Last Wishes

I wish for Unni: his own restaurant;
I wish for Vaishali: a book deal;
I wish for Murli: his own auto-rickshaw gang;
I wish for Cafe Coffee Day: change;
I wish for Sri: a wife;
I wish for Abishek: courage (to shave the goatee);
I wish for Arun: a heart;
I wish for Preet: a promotion;
I wish for High Octane: wisdom to invest and survive our absence;
I wish for Coco Joe: his own hotel;
I wish for Agra: an airport;
I wish for Solomon: a friend;
I wish for Peter: peers;
I wish for Daphne: a parade in heaven;
I wish for India: a generation of youth willing to change the corrupt ways of old, and finally live out its father's famous quote.

Sugar-Free Sliders

The news media has picked up what diabetics have known for years: the cheap sweetener, Sorbitol, causes diarrhea. And diarrhea causes severe (water-) weight loss. And weight loss causes national attention.

So reading between the lines in all these articles, you'll see a subtle hint that sugar-free products might see a rise in sales, sadly. And that's a bad idea.

Severe Weight Loss Can Be Caused By Chewing Gum, Doctors Report (Science Daily)

The Reality of the "People's Car"

For those of you who probably haven't heard, Tata, a conglomerate that provides everything from tea to insurance to outsourcing to cars, introduced their anticipated "People's Car" on Thursday: the Tata Nano.

The annoucement comes with a guise of providing a status symbol to those who couldn't afford one before. But do they need it?

Traffic is abysmal already, and I've been told breathing the Bangalore air is equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day (a likely exaggeration, but the point is valid). On roads where the primary vehicle is the motorbike, the addition of cars means you can fit roughly half the number of commuters into the same unit of road-space.

And India has held the title for the most traffic deaths anywhere in the world for years, only escalated by the fact that there are few regulations on drivers' licenses.

I realize Americans have their own poor eviromental driving habits, and I don't mean to look over that. But there are far-worse contributing factors related to the infrastructure here that need to dealt with.

Anyway, read on to the Times article. It does a good job outlining my concerns on the issue.

Indians Hit the Road Amid Elephants (New York Times)

New photos

I've uploaded pictures of Hyderabad and Mumbai.
As always, I find the map view most interesting. It's a nice overview of my treks, and a reminder that I really only covered about a third of the subcontinent.

If you're into Google Earth, you can view my photos there, too.

New Years in Bombay

After touching down in one of the world's largest cities, most travelers might be a bit intimidated. Not me, though; I had 5½ months in India under my belt. I can handle anything.

So, in the first 10 minutes, I had Rs. 1000 stolen right in front of me by a taxi-pimp skilled in slight of hand. It was a bit of a sour start.

James and I arrived at our hostel, the Hotel Volga II, after 20 minutes of circling the block with our clueless cab driver. We didn't have good directions, and none of the people on the street knew how to find the place, so I felt a bit bad for the driver—or would have if his boss wasn't such a sleaze.

The Volga was a "delightful" little hallway of rooms with about 30 beds total sharing 2 westerns and a squatter. There were spouts and a bucket for showering. Thankfully, hot water wasn't much of an issue: even during winter the thermometer hits 90°F daily. We couldn't get into our room until a few hours, so we went downstairs and around the corner to Leopold Café, a former colonial pub now hugely popular with young international tourists, boasting a solid-but-typical Indian/Chinese/Continental menu. After a few hours of coffee, we walked the Colaba causeway for the first of many times. It's a ½-mile traffic jam of street vendors and "upper-class" shops like Nike, Reebok, Lacoste, etc. After picking up a city-guide from a small book stand, we planned out a long weekend.

Mumbai is expansive, and has no single entertainment district. Colaba was one, and seemed good enough for our 4-day stay. After all, it's no fun wearing yourself out seeing sights when all the sights are more or less the same you've seen for months. I'd made this mistake before and we wanted Mumbai to be relaxing.

That night, we visited the first listing in the guide under "Good Live Music": Not Just Jazz by the Bay. It ended up being an almost 5 hour visit, but the "just jazz"-playing band was talented and we had nowhere else to go.

The next day began with more Colaba: food and gift shopping. And that night, lazy but content, we decided to go back to "Jazz". To defend this choice, they had great food, and Sunday night was Karaoke night and described as "highly popular with college-aged locals." (Our trip to India sort of delayed and grayed the point where college-aged ended and working-aged began, so we were all for it.) The guide was right: we were the only Americans there, and the mean age was probably around 22. We were a bit nervous volunteering until we heard a few "regulars" first. Luckily, it was adequately amateur, and soon "Nathan from the U.S." was singing "To Be With You" by Mr. Big.

