Another Planet Just Around the Corner: Sunday, June 3, 2012

This afternoon (Sunday June 3) I decided to leave the hotel, and see what I could see. Like we did in Istanbul, I took in all the major sights in one long afternoon and evening. I saw the Buddha in Hussein Sagar Lake although the picture below is nothing like what I actually observed. Out in the middle of the lake all you can see from the road is a vertical stone something far out in the water, but here you can see, close up, how beautiful it really is.

Next stop, Charminar, located in the midst of the bustling, crumbling downtown of Hyderabad. As you can see, it’s very impressive, but the press of the crowds, and the relentless noise of the traffic make the experience a lot grimier and a little less monumental than the picture. 

After fighting through the traffic my driver left me on my own by the entrance gate and went off to park. There I encountered a long line of local people waiting to get in, but as I wandered around, dazed and confused, a staff person, who turned out to be a guide for hire, signaled to me to walk right on in as he cleared a passage for me through the crowd. Locals, you see, pay 10 rupees admission, but foreigners pay 100. The inflated price apparently also buys VIP treatment. For another 250 rupees (about five bucks) I hired the guide to take me on the tour. Not only was this a fast and informative way for me to take in the essence of the monument, it also provided some cheap insurance against making some huge cultural faux pas. Unfortunately I did not purchase this insurance at our next cultural stop, Chowmohalla Palace.   

I climbed the 54 steep, winding stone steps to the first set of windows. There is an extensive street bizarre just off to the right, and I made a quick and perilous search through the jewelry stalls to see if I might have some luck finding Shar a pair of earrings, but they are way too into jewels,  pearls, filagree, and heavy ornamentation for her taste. It was fun looking though. Next stop, Chowmohalla Palace. Begun in 1780 by the royal dynasty that ruled Hyderabad, it was added to continuously through the early 20th century.

One of the information plaques beneath a portrait of the 7^th Hazim explained that as his first official act, in 1911, he eliminated the death penalty. A hundred years later we still haven’t achieved that level of humanity in the US. Like Wilhelm Defoe in Missisippi Burning, I can’t help wondering, “What’s wrong with these people?” meaning us.

By five o’clock I had been schlepping, and climbing, and touring for almost two hours. The palace was closing and I was exhausted and needed to pee. I knew that I better get that squared away before I got back into the car and headed for Golkonda Fort or I’d be in trouble. Just before the exit gate I saw a hand-painted sign pointing to the building to my right announcing, “Water and Toilets.” What a stroke of luck. I headed down the covered portico and ducked into the open bathroom door to my left. Inside, I saw a little Indian boy about ten years old getting a glass of water from a faucet. Just past him there was a trough urinal. I stepped up to the urinal, and began to unzip when, out of the corner of my eye, I see this little Indian kid looking at me with a scowl that I surmised to be a mixture of disgust and disapproval. He begins shaking his head sternly. I get that I am about to pee into a sink. I now notice fixtures at chest level that I realize could also be faucets. This must be where the taller people get water. With a vigorous flurry of “Namaste’s” and a shit-eating grin I slink out the door, and manage to find the actual restroom next door. As I stand there peeing I’m imagining what this kid must be telling his father. 

Enroute to the Golkonda Fort we passed this beautiful statue of Gandhi.

I ended the day at the fort. According to the guide book, it is one of the most magnificent fortress complexes in India. It dates back to the early 13th century. A hand clap beneath the entrance dome can be heard ( because of some engineering acoustical marvel) clearly at the highest point in the fort over a kilometer away and acted as warning signal to close the gates against invaders. It was kind of like walking through the ruin of Kings Landing (the castle of plotting and intrigue in Game of Thrones) For centuries this city sparkled with the wealth of India, and was the setting of storybook passion and violence. Now it’s just an impressive pile of stone.

I got back to the hotel around eight, and went right to dinner. I'm exhausted, and am going to bed as soon as I finish this. I start training tomorrow, and before you know it I'll be on the plane home, and all this will quickly fade into memory.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Today I completed my final training session. The Nvidia site is just a block and half from my hotel. I have taken to walking there and back, in spite of the extreme heat, because what I see on that short walk is amazing.

The Ista Hotel is elegant, with beautiful waterfalls and pools everywhere. Across the street is an impressive multi-story office building: Hitachi Consulting. Next to that stands Honeywell’s gleaming new office tower. Across the way Tata Consultancy is erecting a huge new corporate monument of its own. The block that separates Nvidia from this complex of corporate headquarters is bordered on one side by a high stonewall surrounding the hotel. On the other, in a once empty lot, an extensive slum has arisen, packed with dwellings built from a few sticks and some badly weathered metal roofing material. This is where the men and their families who work the construction crews erecting these office buildings live.

As I walk by I see kids playing ball in a narrow dirt corridor between the huts. A woman in a brown and yellow sari walks down the street with a tray balanced on her head piled high yellow plastic hard hats. The slum exudes a sour smell that I remember from hauling trash to the dump. It mingles with the inevitable stench of urine. Of course the world is like this, and yet the contradiction still feels so disturbing and insane. And I am just walking by it for the moment on my way to another planet just around the corner.

There and Back Again:  June 7,2012

In a few hours I will catch a plane to Bangalore, and begin the Marathon journey home. My passport will be checked at least two dozen times. I will stand in countless lines: waiting to check -in, going through security more times than I can stand, boarding the planes, and then going through the ritual of passing through customs. When I began these travels, the wasted time, the bureaucratic pointlessness, and the repeated invasion of my personal space triggered all kinds of afflicted emotions and judgments. Now it’s more like “eh,” it’s just the dance we’ll do so I can get home.

Because this world struck me as strange and exotic I took in details that I’m too busy to notice at home: the absence of traffic lights and how people just drive right through them when they occasionally appear, satellite dishes on hovels, and camels on causeways. Some versions of my worst fears have been realized: delivered and abandoned at the wrong hotel at one in the morning, mistaking a sink for a toilet. Before I left, imagining these crude disruptions to my safety and routine felt threatening.

When I first agreed to do these trips to satisfy the needs of my client, I took them on with dread, and a certain sense of victimization. This is crazy, asking me to fly to India to train this insane, non-stop, multi-city schedule in one week, then fly home so I could train in Santa Clara, then fly back a week later to do it all again.

“I hope they are at least flying you business class,” was a typical shocked response. Nope, not in this economy. Could I withstand this kind of punishment?

As it turns out, I can. What’s more I got to see how I had come to confuse inconvenience, even just the novel or unaccustomed, as “punishment.” I noticed, as I compared this trip to the first one, doing it all a second time reduced my stress, but also reduced the wonder.

Our energy is a precious commodity, and is always in limited supply. Surviving in a world that is largely unknown and unpredictable requires constant vigilance and learning. That takes a lot of energy, but it also makes life new and exciting. Habit and routine save energy big time, but come at a price.

So I feel great appreciation for the novelty, confusion and ignorance that woke me up, and allowed me to get reacquainted with a surprising and beautiful world. I’m very happy that I’ve learned some of the tricks and routines that will allow me to do it with less energy and more elegance in the future. And I am so ready to come home.