixth straight week where I have travelled to Mumbai once every week. Wow!

On my way back in a rickshaw, I had my faithful mini digital camera ready to take some of these monsoon photos. The theme here is how bike/moped people deal with rain in Pune. BTW, the guy on a red bike with helmet is actually trying to reach for his mobile phone while driving his bike with one hand going at atleast 25 mph! I dont know how he managed to talk on his mobile phone with his helmet on, while it was raining! I was really hoping to catch that on my camera but my rickshaw could not keep up with him :)

Rickshaw

There is so much I want to write about rickshaws in india...for now I will just post a picture. More to come later...

Shoe shine for Rs 5 (12 cents)

This is a guy who sits on the corner from Rhea's school. I have been watching him work as I wait for Rhea to come out of the school. When someone is working proudly and diligently it is always fun to watch them do their job, regardless of what job they are doing. He has his routine set up perfectly. He even washes his hands after each shoe shine!

The red tin bag you see is his entire office. At the end of the day he packs everything in it and goes home. (i guess, i didn't wait till end of the day to confirm it) Talk about a mobile office!

This guys will shine your shoes for Rs. 5 (12 cents) I wonder how many shoes he has to shine a day in order to feed his family! :(

Random sights - 2

While coming back from Rhea's school yesterday, we saw this truck on Karve road. Karve road is one of the busiest streets of Pune. I cannot imagine the traffic mess this truck must have created later in the day. I was so nervous driving next to it as it seemed like it would come down at any point. These days I am driving everywhere with my digital camera ready with me all the time. The random sights such as this one are too precious not to be captured on the camera!

From the newspaper...

As I am running out of things to blog about, I thought of blogging one interesting news item every day.

At 60, India more stable than ever before
... The striking thing about this report is the paragraph that says India is surrounded by some of the most unstable countries in the world.

It is also noteworthy that India dropped from 76 to 110 in just two years and in 2007 India is considered more stable than China. This should bode well for further expansion of indian economy.

Click on the picture to the right to read the news item.

The ugly...(from the good the bad the ugly)

There is a HUGE gap between the average population and the top 5% population of india when it comes to wealth. Everywhere you see, you see poverty in India. At traffic signals, you run into children selling petty items. While driving on streets you see slums with kids playing in conditions that would cause major factories to shut down in US in terms of air pollution, in hotels you see children working away as cheap laborers....

The prices are rising, inflation is very high but at the same time the average population in India does not seem to be making enough to make ends meet. People are working away day and night to earn enough to feed their families. At the same time you encounter hugh in efficiencies everywhere and it seems like there are multiple layers of bureaucracies everywhere. As I was travelling back to Pune from Mumbai last week, in my fully reclinable AC bus, I could see people just sitting every corner. I was wondering how can all this human power be harnessed to make the nation more efficient and wealthy. But then again, like any other top 5% population person, I focussed on my own worries and started working away on my laptop. :(

India (and other south asian countries in general) have huge human capital. The gap between the rich and poor is widening like never before. I wonder how long can this continue.....the only thing that I can console myself with is the fact that it has been like this for centuries...and hopefully the whole thing won't collapse around me!

Moments like this, I feel like returning to the cozy bubble of USA. That way, through media I will be fed with enough local issues like "how local firemen rescued a cat that climbed up a tree" and I can be worry free about the real issues in this part of the world.

Wedding photos..

Here are some photos from the wedding. As I found out, my camera refused to focus on pencil cells that you can get in India. Apparently (even brand new) cells in India do not have enough juice for the camera! Luckily we have plenty of Kirkland signature pencil cells on its way in our shipment! phew...

Henna is pretty traditional and a must in Indian weddings. Bride has the most elaborate henna design done on her hands/feet. It can take anywhere upto 6-8 hours to get these elaborate henna designs done. Kids also get henna done but that usually takes 10-15 minutes!

Weddings are also the time when everyone dresses up. Even kids get to wear elaborate dresses. Rhea got a special saree. (For those who know Rhea will notice the sea green color! :))


I was hoping to check out the fort next to Satara, "Ajinkyatara" but the sleep got the best of me :( Apparently locals have seen paragliders taking off of Ajinkyatara!

Weekend trip to Satara

We had a nice weekend trip to Satara to attend Medha's cousine wedding. It was my first long drive after r2i. Much to my delight the entire road is now a freeway and it was not very taxing to drive 2 hours from Pune to Satara. Here are some of the pictures of the drive.

For moondoggers, Satara is in the same direction as PaanchgaNi/Mahabaleshwar. So the mountains that you see in the pictures are the kind of mountains you will get to fly in the upcoming trip!

Stopping on a dime

We came across this sight while on our way to weekend trip. Granted that the tempo cannot be going more than 25mph due to road conditions and engine size. Still can you imagine the whiplash one would get to stop suddenly (not even a screeching halt....!) like this?

We captured these photos on the Rajaram Bridge. The bridge has a barrier to prevent tall vehicles from using the bridge. The last photo is the rajaram bridge...

