Hello again.

Here's a breakdown of what I've done over the last year.

March 2010: Mumbai

  • Started work at Citigate Dewe Rogerson India, an investor relations firm located at Nariman Point. On my way to becoming an Excel/PowerPoint expert.
  • Commuted to work by local bus; learned how to read numbers in Marathi (bus information at the front of the bus is written in Marathi; it's in English on the side of the bus).
  • Procured a PAN card, opened a bank account: finally got some official documents to prove that I existed
  • Began eating street food: vada pav, bhel puri, sev puri, sandwiches, etc. So began a love affair with street food!

April

  • Weekend trip to Lonavla through work
  • Went to a Mumbai Indians IPL match with friends from work
  • Family event at Pune: cousin's mother/father-in-law's 50th anniversary - handled DJ duties for the musical extravaganza
  • Started work in earnest: I was assigned 3 clients with colleagues; work included writing press releases, creating board presentations and I wrote a Chairman's statement in an Annual Report for a big Indian conglomerate

May

  • Summer begins and I sweat like crazy. Seriously debate climbing 10 flights of stairs every morning.
  • Lost my phone on the bus in the morning commute. Made trips to the bus depot and police station to try to get help - nothing doing.
  • My dad visits me in India; we travel to Bangkok, Thailand and Koh Samui
  • Water shortages led to planned trips to the office bathroom and bucket baths replaced showers.

June

  • Mango season! Eating fresh Alphonso mangoes (the king of fruits!)
  • The rain begins and it's wonderful at first; the moist earth smells amazing and everything is fresh and clean. Mosquito population increases dramatically.
  • Started looking for a place to rent. I found a place through a friend in Lower Parel in a redeveloped chawl (225 sq. ft. 1BHK: bedroom/hall/kitchen). Everything was ready through an agent but the owner never showed up to make it official. The deal went through; a blessing in disguise.

July

  • Came down with malaria... it was probably the worst 4 days of my life in recent memory. I thought I was dying: intense fever, sweating, body aches, hallucinations, I was having trouble standing and walking at some stages. Luckily it was over pretty soon and I got back to normal.
  • Moved into my cousin's flat in suburban Mumbai and started commuting by local train. My daily commute went from 1 hour to about 3.5 hours, but it was an excellent experience. I'll write a post about that soon.
  • Ordered tiffin for lunch from Magic-o-Meal. This was really fascinating - I would be informed of that day's menu by SMS by 11am or so and the dabbawala would deliver the tiffin by 1pm and return by 1:30pm for pickup. The plan was to eat or empty the tiffin during this time while the dabbawala would himself have lunch. He would deliver the tiffin on one side of the passageway and pick it up on the other side. If the tiffin remained where he had left it by pickup time, it would not be delivered that day. I would eat with friends - we would open our tiffins (some of them had tiffins delivered from home) and share the contents depending on our tastes; some people would give away their tiffins so they could order fast food.

August

  • Decided to quit my job: I was not doing meaningful work, I wasn't learning anything new, and I didn't have enough work to pass the time during office hours. There's only so many times you can check your email and play Freecell in a day.
  • I was constantly sick because of the monsoon and the commute. I had a nasty ear infection and couldn't hear in my left ear for 2 weeks.

September

  • Observed Pajyushan for the first time in India. This is a holy week that lasts 8 days where Jains are restricted from eating vegetables and fruit and can only eat during the day time. So I would meet my cousin after work to eat at a Jain bhojanshala before sunset, and then we would go to the temple for Pratikraman. I fasted on the last day and only drank boiled water; some relatives fasted for 3 or 8 days - my aunt fasted for 11 days, which was a huge accomplishment.
  • Experienced Janmashtami and Ganesh Chaturthi in Mumbai. It was awesome and these photos prove it! I had always wanted to see Ganpati Visarjan after seeing Salaam Bombay and it was unreal to be there and experience the passion. Being there helped me become a competent photographer and that was huge for me. In fact, the header photo above was taken at Chowpatty on Ganesh Chaturthi.

