A Search For (My) Life

No matter how many times I have thought about it myself, or talked with other travelers about the roller coaster of emotions when traveling, I have not been able to stop myself from going through highs and lows during my trip. I find that it is much more pronounced than during my normal day-to-day life back home. Perhaps this is part of the allure of travel. The down moments make the highlights extraordinary, and I always feel changed by the experience.

Last week at this time, I was literally counting the days until my flight home. The amount of trips from city to city in the past two months has been exhausting, and I found myself longing for home. I spent the weekend (extended into this week) at home in Mahableshwar, and even took a trip to my family’s lake house on Lake Tapola for my uncle’s birthday. It was exactly what I needed to get back into the swing of things and I’m now counting the days until I’m forced to get on the plane, and leave India.

After looking through pictures of the last year, I am slightly apprehensive about returning home to the life I was leading when I left. It seems so distant and far away now. Now that I’m fairly used to things over here, it almost seems like I wouldn’t fit in, at least in the same way. I’m sure that in reality, I’ll jump back into the swing of things right away, but I’ve been surprised at how different I feel, just in the last week. When I was in Brazil in 2006, I was there for twice as long, but the change in cultures, and my day-to-day life was not as different as it is over here. I think a lot of this is because my social life takes a large portion of my time in Seattle, and here it is largely non-existent outside of my family gatherings.

In other news, I was in my first accident on the way back to Pune from Mahableshwar. When I arrived here, nearly every car that passed would raise my heart rate. I was not used to being missed by mere inches and continuing normally down the road. Once, while walking in Goa, I was knocked on the shoulder roughly, and turned around to discover the culprit was a bus. Since those first few weeks, very little phases me, and I’ve lost the fight or flight instinct when cars pass closely by.

The day before yesterday, I was in the backseat of a car headed down to Pune, and dozed off while listening to my Ipod. I was awakened as the car braked sharply, but I found that even in the midst of the accident, I was quite calm. It wasn’t until I actually saw the two guys in front of us fly off the motorbike that I realized this was a real accident, not another close call. Thankfully, everyone was fairly alright, minus a few scrapes and bruises. A small price to pay for getting rear ended by a car when no one is wearing a helmet.

The car actually fared worse, and started leaking radiator fluid, so we overheated and had to pull over again 20K down the road. We were stuck for a few hours but eventually I made it to Pune.

Since I last wrote, I’ve been on a whirlwind of travel, mostly for pleasure. I had 5 friends come visit me in Mahableshwar for Christmas, and from there we traveled to Goa for New Years, then down south for an excellent houseboat trip in Kerala, and then I came back north solo to Pune for my cousin’s wedding, and now I’m finally back in Mahableshwar for the final time. Since being in India, I’ve attended a Catholic wedding of a friend of a friend, a Hindu wedding of a friend of my cousin, a family wedding (cousin) in Goa, and another cousin’s wedding, which was a triple hitter since I attended the court wedding, Hindu ceremony and Catholic ceremony. Whew!

I’m now back in Mahableshwar, after a few business meetings in Pune… I’m hoping to celebrate my Uncle’s birthday with him before heading back to Pune for more meetings, then to Bombay for a few more before finally returning to the states on the 24th. It has been quite a journey so far, and after all this travel, I can honestly say I’m eager to stop living out of my backpack.

As always with long trips, I’ve experienced the ups and downs of being elated at all that is new and exciting in India, to being homesick for simple things like my bed and my guitar. This afternoon, my uncles were asking if I was still in the same house in Seattle that I had been living in when they had visited a few years back. After showing them pictures of my new place in Seattle, I was momentarily transported back to my life in Seattle.

I’m sure everything will play out normally, but right now, I have a hard time imagining myself resuming life as usual back in Seattle. I guess two and a half months is enough to get fairly accustomed to things over here, even if I do miss the comfort of being at home. I looked at pictures of our potluck dinners at the house, and those times seem so long ago. Every time I travel for a long period, I’m shocked at how easily the experience can make normal life at home seem so foreign.

I’ll leave you with a spattering of photos from the last few weeks. I take full responsibility for all the jumping photos, as those are a favorite of mine. Take for example, the last two photos of my cousins and friends… isn’t the second jumping photo more interesting to look at?

