First Post! and summary of the week June 11th to 20th

So, I've decided that since my internet is sporadic in the extreme here in India (even in the nice houses, the power goes out a few times a day), and instead of attempting to communicate with everyone individually over facebook/email (a task I'm decidedly not up to, and my employers probably would resent), I'm going to post my trip report, observations, musings, rants etc etc here for everyone to read. I'll be writing in whenever I can, which right now seems to be once a week maybe. I hope you all enjoy it, and please leave comments etc so I know I'm not all alone on this hot, muggy side of the world.

Off I go
I left Hamburg around mid-afternoon on June the 11th. Mum and I had a hurried lunch before my departure, while watching Yes Minister (a birthday present I hadn’t had the time to enjoy yet), and finished up with a piece of Nusstorte which Mum bought as a surprise. I was my usual nervous self about the time, so Mum dropped me off at the terminal while she went to find a parking spot. In retrospect, as usual, this was unnecessary, since I had to wait less than five minutes in the line-up to check in. I guess Wednesday afternoon is not exactly a busy time. To kill time before my flight Mum and I did the customary shop in the airport newspaper/bookstore (where I got a good book – A Thousand Splendid Suns – as well as a bad one – Chasing Harvey Winston (sp?), terrible chick lit which I later leave at the S---'s House). After buying half the shop, we went up to the restaurant-thing that looks over the terminal area (how is it that in 18 years of flying out of that airport I’ve never been there before?) and had a cup of tea and a chat. Once there was ten minutes left ‘til boarding, we said goodbye and I went through Security. I had a brief stop-over in Munich, where I grabbed a nice dinner.

I arrived in Mumbai in the early morning of June the twelfth, and was picked up at the airport by A--- and P---. We drove to their apartment (located in the absolute swankiest, most expensive and high profile part of Mumbai) and after showing me the place they gave me time to crash. I did so gratefully, but asked to be woken up in an hour or so since I’d flown through the night and wanted to get on IST as quickly as possible. My one-hour nap turned into a six-hour dead sleep, and when I got up and apologized for sleeping so long (“I hope I didn’t inconvenience you!”), their reaction is a laidback “Well, you obviously needed the sleep!” Amazing to a daughter of the Witt family, and my first clue as to people’s general approach to time and punctuality here. Once I’d woken up, P--- took me into Mumbai for some shopping as I’d expressed the wish to buy some Indian clothes (Lonely Planet asserts it dramatically cuts down on stares, but so far they’re staring anyway – quite uncomfortable). We exchanged some money at Thomas Cooke and head for a store called CottonWorld, and another called Fabindia. Here I picked up some kurtas (tunic-like side-slitted tops that go to just above your knee which you wear over normal pants) and a salwar kameez (an outfit that consists of a longer kurta that goes down past your knees, a pair of drawstring pants that are huge at the waist and very, very tight at the ankles, as well as a scarf called a dupatta). We headed home for a nice relaxing dinner with the family.