80-20 rule in action

I can get from Pune to Mumbai in less than 2 hours!!! But in order to reach my office which is in Andheri, it takes me additional 1 1/2 hours!

Today, I drove to Pune infotech park. The total distance from my place to where I was going, is approximately 30 Km. It took me half an hours to go upto the Wakad junction. From Wakad to infotech park took me another half an hour.

This is a perfect example of last 20 percent of work taking as much time as first 80 percent.

Luckily the first 80 percent today is a great drive. It almost comparable to driving in US where you can pretty much go on autopilot without being afraid of having a riskshaw, or a two wheeler or a cow or a camel coming in your way!

I am afraid, however, that the rate at which this region is growing the road that is more than sufficient today, will not scale to the needs of the future. (And by future I mean next 5 years!!!)

The other aspect that I have realized is that it is the least common denominator that decides the speed with which one can travel on the roads. Today you can buy BMW 7 series cars in India and in many places the roads are good enough to drive those beautiful cars fast! However 0.00001% population can afford the BMW 7 series in India where as majority of population will still be buying underpowered cheap automobiles and even traveling by rickshaws. So as long as those vehicles are on the same streets, the entire average speed will come down. Sure the beemer can go zero to 60 in 4 seconds but in India it would be lucky if it can go 0 to 6 in 4 seconds.

The other irony is that the cream of population that can afford beemers and mercs is also the kind of people who never drive themselves. So all BMWs and Mercedez benz have drivers. Can you imagine buying a beemer and never driving it yourself? I can't!!!

Power of social networking

In US while driving, if you are listening to radio you are accustomed to getting regular traffic reports. US has intricate network of traffic sensors, video cameras and traffic helicopters that constantly feed radio stations with data that then can be broadcast to listeners. Numerous times, I have benefited from such traffic reports in time to avoid traffic jams of I5 and 520 bridge.

Pune (or india) has no such elaborate technology to get traffic volume updates. So what do they do? Pune has a very famous radio station, "radio mirchi" (mirchi==chilli) What they do is they rely on people calling the radio station to give them traffic updates from various intersections. They then relay this information on the radio. Incentive for people to call in and report traffic is that their name gets mentioned on the radio and ratio mirchi gets the information that they need. This is a great example of social collaboration enabled by technology. Kind of similar to www.wikipedia.com.

Whether or not anyone actually benefits from radio mirchi traffic reports is a whole different story because it's not like you have multiple options if one of the intersection is blocked! But the idea of getting the information out to people is simply brilliant!

The good The bad The ugly!

So far I have been only mentioning good things about our move to India. I guess you can say that we are in the honeymoon phase. But slowly and surely the bad and the ugly things are surfacing!

The one prominent thing I notice is that it is VERY hard to take some time off from your working day to do some exercise. I am talking about professionals who have challenging/demanding jobs and am not talking about people who work 9-5. (and even those don't exercise!)

By the time you are done with work and your day to day activities you are mentally so tired that you don't feel like going out again, fighting the traffic, finding a parking spot and then do some exercise. This applies to Pune. In Mumbai, the situation is even worse since commuting times are longer and commutes in general are lot harder.

Relatively speaking, it was much easier to get some form of exercise factored into your work day in US. Either before, during or after work you could stop by the Gym and sweat. If nothing else you could bike to work and get the calories burned that way. (Biking to work is an option here in Pune too but you will do more harm than good to your body by inhaling all the CO2)

Having said this, if determined one can still get decent exercise in the mornings and on weekends. e.g. I had some great tennis sets last Sunday on a clay court of Deccan Gymkhana or was able to go running on the back hills of Parvati. But this still doesn't compare anywhere close to the amount of sweat I used to loose doing the Bikram Yoga sessions in Bellevue.

Any how, enough of the cribbing considering I am still in the honeymoon phase! :)

One thing is interesting to note. Even with all this lack of exercise, the average weight of people in India is much much lower than that of western countries! I am going to ponder over reasons for this over a cold calorie packed beer! Cheers...

Random sights

Here is a random sight captured on a main street behind our house. It is understandable to see a camel in front of this particular store which happens to be the best "dessert" store in Pune! :-)

First day of school

Rhea had her first day of school today. She was quite excited about her new uniform which happened to be her favorite color (Sea Green!) I dropped Rhea/Medha at Abhinav at 8am in the morning. After a brief introductions, they asked all parents to go home. We went to pick her up at 11am again. She seem to have done fairly well and did not cry at all. As per her report of the school activities, she got to play with beads just the way she used to play in her Redmond school. This is a good sign if she begins to like her new school :) Here are couple of the photos of her first day to school.

BTW, it is my strong opinion that schools should have a uniform and is one of the things I don't like about US schools. I believe that having a school uniform creates a certain level of discipline/respect towards the learning institute. Your comments/flames are welcome.

Sometimes you want to go...