Tags: friends, India, mahableshwar

A number of people have been asking me how business has been since I arrived here. I’ve now been meeting with Indian companies for over a month, and while I am far from exhausting the available resources, I’ve gotten a pretty good picture of the service (outsourcing) industry over here.

I chose to go broad in my meetings, and have looked at a number of different industries including, legal services, publishing, healthcare, call centers, IT development, Multimedia and design, and even a few venture capital firms. In addition to looking for quality partners for my outsourcing partnership, I met with directors, CEO’s and founders of a number of companies or VC firms simply to pick their brains. This was hugely valuable in assessing where my value lies in being a US liaison to these service providers.

What I’ve found here has surprised me. There are thousands of service providers here, but it is truly hard to find the high quality ones. I started out with a database of 1000’s of companies, contracted a research firm to pair it down based on my criteria (which has changed after getting here), then did my own online research based on the company’s web presence, and questioned people over the phone.

Even with all these steps, I still found that after over 30 meetings in 4 weeks, I’ve found only a handful of companies that I’ll likely be doing business with. Not all of the rest were bad, but some just didn’t fit the profile I was looking for. However, I was surprised that I was running into that problem after taking the steps that I did.

This has shown me that it must be extremely hard to find an appropriate vendor if you are in the US. Without some extensive research, coupled with a trip over here, it’s really a crap shoot. I can now understand why I get so many complaints about the pains of outsourcing. This made the last month more difficult than I imagined, but it also lends more value to what I end up bringing back, which are high quality, trustworthy, capable companies.

The economy is booming over here, and the marketplace (not just in service providers, but in other industries as well) has been flooded with competitors. I do believe it’s somewhat of a bubble, but not too large of one. India has a huge amount of potential, and is still uncovering it. The issue is that not everyone who enters is ready to, or has the competency to take on the customers that approach them. The media-funded idea that the Indian market is tapped is nonsense. The amount of competition has made hiring and retention harder, as the infrastructure here is trying to keep up with the demand. However, there is still a lot of room for growth, and new industries in outsourcing that are popping up constantly.

I’ll be taking off the next few weeks (from meetings, anyhow), and vacationing with friends and family in Mahableshwar, Goa, then Kerala. When I return to work in January, I’ll be doing a second round of meetings with the companies I’m partnering with, and should be coming home at the end of January with an offering I can be proud to offer.

Tags: dos Santos and Partners, India, Outsourcing

I have been on the road for over a month now, and I’ve finally found myself back in Mahableshwar, and on vacation until the second week of January. This break really couldn’t have come at a better time, as I am really feeling the effects of traveling and working for a month. So far, the trip has been:

• Fly into Bombay, 1 day recovery, then meetings all of week 1.
• Relaxing weekend in Mahableshwar
• Hectic week full of meetings in Pune
• Fly to Bangalore, repeat hectic week of meetings
• Fly back to Bombay, 4th week of meetings.
• Leave on Thursday night for Pune, for 2 more meetings on Friday.
• Leave Saturday for Mahableshwar.

All of this has been exciting from a career perspective, but extremely taxing in other ways. The transportation has been what makes it hectic, as each meeting requires careful planning in order to not get lost in the maze of taxis, rickshaws and trains in a metropolis area that takes 2 hours to cross from end to end (due to traffic) and has no roadsigns and no drivers that speak English. Thankfully, I’ve been able to find accommodations with family everywhere so far, which made things easier.

Also playing a part have been my eating and exercise habits. Staying with family means Indian hospitality of continuously shoveling food on your plate. This makes breakfast and lunch much heavier meals than I’m used to, and dinner is usually after 9pm. I’m still running, but it has been quite difficult in the cities.

I’m happy to be back with family in Mahableshwar, where I can run out to beautiful scenic points, relax during the day, and play with our new German Shepard puppy, who we picked up in Pune yesterday. We bonded last night as he kept me awake all night, and is now sleeping on my feet as I type. My family is arriving in two days, and my friend shortly thereafter, so while it doesn’t feel like a traditional Christmas, I’m looking forward to the holidays more than ever.