The next day I got up and headed to my new office, escorted by M---. She introduced me to the staff and got me settled. The staff were friendly, and set me down with their 2007-2008 Sustainability report, which details Generic Big Bank’s work towards conservation, carbon reduction and Microfinance, as well as the mechanisms they use to ensure due diligence, etc. It was relatively interesting, but when I finished it within three hours there was some head-scratching as to what to do with me. They ransacked the office and filled my desk with every Microfinance report, study, survey and analysis they could find. I spent the rest of the day reading, and at around twenty to six Karishma, the secretary, told me M---’s secretary called and said M--- would come by to pick me up in fifteen to twenty minutes (the rest of my time in Mumbai I took taxis home from work, but that day was A---’s birthday so it was deemed easier to simply pick me up). When M--- hadn’t arrived by six, I started getting nervous. I knew we were supposed to see a movie in town at a quarter to eight, and I was afraid I was to have taken a taxi after all, but had misunderstood. I started panicking quietly, thinking I might hold up the whole thing, causing us to miss the birthday movie, dinner reservation, or what have you. At six thirty, I asked Karishma to call M---’s office and find out if and/or when she’d left. I figured if she’d left more than ten minutes ago, I was going to take a cab. But of course she’d merely gotten delayed, and said she’d be there in another ten. Chalk up another notch in favour of "Gitte seriously just needs to chill".
Fifteen minutes later we sped back towards the house, which we reached at a quarter past seven. We were told to change very quickly, but oddly no one seemed to be stressed about the fact that the movie started in half an hour, the minimum time needed just to get to the theatre! I changed at lightning-speed (wonder where I acquired that talent?) and waited in astonishment (but kept my mouth shut) as the family languidly changed. We were going to see a Hindi movie, and I decided just to go with it, since I knew I wouldn’t get half the plot anyway, so what was a quarter of an hour? At seven-thirty we set off, and got to the movie theatre by eight. The movie had started, but this didn’t bother any of the family. I really envy how laidback everyone is. It's a very fatalistic "well, if we're meant to make it we will!" which is totally foreign to my teutonic notions of keeping time.
The movie was hilariously terrible, and I was astonished to find that I could understand most of the plot despite the language. I guess the fine art of the gasp-with-a-look-of-[insert emotion here]-as-the-camera-pulls-in-for-a-close-up-and-the-music-swells acting is as alive as ever. The funniest part of the movie, for me, was the music sequence at the end. The other songs had been fantastically camp as well, but as the credits began to roll the hero was shown riding into a 70’s-style disco (complete with glittering ball and backup dancers) on a unicorn, wearing a baby blue tuxedo jacket, white pants, a white shirt and a maroon ascot. That outfit sent me over the edge. After the movie we drove to Busaba, a trendy restaurant downtown where we had a scrumptious dinner.

The next day I slept quite late, as did the rest of the family. They were all planning on having a slow day, but urged me to take the driver and do some sightseeing. So I left and went to the Prince of Wales museum, stopping at the Gateway of India first. This was my first experience as a lone white girl, and even though I was prepared for it the amount of people trying to talk to me or take my picture was a little daunting. The museums was a little more relaxing, as I got an audio tour and thus could jam the headphones on and politely ignore anyone who spoke to me. But the stares still galled me. Especially one group of women and children could not get enough of a look. Doesn’t anyone teach their kids it’s rude to stare, much less follow someone around? At times I felt more like an exhibit than a visitor. There were a couple of other foreigners in the building however, which was nice, and the museum itself was quite interesting. In the evening, the family’s yoga instructor came, and we, M---, P--- and I spend an hour contorted in various positions on the floor. It was quite nice, except since I had to take off my glasses I couldn’t see and had to have the movements described to me. The teacher even praised me for being flexible!

Sunday morning the yoga teacher came again, and in the afternoon I decided to go for a walk to some neighborhood sites, which the family seemed to think was a novel idea. They offered me the driver, but I declined, explaining that it was the walk, and not the sites, that I craved. I spent around an hour and a half outside, and when I got back I was sweaty, exhausted (Malabar Hill where they live is just that –a hill- and I’d gone up and down a fair bit) and pleased. In the evening the S--- family took me out for authentic Mumbai street food. First we went to Kailash Parbat, a place that’s apparently been around since independence. I tried a Jalebi, which are whorls of dough deep-fried in sugar syrup (pretty good, though way too sweet for my taste), and something called Pani Puri, which Kailash Parbat is famous for. You know the thinness and consistency of the dough you make won-tons out of? Imagine a hollow ball of that dough, which a guy punches a small hole into. He scoops up a bunch of chickpeas with this new bowl-like thing, ladles some form of syrupy gravy into it, and dunks the whole thing into a bowl of spiced water. Then you put the whole think into your mouth at once. The first bite shatters the dough-thingy and vaguely flavoured water runs into your mouth. Apparently people adore this, but frankly I thought the taste was closest to sweet oyster juice. Then we went to Bade Miya, a street grill that serves kebabs fresh off the coals. We ate quickly, and I burned my fingers (no cutlery, and you eat standing up) as well as my mouth, but was so worth it. The last place we went was Baghdadi, a small no-frills canteen where we had rice, naan bread, and chicken curry.

