I’ll start with the events of the past week, then follow up later with another post about my adventures this weekend.
This week went past very quickly. As in the first week, I spent most of my office time presenting information, talking nearly non-stop with a couple of 5-minute breaks and half an hour for lunch. I think my throat is starting to develop calluses from all this talking; at least it’s not feeling as raw at the end of the day. I go through quite a bit of water, and of course the tea guy drops by two or three times a day.
The company changed lunch caterers on Monday. Everyone says it’s better, and they’ve been asking me if I’ve noticed the difference, but my palate isn’t refined enough to tell. I can tell the variety is different than the previous caterer, but the only quality difference I’ve noticed is that the yoghurt isn’t as runny.
My first and only spicy-hot food experience was on Monday, when I happened to chew a particulary virulent chili pepper. There are supposed to be five tastes: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami, but it was at least ten minutes before I could taste anything but “pain”. Someone brought me a couple of dishes of sweets (mango paste, I think), and that dispersed the acid. I was reminded of a joke about judging a chili contest.
I thought I’d conquered my weekend digestive upset by Monday, but I believe that run-in with the chili pepper triggered another bout. Since then, I’ve made a deal with my gut: I’ll take it easy on the pickles and eat more rice, and in return it will let me spend less time with the products of Hindware Ltd. So far the truce is holding, more or less, but several breakfast items (onion&pepper pancakes, and various pastries) just demand curd and pickle. Pickle, by the way, isn’t what you might be thinking… it’s actually fruit (mango or lime seems common) mixed with chili paste and then, I guess, fermented. Hot, but delicious. I’ll definitely be looking for a source for that stuff when I get home.
This week I discovered that afternoon “snacks” are available, and I learned that in Hindi, “snacks” is… “snacks”. Now around 17h00, the tea guy drops by again with some kind of filled pastry (different one every day so far) and sauces, and of course another round of spiced tea.
As usual, I’ve talked mostly about food. Let’s see, what else happened this week…
I saw my first and (so far) only cat on the way home from work Wednesday. I’ve done some reading and found that cats aren’t very popular in India. Apparently there are some superstitions about them being unlucky, and probably more importantly lifestyles are different here, so dogs outnumber them as pets by 5 or 6 to 1 (according to pet food manufacturer links I didn’t save), unlike in North America, where pet cats have overtaken pet dogs in number. I don’t think the Indian ratio includes the many mangy-looking street dogs, either, which could explain why that cat looked so nervous as it darted out from under a parked car. Street dogs, by the way, seem to come in only one variety, and basically one colour scheme.
One day on the way home from work, my driver said before I leave, he wanted to see me drive a car. Ha ha! I can’t count the number of times that we’ve almost been killed, bouncing around in that seatbeltless 800cc Maruti Suzuki Omni van, and so getting behind a wheel here would be the last thing I’d do (probably literally!). Twice I’ve seen cars with “Driving School” signs on the roof, and I have to shake my head. I can’t imagine what there is to teach a driver here, except the location of the horn button, and domination of fear.
I say “my” driver, but of course he doesn’t sit around just waiting for me to travel the couple of kilometres between home and office twice a day. I see him a little before 09h00 when he picks me up at home, and again at 19h00 when he picks me up at work (and sometimes at lunch outside on the terrace). He says he works from 06h00 to midnight or later, six days a week, just driving company people around. His English skills are excellent, so we’ve even managed to delve into topics like geopolitics on our brief trips.
Finally, some pictures! Click on the thumbnail for a larger version. Here’s a picture of my room at the guest house.
Here’s the living room.
This is the dining room, with the wireless router in the corner on the right.
Here’s a typical weekend lunch for one at the guest house. Am I supposed to eat all this???