This was a worthy ice-breaker: we soon got into conversation (and duet agreements) with the group at the table next to us. They ended up being mostly Boston University students, and after a sub-par "A Whole New World," we followed them to an after-hours hookah joint. Fully aware that meeting locals can make a trip many times better, we eagerly accepted an invitation to join them for New Years Eve, plans TBA.

Day three on the Colaba Causeway was no different, except for lunch (Lebanese today), so we changed things up and wandered around the Hotel Taj Mahal Palace (rooms starting at Rs. 15k). It had a large lobby with elite shoppes vis-à-vis the causeway. After a mix of goggling and cynicism at the same, we sat down at the residents-only pool bar, underdressed and overconfident. Since we'd been washing with a bucket the last few days, we promptly compensated with 2 glasses of their finest champagne, explaining that we'd just checked out and therefore couldn't respond to your query for our room number.

We returned to our real room and made plans to join our new friends at one of their family's flats. It couldn't have been more of a fun, chill mini-party that night; we easily forgot we're supposedly "working adults".

There's no Bollywood version of Dick Clark, but the neighbors' fireworks kept us on time for the countdown. Around four, we actually attempted to return to "Jazz", who's party had been unfortunately shut down by the cops. The staff, now quite familiar with my presence, we quite apologetic.

James and I returned to the Volga around 7 AM and crashed until checkout. Now having spent our second major holiday in a week with surrogate friends and family, I can almost say I'm glad I had to stay.

Christmas in Hyderabad

Being away from family on Christmas was going to be a first for my coworker James and I, so we decided to do something to take our minds off it. Options included stuffing our faces with all the packaged American food we could find, or spending it with some other family who might be celebrating.

Christians in India can be easy to spot. First, they have "good christian names", such as biblical characters or sometimes even outrageous ones like "Immaculate". Second, they tend to have better-than-average English skills, and third, they are very vocal in using these skills when meeting Americans. Solomon is a guard in our hostel building, and meets all of these criteria. So, after a few of his initiated lobby-conversations, we received a Christmas invite.

Our initial commitment was attending a Christmas program and having dinner with his family on the evening of the 24th.

We met him at the Lingampally bus station and, as we feared, he was on a two-wheeler. It turned out that the Christmas program was rescheduled to the night earlier, so we set off for his house: 3 men on a two-seater bike.

We entered into a small sitting room cum kitchen and were offered some spiced beef. This was followed by more meat, rice, chapati, and beer. It confused us, because it seemed unlikely this was just the appetizer. Apparently "dinner with family" meant "serve you and watch you eat." We had met his two daughters (and as is customary, told which courses they'd completed), but they and his wife retreated to the back room. While this reduced the chance of awkward marriage discussion, it robbed us of the real reason we agreed to come: to spend Christmas with a family.

Near the end of the meal, Solomon asked if we'd come again the next day. Technically our only plan was "something involving oreos," so we agreed on the condition that tomorrow the whole family would eat together.

Christmas morning we awoke late and headed off to meet Solomon and his family at their church. Turns out, a two-hour church service in a language you don't know can be pretty awful. But, it eventually came to an end, and we found ourselves back in the cement-block house. After short Christmas greetings, "Uncle Nathan and Uncle James" were sat and fed in private. Our protests were futile, or more likely misunderstood. Plus, Solomon seemed to have big plans on his mind:

"Would you like some scotch?"
"Um, okay, sure.."
"Okay. My son will get some."
(wait, from the store? you offered it without having it?)

He poured three drinks and more spiced meats were brought (this time goat and chicken). Frustrated that this was going to be a repeat of Christmas Eve, James & I sipped slowly as we waited for an opportunity to excuse ourselves. Solomon was less reserved.

Now, I don't mean to portray him as a drunk, because he wasn't. After one glass, he began to be very vocally self-conscious about it, and stated probably 5 times that he doesn't so this often. This was verified, as the effects could be seen quickly. He was freely speaking on anything and everything while James and I sat silently uncomfortable. First, it was how he was going to become a preacher, then how his father was a big drinker, then how I was too skinny (and subsequently force-fed the chicken heart), until it reached the breaking point where he described how many times per week his wife will "have him". James and I choked down the rest of our biryani and told Solomon we were calling a cab.

"So, you'll stay two more hours, then?"
"No,"
"One more hour, then go to my sister's house?"
"No..."

About an hour later (and after meeting his sister), we made it back to campus and forced down some candy bars as we watched Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer and The Year Without a Santa Claus.

In the end, it wasn't really Christmas, but an unforgettable day nonetheless.