Tags: , mahableshwar, Traveling

There are so many woes about the education system back home. While I have not found the education system here to be necessarily better, it is definitely prioritized higher. The school system leading up to college is extremely competitive. You may think that the system in the US is competitive as well, but this is truly on a different level. Nearly all school children take tuitions (essentially extra classes after school) throughout their elementary and high school years in order to keep up. Kids are routinely held back to repeat a year, and many don’t make it through the system at all, and (for that or financial reasons) go on to menial labor jobs.

In the school system here, all of the grades are based on tests, and the test scores follow you on your record starting in the 10th grade. Not too dissimilar to the US, but unlike the US, the job market is largely based on your scores from school and standardized tests (Not just overall GPA, but employers actually look at class grades), so there is never really any reset button for a bad semester.

Possibly because of the importance of grades, educational scores are held in common conversation as a way of defining yourself. As an outsider without common test scores to compare, I’m routinely judged based on my past work at Microsoft, a much lauded employer that all Indians seem to hold as a holy grail. Others include educational institutions like the Indian Institution of Technology (IIT) and the Indian Institution of Management (IIM) and most any school of Medicine. All have exceedingly tough entrance parameters, and allow far less than 1% of applicants.

In the US, we define ourselves by our careers (”So, what do you do?”), our possessions (”He drives a Ferrari!”), and our hobbies (”He’s a rock climber.”), among other things. This exists here as well except maybe defining by hobbies. However, I’m consistently shocked by how often test scores come up. Possibly because they are often considered inappropriate topics of conversation in the US. (Of your group of friends, how many of their SAT scores do you know?)

A cousin of mine scored exceedingly well on an entrance exam to a post-grad program a few years back. Since initially hearing this a couple weeks back, I’ve been in contact with many family and friends who know him. I have not been in a single discussion that contained his name and did not contain his exact percentage score on the test. Interestingly, none of these discussions was he present for, nor has the topic come up directly with him.

I’m not yet sure how I feel about how education permeates the culture in this way. On one hand, it seems rather crude to compare people openly in such a black and white way. However, it does keep education at the top of everyone’s priority, which can only help India, as a whole.

Tags: culture, education, IIM, IIT, India, SAT

After a hectic week in Mumbai (Bombay), I relaxed over the weekend in Mahableshwar, which is a hill station about 5 hours east into the mountains. The running was great, and I enjoyed going to all the points with 2000-4000 ft cliffs, which provided for excellent views. I got to Mahableshwar by way of a private bus, which took the route through Pune, and thus used the Bombay-Pune expressway. This expressway was put in 5-6 years ago, and was quite new the last time I was in India. It is privately maintained, and has cut the time between Bombay and Pune down from 5 to 2.5 hours.

After Mahableshwar, I drove down to Pune with some of my family, to stay with my cousins for the week while meeting companies here in town. Pune has grown immensely in the last 10 years, and I was shocked with the progress as we entered town on Sunday night. Someone once told me, back in 2000:

“India is not a 3rd world country, it’s a 1st world country that is run poorly.”

Back then, I completely disregarded the notion. My experience in India was completely shaped by my family vacations. Also, the shock of seeing the corruption, the slums, and the poor people begging at the stop lights really made it hard to convince me that India was anywhere close to a western, 1st world country.

However, after two weeks of traveling around to meet companies, and seeing the progress that the metropolitan areas have made in the last 10 years, I’m much more inclined to agree that India IS a 1st world country. And yes, it IS run poorly. You would think with the huge lower class, and their poor living conditions that maybe India was incapable of providing a livable infrastructure for them. However, that capability is very much there, as evidenced by all the products of private corporations. If you look around Pune or Bombay, the only things that are really run down, are those that are controlled by the government.

Street cleanliness, trash collecting, general order of traffic, road infrastructure, city planning, safe public water supply; all these areas need work. And from what I’m told, the money is there too, it’s just being pocketed by a hierarchy of corrupt government officials. However, whenever an area is taken over by a private corporation, it thrives. The Mumbai-Pune expressway is a great example. It costs quite a bit to drive on it (tollways), but it’s maintained, and for the first time in in India, speeds of 120kmph are possible, because the roads are smooth enough to allow it.