October: Travelling

  • Discovered the Mumbai Ultimate Frisbee team and joined them for a tournament in Chennai. We traveled 24 hours by sleeper class (no AC!) and had loads of fun. We were fortunate to be in Chennai when a Rajnikanth film was playing and got to watch it in a theater. It was a terrible film but the experience was amazing because everyone was so into it, whistling, clapping and singing along to the songs. But what really made the trip was eating meals (sappad) everyday, it was bliss.
  • Went on a 17-day trip through South India: Chennai-> Madurai-> Trichy-> Coimbatore-> Bangalore with side trips to Ooty and Mysore. Visited/stayed with family and finally got to CouchSurf! I mainly traveled by train with a few bus rides in between. It was great to travel independently and visit sights I had wanted to see for so long - I finally put my South India Lonely Planet to good use! I overcome the language barrier not knowing Tamil or Kannada - except for once when a ticket collector yelled at me in Tamil; luckily there was a Muslim passenger there who explained it to me in Urdu. I had a lot of memorable experiences and met so many interesting people...I really felt like an Indian after this trip. I can't wait to do another trip like that again!
  • Celebrated Diwali in Jaipur with my mom's side of the family. I met so many relatives and had so much fun spending time with them. I visited Delhi for the first time and spent a day at my aunt's place in Sojat enroute back to Mumbai.

November

  • Started my job search/planning for the future. Realized that I'm not interested in a corporate career and want to join a startup.
  • Played ultimate at Juhu on Saturday mornings; it was great to play on the beach - it made diving much more feasible but I did have to deal with the sand when I returned home.
  • Traveled to Ahmedabad for another weekend frisbee tournament. Our team didn't fare so well, but I made a spectacular diving catch that made the trip memorable. It was cool exploring Ahmedabad, eating at different food joints: we had Gujarati thali a couple of times and really enjoyed it (especially basundi!)

December

  • Discovered Eko, a company that has established banking via the mobile phone. Did a lot of research and scheduled an appointment to meet with them for job opportunities in Delhi.
  • Weekend trip to Pune for New Year's; went to a New Year's party that featured singer Mohit Chauhan.

January 2011: Delhi/Jaipur

  • Traveled to Delhi by Rajdhani; interviewed at Eko in Delhi. Explored Delhi by Metro,
  • Met with friends from the USA - we traveled from Delhi -> Jaipur and onward to Agra. Good times were had by all. Saw the Taj Mahal after 15 years, it was amazing as ever and I was totally awestruck.
  • Returned to Jaipur from Agra via local bus. Cost: 160 Rupees. Time: 6 hours (left at 8pm, arrived at 2am).
  • I came back to Jaipur for Makar Sakranti, which is a kite-flying festival. Unfortunately, my grandfather had an accident and was rushed to the hospital in the afternoon; he was riding his scooter and was cut by a glass-coated kite string (manja) so he needed stitches to stop the bleeding. There were a lot of similar patients in the emergency room that day, including a young girl whose throat was cut by string.
  • Went back to Delhi to see my friends off before they left for the USA. More interviews at Eko; I liked the organization but I wasn't offered a position.

Since February I've been in Jaipur. My mom has been here since then and my dad came a few weeks ago. I worked on my father's website and got it live (although there's more work to do). We went on a trip to Manali with my aunt/uncle and cousins

I've eventually gotten fed up with the inefficiencies of living and working in India and want to spend some time back home in the USA. I have really enjoyed my time in India and I am happy with the way things worked out. I haven't reach my goal of having a place of my own yet and so I'm going to work my ass off to earn money so I can live independently. I learned a lot about India, I met all of my relatives, I traveled a lot, I signficantly improved my Hindi and, looking back, I feel a sense of accomplishment for fulfulling my dream of living in India. Although I didn't settle down in one city, I think and act like a local now. I travel by local bus, rickshaw, and on foot where previously I would be chaffeured around. If I need to get something done, I know whom to ask and how to go about it where before I would be clueless and simply pay the premium for being a foreigner.

I still have a lot more to see and do in India and so I plan on coming back to stay in India in the future, but when and where will be decided later. Until then, I'll be writing on events that took place over the past year. Stay tuned for more!