Returning to Pune even after 14 years has not changed some things. The barber still recognizes me. The pharmacist on the corner shop is a family friend and knows our entire family. I went to the bank and ran into a school classmate who remembered my name. If I go to our regular restaurant such as Rupali, then I run into atleast ten different friends from school, college or swimming. Pune traffic has grown many fold or else I would still see/meet people just by driving on the roads.

Leaving the comforts of the US behind becomes easier when you meet and greet with so many people on so many occasions. It reminds me of the Cheers song, "sometimes you wanna go, where everybody knows your name...and they are always glad you came...."

Cheers!

Learning to bank

So over the weekend I was at the HDFC bank. The branch is so under resourced that there is always a big queue to talk to the personal banker. Sometimes you have to jockey for position as people try to cut in. I was standing politely four feet away from the desk since there was one person talking to the personal banker. As I was waiting there, one dude walks into the bank and sits into the empty chair while these two people are discussing their private banking matters. It was then I realised that unless I jockey for position, I will never get to talk to the banker that day. So the next chance I got, I sat down on that chair. I learned quite a lot about the other person who was talking to the banker, his account balance, his tax implications etc. etc. It is a very striking experience when you compare the privacy/personal space you get in US banks compared to Indian banks. In US, the processes are so optimized that you don't have to spend an extra second with the teller if at all you have to see the teller in the first place. In India, even though there is automation and computerization, there are enough breaks in the process that you need to talk to a human.

It is kind of embarrasing when you find out that you don't even know the basics of banking processes. e.g. I did not know that you have to put "A/C Payee" with lines above and below it on every check that you write! Also I did not know how to withdraw cash (since I have not received my debit card, hence the trip to the teller in the first place!) using my own check. Who do I write the check to? Do I fill out any slip?

Where do I go to learn these basic processes? :)

Back to school

On Saturday all three of us were asked to come to Abhinav for Rhea's school interview. Unlike the interview Rhea had at Eaton (Redmond) this interview did not involve her at all. The school principal asked her some basic questions but really wanted to chat with us.

We were asked to be at the school at 10am. We reached there 10 minutes early and I was extremely delighted when the receptionist asked us to go into Principal's office at 10 O'clock sharp! It created a very nice first expression.

Principal asked us various questions as to why we are pursuing Abhinav and whether or not we are looking for long term. For some reason, we are not very much interested in placing Rhea/Roma in an international school. To us that kind of defeats the purpose of moving to India. Abhinav is especially attractive to us partly because Medha is a past student of that school and more because ALL of my classmate's kids go to Abhinav. Ultimately I believe that it is less about the school and more about the company/quality of other students that makes the difference!

Back in US, everyone scared us about how expensive Indian schools are these days, with steep fees and large donations to get in. That may be true for international and yuppie schools but not for Abhinav. They did not ask for any donation and the fees are about 20,000 Rs. Also the teacher to student ratio does not seem too bad, 3 teachers for 50 students.

Here is a financial comparison,
About $45 per month at Abhinav, compared to $750 per month at America's Child.
This year even Roma will start going to school. So all together we will be spending $1400 less per month on schools! Thats an annual savings of $16,800.

Reason I am being so explicit is that everyone has to take a pay cut when they move to india when compared to what we were making in US. But we don't take into account these type of savings. In order to pay $16, 800 per year, I have to make $21,840 (30% tax bracket) When I add that amount to my indian salary, suddenly indian salary and US salary doesn't seem that far apart! :)

Not to mention that Rhea/Roma will get a much higher level of education (This is our personal opinion and you are free to debate it via your comments!)

Got wheels finally...

After painful three weeks without a car, we finally brought home our new car, Maruti Zen Estillo. Everything I learned not to do while in US such as never buying a brand new car from a dealership, I had to do in my first three weeks in India. Buying (slightly) used cars is the only way to buy cars in USA. You don't pay the dealer depreciation and the one/two year old cars being driven on US roads are practically brand new. In India the road conditions are such that you don't want to go for an used car as you don't know how the previous owner may have driven it.

The financing rates in India are astronomical. Auto loan rates are whopping 14%, plus luck has it, the dollar to rupee exchange rate dropped to it's lowest levels in 9 years (it dropped by over 9% in last four months) So transferring whatever money we had in US banks was not a lucrative option. So we decided to go for an economy car such as Maruti Zen.

It is a cute little city car, perfect to navigate narrow streets and weave through traffic. Here is photo of the car with our friendly sales person, Ravi Gupta.

Even though this is my seventh car (first six being in US) it was the first car I bought from a dealer and first time to do elaborate "pooja" for it!

Puneri Signs

Pune is known for people who have a distinct flavor of customer service. Anywhere you go you come across interesting signs that either scold customers or warn them in stern language what they are liable for. Here is a good example of such a sign I came across in the Volvo bus service office. Its literal translation is as follows,
"Please do not come to the counter asking again and again when the bus will arrive. When the bus comes we will call you. Pune traffic causes delays. Please note it. And please keep quiet!" (it probably looses its punch when translated in English but reading it in Marathi, it is very rude and very much puneri! :))