Electricity

Electricity is something we tend to take for granted in most places in the world.  Not so much in India!
The electricity goes out inexplicably at least a dozen times per day here, sometimes for hours on end.  I am fairly lucky because where I spend all of my time, the hotel and the office, there are back up generators.  These kick in within 10 to 60 seconds if the power goes out so that I am not left in the dark for too long.  Not so for a lot of the people living and working here without back up power.  In the papers, I daily read about the lack of power in Bangalore (and most other parts of the country). It is a common complaint with everyone here.  Upcoming scheduled outages are often published in the papers, but there are many more unscheduled outages that occur on a daily basis.

It has taken some getting use to, but now the outages do not faze me too too much. At least at work, the lights go out for a minute or so, but the computers are rigged to be never without power so that work is not interrupted.  This is not the case at the hotel.  I have lost count how many times I have lost power at the hotel while on the computer.  The computer automatically shuts down - this is due to the fact that the battery is completely shot and the computer needs to be plugged in at all times to work!  It takes me at least 5 -10 minutes to get back up and running again.

Then there is the TV at the hotel.  Now that the Olympics are over, I have not had the TV on as much, but it takes about 1 to 2 minutes for the TV to reset itself and for me to get back to the channel I was previously on.  Very annoying as well.

But worst of all are the elevators!  So far I have been caught three times in the elevator when the power went out.  Twice at the hotel and once at work.  Being stuck in a pitch black elevator, even for a minute is not a pleasant experience.  I swear I dropped about a meter in the elevator the other day.  I was alone in the elevator going up and everything went black and I felt it fall.  Fortunately it stopped itself and then took about minute to recalibrate itself and then had to go down and start over at the lobby level.  A little freaky to say the least.  I would take the stairs everywhere if I could, but because of security concerns the hotel staff does not like you to take the stairs at all and at work you can only take them down - which I do.

Out for a wander

MAM had spent the whole day at the hotel yesterday vegging out and was now ready to explore a bit. Our driver told us that Sunday was his day off, so we decided to stick close to the hotel again rather than try to procure another car. So after my breakfast, 1k swim and 12k treadmill run we decided to walk to the Big Bazaar store two long blocks from the hotel. It is basically an Indian version of a Wal-mart. I had walked there yesterday and bought a $2 t-shirt and some cookies and hair conditioner (since the stuff at the hotel is crap). You can get just about anything you want there from kitchen supplies, clothes, food, etc. We wandered around there for a bit and then decided to venture further.

We got as far as across the street where behind some gates were some very nice looking gardens and treed grounds, and what I thought was an office building- very unlike any scenery we had seen so far. We asked the security guy at the gate if we could wander around the grounds, and I was expecting him to say no, but he lead us in and to the building sitting just inside. I tried to explain we just wanted to walk around outside, but either he did not understand or he was checking in with occupants. A woman answered the door and again I explained we just wanted to walk around, but she insisted that we come in and look at the demonstration. I was a little reluctant as I wasn't sure what she wanted to show us, but after stepping inside I was glad I did. The building was actually a show room for some expensive duplexes that they were building. The place was almost 6000 square feet and was spectacular. There was teak wood and marble everywhere and the rooms were all very big as you might imagine. This unit was on two levels, but they do three level units as well. We were informed that they went for $1M US and that included all the furniture and fixtures. Quite a deal really, but pretty unreachable for 99% of the Indian population. We wanted to take some pictures, but felt that it wasn't really appropriate.

We left there to continue on our walk, without really getting to walk around the grounds after all, but felt like we were pretty fortunate to stumble upon that find.

We then continued on towards the Aon office which was only about 1K further away. We wanted to take a closer look at the 'free' hospital that sits directly across the street. Not sure how the free hospital works, but it looks pretty impressive and I hope to be able to get a closer look at some point before I leave. Again it is gated and you can't just wander around without appropriate clearance.

We then decided to try to get back to the hotel from a different direction. It should have been easy, but we ended up nowhere where we thought we should have been. We ended up walking through a fairly lower class street. It was a mix of run down apartments, man made shacks and and street stalls. MAM and I got some interesting looks as it was clear we did not belong among the dogs, cows and chickens that were running around the streets among all of the people. We eventually realized that we were not going to make it back to the hotel going in that direction and ended up backtracking our steps. It was a pretty interesting outing as we felt we had seen how a majority of the people in Bangalore really live as well as how some of the very privileged live.

My work week

Just finished my first week at the office! This week went by very quickly and very slowly at the same time. There was a lot of material that was covered, but the team did a very good job and seemed to catch on very well. 8-9 hours each day at the office plus many hours before and after getting ready - I am pretty tired now.

Some interesting notes made this week:

Security is very high in Bangalore. At least at the hotel and the office. The hotel is gated and there is security that checks under the car and also inside the car every time we drive in. We have to pass through a scanner whenever coming into the hotel. The office has a security check to get into the complex and security men at every floor in the building.

Food is really cheap - lunch at the food court is about 40-60INR or less than $2CND.
Dinner at the hotel restaurant is about $10CND (without alcohol). Breakfast is free as it is included in the room rate. You might be interested to know that my chocolate consumption has decreased quite a bit. With the change in eating schedule, I just don't feel like eating as much - shocking, I know.

At the office they have staff where their only duty is to make tea or coffee on demand. You are not allowed to make it yourself.

There is no tipping anywhere here that I have seen.

Here is a picture of me, my driver Narayan, and Marc-A (MAM). MAM is here for two weeks from the Montreal office to work with me on training the team. Also MAM and some of the offshore team trying to stay awake!