Monday was more of the same at work, a lot of dry, yet still quite interesting reading. After work I walked to the Vodaphone store, determined to get a SIM card for my phone. I had gone on Saturday, but been told I needed a passport-sized picture to get the card. So I went to get my picture taken for the phone, only to get to the phone store and have them tell me that their computer sys was down and could I come back tomorrow? I went home.

Tuesday was quite interesting. I spent most of the day observing Generic Big Bank (GBB) meetings. Another Generic Big Bank (AGBB) bought GBB six months ago, and a guy from their Corporate Social Responsibility division (which GBB calls Sustainability) was there to assess the portfolio. Lots of Presentations etc, which for me were very interesting and illuminating. The coolest thing for me though, was to hear one of the reasons AGBB is heavily involved with CSR to start with. Apart from the ethical concerns (which, believe it or no, do play a part – the people running these kind of divisions do care), there’s a firm business angle to it. It seems that AGBB hold a significant part of the student banking market in both the UK and the US, and precisely that group is the most vulnerable from “NGO agitation”, so to speak. Pretty cool that what originally drove AGBB to CSR was a student protest staged outside their HQ with kids pretending to be dead polar bears. Since the student market responds so rapidly to NGO campaigns, CSR in part seeks to preempt that. Go student power! At the end of the day I went back to the Vodaphone store again to get my card. I waited over 45 minutes at the store, and by the end I’d the impression that the good people of Mumbai have never in their lives seen a white girl before, judging by the once again ubiquitous stares.

Wednesday was more reading, and another trip to the Vodaphone store as the SIM card hadn’t been activated yet. They day before they’d assured me that activation would only take two hours, but as my phone was still inactive 24 hours later I was more than a little pissed. Thursday was the last work day, and –guess what?- a last trip to the Vodaphone store. I had been so excited about my phone working that I promptly used all the minutes on my world calling card and needed another.

Friday I got up and left the house with P---, and we headed to the Trident/Hilton/Oberoi (apparently the hotel has switched owners/names a lot, so it’s now called any of these three things). The sustainability team had organized a two-day Employee Volunteer Training programme, dubbed “Magic Hands”. GBB employees, (about 94 in all) from all over India came (voluntarily, natch) to learn about Biodiversity, Climate Change and Microfinance (the three main points of the Sustainability portfolio) and how they could help. The first stop was a visit to the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, about an hour away (but still within the city’s borders) We were scheduled to leave the hotel by bus at 11 am., so we got out of there by a quarter to 12, meaning the whole schedule started off late (and would gradually get later and later). P--- and I had lots of fun on the way up. I demonstrated French-braiding to her, and we dared each other to steal the chocolate bars on the seats next to us that the organizers/animators had as prizes for the volunteers. Once at the park, we had a very inspiring talk by a man whose name I’ve forgotten, but is one of India’s (and the world’s) foremost authorities on biodiversity and conservation. We then drove out to a road where we started a “one-hour-walk” (which took two and a half because we stopped every three feet for information on something, and walked at a glacial pace the rest of the time). Since we were in staggered groups, and I was in the last one, I walked ahead on my own (bypassing two other groups) and managed to be the first to spot monkeys. I also saw a civet and several birds whose names I have now forgotten. I joined the first group at the busses (which had driven ahead) and once everyone was there we drove back towards the hotel. I drove back in a car with M---, P--- and a fellow called Bittu (another well-known conservationist), and as we neared the hotel we found out that, though late, we were about 45 minutes ahead of the rest of the group. So P--- and I jumped out about a block before the hotel and went to a place called Café Mocha, where we shared a water-pipe and a drink, before walking over to the hotel. During the appetizers a man named Pavan (also very famous, who works for a European commission on biodiversity and how to harness market forces to preserve it) spoke about the economics of conservation. Then during dinner they screened the movie “Planet Earth” – parts of which are identical to the series. Originally we were going to see “The 11th Hour”, but I think the impression was that this was too depressing after a long day of dismal statistics.

That's all (all? all? yes, this was quite long, wasn't it?) for now, keep your eyes peeled for more from the depths of India!