Small things i thought I would miss about USA but am not

Okay, so these are probably the series of blog posts that many of you have been waiting for. I will start with the easy things first in this blog entry and then tackle hard more delicate things later! :)

Small things i thought I would miss about USA but am not..

1. Starbucks coffee.
I was never a big fan of starbucks but every working day :) I would go grab a cup of non-fat, no-whip, extra-hot latte or mocha. I thought I would miss it but Rupali's extra strong coffee has filled that void perfectly. And it comes non-fat by default too! :) Barista's latte is also very good although it is more like "flat white" coffee that you get in Australia and less like starbucks latte. Barista has been a good place for quick business meetings similar to how people use Starbucks.

2. Pro Club health club (by far the best health club in the entire world)
Yes I do miss it a bit but not so much as I had thought I would. Tennis on Sundays, tekdi on weekdays and swimming in Tilak tank every once in a while has been very good. I think lack of club facilities has been compensated with good company of friends....so far!

3. Food
Believe it or not, I actually thought I would miss italian, thai, mexican and just plain old american food. I am a big fan of fresh sub sandwiches and was sure that I would miss them a lot. I do miss them somewhat but so far it has not been an issue. Occasional desire for cheese can be satisfied by visiting local Pizza Hut! :)

...More things to be added as I think of them!

Lonavala villas

This photo is taken from pune-mumbai expressway in Lonavala. Due to monsoon, the entire lonavala area has turned into beautiful velvetti shades of green.

How NOT to pay toll on indian roads

All you have to do it belong to one of the categories listed here and you don't have to pay Rs. 15 toll! It's that easy :)

outlook feature request

Ok. This has nothing to do with return to india but hey while I have you reading my blogs why not make you read this too! :)

Here is a feature request for Outlook (Aparna B are you reading?). Wouldn't it be nice if as you hit send button, outlook scans your email looking for word attached (or enclosed or attachment), then it checks to see if the email has an attachment and warns you if there is none? It would save so many of us from sending those "oops forgot to attach, here you go..." type of emails!!! Do write a comment if you ever had to send such an embarrassing email to your colleagues.

day at the zoo

One of the biggest problems of moving back to India is how to entertain the kids on weekends. We are very used to having lots of open spaces such as parks, lakes and hills in a close proximity of our house in Redmond. Such places do exist here but are not within easy reach and are at least few hours drive away. When we asked other parents their response was that we take our kids to mall or to a restaurant or simply leave them alone to play in the neighborhood. None of these options are very palatable to us, yet!

So we took our kids to a local zoo, Rajiv Gandhi Udyan. This zoo is built upon a large area which also has a very nice lake, katraj lake. This entire area used to be outside of Pune but due to the recent growth of Pune, has now come inside of the city limits. There are buildings all around this nice zoo, some of them I would imagine have a direct view of tigers and other animals! I wonder if the builder puts that into his marketing brochures! :) Upon entering the zoo we were treated with this artistic map of the zoo. We thought this was a real map and kept on looking for the elephant exhibition area. In fact we hyped it so much that Rhea/Roma kept on asking for elephants. Only then we discovered that the map had nothing to do with reality and was just there as a piece of art! :)


The zoo turned out to be pretty nice. Here are some pictures of it,

























After the hectic two hours (?) at the zoo we HAD to take the girls to a place they would feel like at home.....Pizza Hut! :) You can see how much they enjoyed savoring the cheeses based on the smiles!!

hidden treasures of pune : Hanuman Tekdi and Vetal Tekdi

Even with all the urbanization there are still some gems in Pune. Hanuman Tekdi (tekdi == hill) is one such place. From where we are currently staying, Kanchan Galli (galli == street) one can easily walk to the trail. Comparatively, hanuman tekdi is pretty small. I can jog up to the top in less than 6 minutes! But then one can continue behind it and go all the way up to the Vetal tekdi (vetal==ghost) The entire round trip from our place to observation deck takes less than an hour and is my current attempt of keeping in shape! There is an observation deck on top of the vetal tekdi that gives you 360 degrees views of Pune and it's urban crawl. Very few people go up all the way to the observation deck so it is a nice place to sit, meditate and worry about global warming :-)

Here you can see the observation deck from a distance.

