Happy Last Week!

After spending 2.5 months back home in Portland, I return to Bangalore, my alternate reality. It was definitely a nice break and I felt that I hadn’t even left Portland. Now that I’ve returned to Bangalore I feel that I hadn’t left this place at all either. I just fell back into the daily hum drums of this fast growing city. What is that all about? Someone told me “that it must be very easy for me to integrate myself into a new city. What a great skill that is!” I did not resist to the differences I encountered here. That helped very much with my city integration. Resisting would’ve caused great frustration and anger. Don’t get me wrong, I do get frustrated at times but for the most part, I have to understand that it is a part of life here. Life is more peaceful with this mentality. I did not resist and now I am seeing the wonderful things that Bangalore has to offer.

I had a smooth flight back to India. In Frankfurt, I even ran into this American girl named Mary Grace who also lived in Bangalore. We were on the same flight back. My customs experience wasn’t that bad either! In fact, customs forgot to take my papers and Kylie’s health certificate and I walked right out of the international arrival without trouble. Processes! What are those here?

The weather here is fantastic; it’s been 80-85 degrees each day. This weekend it’s been in the 70s. Gorgeous! My first week back home was great. There were 5 people from the US team visiting Bangalore and that included my manager. It was so great having them here. It was almost like a present to have people from back home to come back to! We got to take them sightseeing, shopping, clubbing and we had such a great time. It’s very rare to see Americans in Bangalore but when they are here it’s such a fun connection.

Bangalore’s economy is growing very fast. It’s very evident, especially just down my street. There is a new DVD rental store, a new pharmacy, a new bank, a new supermarket, a new car dealership. It was a joy to come home to these new developments. I am amazed at how quickly this city is growing and becoming more western. I just love everything about this environment. There’s so much activity going on, you turn around for just 5 seconds, and there’s always something new being built.

I went to Forum, a very western type shopping mall, in Koramangala last Wednesday with my managers and team mates. Last Wednesday was a national holiday. Koramangala is basically a suburb of Bangalore. It’s about 30 minutes away from the city proper. The mall looks like its straight out of Newport Beach. The mall had an international food court and I was delighted to find that I can get crepes there. But the most special thing about the mall is the new 11 screen multiplex on the 4th floor, the first of its kind in Bangalore.

The theatres offered different classes with different movies in each one; Cinema Europa, Gold Class, Classic. We tried to see a Hindi film in the gold class but it was all sold out. We were very disappointed because we wanted to experience what the gold class had to offer. The gold class offered plush seating, movie and food for Rs. 500 = USD $11.60. That’s kind of expensive to see a movie here if you ask me but they are catering to the Bangalorean IT consumers.

After the Forum we went to visit two of my colleague’s new homes that are being built. One of them was a traditional style home and the other more contemporary. I was shocked to see the model of the contemporary home; it looked like it came straight out of San Diego, Rancho Cucamonga area. It resembled a typical Southern California cookie cutter home. I was amazed to see that here. Those homes cost 1 crore = USD $300,000. Can you believe that there are homes that cost like that here? I cannot. The average non IT person makes around $2/day here. The total number of IT people in this country is around 3 million, out of the 1.02 billion people in India. Wow! I cannot wait to see this place 10 year from now.

My apartment building is forever under construction. Oh well. I am pretty used to it. Every since I got back and complained about the dust the owner makes every effort to keep the place clean. How nice of him! I do pay him maintenance cost and I believe that includes housekeeping of the building. The owner has offered to build me a deck outside of my bedroom. That is going to be pretty sweet. He said it should be done end of February, which I hardly believe. So I am taking bets here!

Kylie is doing well here. She had a hard time adjusting to the smells, sights, sounds of the city. It was so hard that she would take an hour to go to the bathroom when I would walk her outside. Frustrated that it would take two hours of my time each day I decided to build her a grass garden at the roof of the house. (I got this idea from Joe / Kate. Thanks!!!) I contracted 3 people to build the border of the garden and had the people from the botanical gardens bring me "Mexican carpet" grass, which is quite lovely. The cost of the labor for 3 people who did 4 hours worth of work was $10 and the “Mexican carpet” cost me $132, worth EVERY penny or rupee. I am now happy to walk my dog and Kylie is happy that she doesn’t have to share her toilet with the stray dogs. What a great idea that was!!!

Last night I went out with my American friend Liz to iBar, a club at the 5 * Park Hotel. We met two more Americans, who just moved here from Chicago. They are doing the hiring/training for their call center. They were so excited to have met some more Americans. It was really nice and funny to see how happy they were. They said this was the highlight of their last 10 days here. I could relate because I remember how happy I was when I finally met some fun westerners to hang out with last August. We also met a pretty cool Swiss guy who looked just like Sting. It’s so cool! Liz and I just increased our friend base by 3!!!! YAAAAAAY!!!

Anyway, that’s all for now…I am waiting to get cable TV. It is going to be installed today and I will soon have 75 channels for $6.50/month.