Most things that shock me here are either a result of a corrupt government or a poor legal system, that does not keep its people in check. For example, I can’t trust the food from the carts on the street, because there are no repercussions to the owners selling food that would make me sick. On the way to Pune, I saw a guy sitting in the fast lane of the expressway, because his truck had broken down. He put big rocks around it to stop traffic, and had made a fire right there on the highway to stay warm, as he would be there all night. Where was the infrastructure for a tow truck, or a policeman to give him a ticket?

I can’t wait to see where India is 10 years from now. Things are changing fast, and the government will eventually catch up. For now, I’m really enjoying being here, and taking it all in.

Tags: Developing Country, India, mahableshwar, Pune

Many of my friends know that I have a hard time hearing about a race and not entering. Well, the day before last, I found out about the Mumbai Marathon. It will take place this coming January 20th, which is 4 days before I head home. Perfect. And the best part is, the registration fee for Indians (which I will claim to be) is $200INR, or about $5US.

Now, I should also mention that the reviews from last year describe both fanatical crowds and cheering, and also a severe lack of support and water. Couple that with the fact that I’m both very choosy with my water choices here (specific bottled water bought only from reputable shops), and with my food/supplement/hydration during my marathons, and you have an interesting mix.

Now that there is a marathon in the near future, I decided to renew my efforts of running in Bombay. Yesterday I went out in the afternoon, to face the traffic and heat, just to see if it was possible to get in a decent workout. I managed for about 40 minutes before getting sick of it. You can’t really mentally ‘get in the zone’ when you have to dodge traffic every half second. I did come up with a new game though: I call it rickshaw fartlek.

Those of you familiar with track and field terminology will know that ‘fartlek’ means ’speedplay’ in Swedish. It consists of 30 to 3-minute bursts of hard effort, separated by easy running. Now, it turns out that these rickshaws, at max speed, seem to only go about 20-25 mph, maybe a touch faster if they ever hit an open, unobstructed, even road; which never happens. When cruising through the side streets, I can at least keep up with them and sometimes even pass them, as they are constantly slowing and accelerating. So, in order to avoid the throngs of bicycles, cars, pedestrians, and scooters, I started following rickshaws like I was shadowing a runner. They paved the way through the mess of confusion, and I could worry less about the oncoming traffic, and spend more time thinking about the lawn-mower-engine-type exhaust I was sucking in.

I think I confused (or annoyed!) the drivers quite a bit, but it was a lot of fun while it lasted. I always take pleasure in passing lazy cyclists when I’m in the States, and passing actual gas-powered vehicles is just that much more fun.

Mumbai Marathon, here I come.

Tomorrow, I’ll escape to Mahableshwar, a hill station in the mountains, 5 hours outside of Mumbai. It’s my mom’s hometown, and tomorrow is my Grandma’s birthday, so I’m surprising her. It’ll be nice to get away from the city, relax a bit, see my family, and I’ll even get to do some decent running at altitude.

Tags: Bandra, Bombay, mahableshwar, marathon, mumbai, mumbai marathon, rickshaws, Running

Anyone who knows anything about India knows that the much famed caste system is long history. Right? Well, formally at least. Remnants of the caste system are very much real and a part of today’s new India. Yesterday, I found what I consider to be a remnant of a society that once had a formal caste system.

Despite warnings from family and friends, I took the Bombay train yesterday to go downtown. Rickshaws only go around the suburbs, and cabs take extraordinarily long because of traffic.

When I bought my ticket, there were two options; 1st class for about $50 INR, or $5 INR for 2nd class. Asking around, I found out that there were very few 1st class cars, and they were neither cleaner, nor equipped with air conditioning. In fact, the only real difference to the 2nd class cars was the price, which made them slightly less crowded, and the key: filled with a crowd that could pay 10 times the price.

Later that evening, I went to a movie with my cousin, and we went to a fancy theatre (”Multiplex”) where each ticket was $200 INR, which for me was $5.50US, but extremely expensive for India. The theatre was completely over the top. When I walked in, I counted 11 flat screens showing ads, new upcoming movies, show times, etc. The floors were glassy marble, and the interior was incredibly nice. Way better than most theatres I’ve been to in Seattle.