We also did a small family hike the other day and took Rhea/Roma all the way up to Hanuman tekdi. Both girls were so happy to get some open space to themselves and enjoyed quite a lot.

Does history repeats itself across continents?

They say history repeats itself but does it really apply to events across two different continents?

I have seen and personally experienced the stock market bubble (and the subsequent crash) in US from 1998-2000. It was the time when NASDAQ kept on going up! There would be an news item daily on how people are quitting their primary jobs and going full time into day trading! Every one, and I mean every one was trading stocks and talking about it all the time. It seemed like you couldn't go wrong, just pick any stock and it would go up and up and up...everyone (including myself) started believing that we can pick any stock and make money. NASDAQ doubled in those years! US dollar was running very strong against any other currency in the world! Real estate prices were soaring!!

Then as you all know, bubble burst NASDAQ came crashing down. Real estate growth slowed down. US currency started to weaken...etc. etc.

Now 7 years later, now that I am in India, it is deja vu time (all over again) :) for me. Sensex (india's stock index) has doubled in last few years and more than quadrupled in 5-6 years. Real estate prices are soaring. Indian rupee is strongest it has been against US dollar in last 10 years! Just check out the comparison chart between sensex and dow jones! This chart by itself shows why India has been so hot in recent years! You don't need a degree in finance to figure out that the growth at this rate may be a bit too fast!

Real estate prices have ballooned in last few years. Mortgage rates are at whopping 14-15% And people are still buying properties in speculation of making money. Pundits are saying that sensex will continue to rise because of strong india story...blah blah blah...there is a difference in being bullish and total bullshit! :) (hey i came up with this quote just now and I am taking full copy rights on it!)

I have seen it happen in US when everyone was saying that it won't happen...it won't happen. Right now, people are saying that it won't happen here in India. I hope that they are correct and that the history will not repeat itself.

If at all there is a downturn in indian economy, large foreign investors will pull out their money in a jiffy and the common man who has all his fortunes invested in this bullish stock market will crash and burn! I hope it does not happen! I hope history does not repeat itself across continents!

Two good web sites I recently came across. One is designed to empower citizens by allowing them to register issues that the web site promises will get looked at within 72 hours!!! http://www.OurPune.com. I am definitely going to register few issues and see if the promise holds up.

The other web site is actually pretty old by now but still worth a visit. It was started as a website to educate people about improving pune traffic. Check it out at, http://www.SavePuneTraffic.com

is anyone out there?

Is anyone actually reading my blogs? As I am finding out, writing a blog is very much one way activity. I need to know if you are reading my blog. If no one is reading it then I will stop wasting my time! :) So this is a request for you to enter a comment letting me know that someone out there is reading my rants!

Changing face of MY earth

Pune is growing without limits in every direction. There are HUGE buildings coming up everywhere you see. All this construction is an indication that Pune as a city is booming. However so much construction can also get appalling at times. As it is the infrastructure (roads, water, sewage, electricity) is lagging behind the old Pune population. Consider this, a vacant plot or even an occupied plot that sustains at most 20-30 people is used to construct 30 story building that contains over 150 flats, which would then host anywhere from 400 to 800 people. How does a city go from supporting needs of 20 people to supporting needs of 600? The building will take at most 2 years to build but how do you support a 3000% increase in capacity in just two years! And this is just one plot!!! When plots all around it are also developed at the same mind numbing pace, the future of the city becomes very bleak.

The slogan by Kakade city builder sums it all up, "We cannot change the sky" THANK GOD "but endeavor to change the face of earth". Yes, all builders are changing the face of earth here in Pune and making it a city that I cannot relate with anymore!

I am sorry but I am in very saddening mood today after having spent almost the entire day in a registrar's office trying to register our rental flat agreement. The office resembles an office from gold rush. People are there to get their property registered or traded or rented and to make money, they don't give a damn about the planet.

Here are couple of photos from that office. The second photo captures the mentality of people perfectly. (The sign in marathi says "do not spit") :-(

Daily mumbai photo

As I was browsing the web to find photos of recent rain havoc in mumbai, I came across this nice blog. The photos are excellent and I like the concept of blogging via photos. In fact I think I am using that style already in my blog partly due to the fact that it is very hard to come up with content everyday that is blog-worthy!

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...