This India ( Part Uno )

So its been a week or so actually 10 days now I think since I got back to the country of my birth , land of my fore fathers, the India of the East ( wait what?? ). Man this place is just overwhelming both the good and the bad ( there is no indifferent though )

To start with this is my first Indian summer in 10 yrs …. GOOD NEWS there is no global warming . Also Indian street vendors are now making omelets without the need for any sort of fire, stove etc . The heat is un-friggin-real and if one more person tries to tell me mumbai is better than pune or vice-versa and talks about heat vs humidity I plan to drown them …in hot water. they can decide then once for all which is worse death by boiling or drowning in your perspiration. but I digress.. calm happy thoughts now cool thoughts

The food is beyond amazing like to die for ( also based on govt statistics very likely you will die from it ) one of my fave moments was when I realized the reason the dal makhani was soooo makhani was because the tadka was in ghee. I could literally see my arteries waving a white flag but not with too much energy though. And man what can I say about the kababs. Not kebobs or kabbobs or meat- on- a- stick but the heaven that is a well marinated flavoured reshmi kabbab hai hai. Did I mention paani poori.

Ok good moving on, the other almost incredibly mind numbingly amazing thing about this place is the traffic. How do I describe this now. Imagine if you will that bill gates has mated with Meghan fox( gratuitous pic somewhere below) and their offspring is

1. age appropriate
2. genetically endowed with all of Ms Fox’s looks
3. legally endowed with all of Mr Gates’ Money ( ok fine so this analogy has some holes in it )

Now further imagine that this women runs an ad in the paper saying that the first one billion people who want to have sex with her are welcome to and the winner will be getting all her money. Now imagine the rush to get to her place. Ok that is India during OFF-PEAK hours. Also my cab driver truly has a fantastic sense of irony and amazing dead-pan delivery, which he illustrated by telling me that rickshaw drivers in his opinion were the most dangerous drivers of all time , and as I started nodding , he calmly broke a red light turned into a one way in the wrong direction and then proceeded to nearly run over in quick succession a cyclist a dog a cow and then a rickshaw-walla. after which he gestured to the passing rickshaw guy to underscore his point, a bravura performance I have already sent his address to Mr. Daniel Day Lewis.

Managed to meet a bunch of friends of yore , clearly every one has traded in their carefree rocker days for the wonderful suburban life :-) ( too old to rock and roll to young to die :-) ). Was still pretty awesome though. Also everyone and their younger brother ( with a few exceptions ) works for a company(ies) that…….”count on the expertise and experience of its skilled architects and engineers to provide an excellent atmosphere for creative and practical solutions.” Also some of them provide “emphasis on thorough business analysis, robust architecture and clean code all brought together through effective use of agile processes ensures high quality and timely deliveries”.Also others have chosen to emphasize process-driven project management so that projects are handled carefully and professionally, at all times. And finally some “deliver custom applications and provide consulting grounded in reality; they help organizations become efficient through Agile and Lean practices and principles. By hiring exceptional people, we can solve our clients' biggest and most pressing problems. All of our services are offered both on and offshore, and are delivered with pride and passion.”

There who says India is not doing cutting edge awesome stuff in tech.

I think the biggest thing for me is the density of people man and how small the houses etc are here. The US is really blessed in terms of land per person. More later..