After the movie, we went for a snack at the little restaurant next to the theatre, and again, it was really overdone for a small eatery. The bench seats were leather and really soft like a nice couch, and the whole place was done up like a piece of contemporary art. The food was again, really expensive, and pretty ordinary in terms of taste, quality and portion.

I’m realizing that India has another way of explicitly separating out classes; with pricing. The upper class here pay premium prices for services, not for better service, but for the feeling of extravagance and exclusivity, and the company of those who also want that feeling.

I later realized that I’m comparing my life here (mostly extreme upper class) to my life in the US (just regular upper class). So maybe if I lived the life of the Hilton sisters, I’d see the same thing. However, I don’t think so…

To give you an idea, think of it this way: Imagine paying $3000 for a Seattle-NYC Business class plane fare, but the only difference is that you’re surrounded by other $3000 consumers, and that they leave out every third seat (but don’t make yours any bigger, or the service any better) so there are less seats to be purchased. Or imagine going to McDonalds, but paying $50 for the same “Value-Meal”: not because the food is any higher quality, but so that the tables are only filled with people who can afford a $50 burger.

Pretty crazy.

Tags: Caste System, Consumerism, India, Travel

This morning I went for my first run in Bandra, a suburb of Bombay where my Dad grew up. I woke at 6AM thanks to the jet lag, and the roads were relatively quiet, so I slipped out and hit the road for the first time in a few days. I managed to make it to the shoreline, but was still weary of the cars and rickshaws as I’m not used to people driving on the left hand side of the road. It was a stop and go type run, as I kept hitting dead ends and cutbacks, though I managed to make it about 55 minutes and only get lost once. I have a feeling it was more mentally therapeutic then physically beneficial, as I could actually see the pollution in the air.

India has really been westernized in the last 5-10 years. For the first time, I saw other people jogging and walking along the promenade. There were even signs that said “Exercise Daily.” Definitely a sign of western influence, as exercise has never been an Indian value.

However, at one point, I reached the end of a promenade (Indian version of a boardwalk), and hit a poorer area where the smell of fish hit me like a brick wall. The fisherman apparently cast the excess fish on the side of the road, for consumption of the crows. I went for another two minutes, passing through a very poor, dilapidated area, when I finally had to stop. The road went on, but in this environment, my running for the first time felt like a show of extravagance. The people on the street side watched me carefully, and I felt guilty passing by them as if to say

“I have so much excess in my life, I run in circles to get rid of it.”

I made my way home, where my uncle and aunt were awake, and despite knowing about all my running and exercise pursuits, looked at me as if I were an alien species.

Tags: Bandra, Poor, Running, Slums

Wow. I will never be fully prepared for this type of culture shock. I’ve been visiting India roughly once every 3-4 years my entire life, but I still am completely taken aback at stark contrast between life here and my life 36 hours ago in Seattle.

I had some excitement getting from the airport, as there was a miscommunication with my arrival times, and I found myself stranded at the airport staring at a crowd of 300 Indian men, all waiting for a friend or relative that was not me.

I felt very alone and vulnerable for a while, as I realized I didn’t even have the number of my family friend who was picking me up. I finally found a cab (the first guy to approach me offered double the price I ended up paying), and gave him the address of my Dad’s house in Bandra West. He didn’t know where it was, but I had already paid, so we took off, and after much confusion (he didn’t speak English) we finally found the church where my parents got married, and I was able to rake the streets and find the building from there.

So now I’m staying with my cousins for the weekend, and yesterday I managed to get a cell phone plan, bottled water, and visit a bakery. Tasks that took just about all day.

The crowds and traffic and dust are unbelievable. At one point I was crossing the road with Karen, and there was construction with a road barrier about 6 ft high. A full size bus came at me, and I got trapped between the path of the bus and the barrier. I assumed the bus would stop, as there was less than one foot of space for me, but the driver continued, and I plastered myself to the barrier, the bus missing me by literally about 2-3 inches.

My ‘your-life-is-being-threatened’ alarm goes off in my head about every 3 minutes while walking on the street.

I’m taking it in stride, and trying to adjust. Apparently Bandra is the quietest of suburbs, and the crowds in the trains I’ll have to take to get around the city make this place seem deserted.

Tags: Bandra, Bombay, India, Traffic, Traveling