Mar 2009

Why is it an oasis? Check out the photos and you'll see what I mean. The flat has 3 bedrooms and is at the top of the right building.

The view from the front balcony is lovely (oasis). But the view from the back is, ...well, lets say a more realistic scene of the urban environment - you can see the small shack squeezed in precariously above the abandoned construction site. They have no running water and use fire to cook - at least they have a sewer (everything goes into the construction pit!).

The flats have a lot of expats (Google and Microsoft house their people here) and the kids have fun in the pool... but don't look over the wall!

Overall its a lovely place to stay. 3 bedrooms, two maids, A/C, full linen service every 2 days, internet, newspapers, and all of that costs us less than health insurance in the US (actually, that makes is sound expensive...)

There are no metros/subways in Hyderabad because the public transportation system is based on the world's greenest car - the ubiquitous AUTO. You see them everywhere, and although the old ones still puff their 2-stroke oil, the new ones are LPG or CNG (compressed natural gas) and burn very clean. How does it get 660 passenger miles per gallon (p-mpg)? Take a look at some of the photos:


The auto can also be configured for different jobs...

Most of you are well aware that traffic rules are largely voluntary in India so I won't bore you with day to day transgressions. But there are degrees to everything and even the jaded world traveler is apt to raise an eyebrow when traffic goes the wrong way on a freeway - especially when it appears to be quite the done thing. Check out the following video of a truck going the wrong way on our lane. One shudders to think what would happen if our driver is not alert while overtaking a car. [In the US we call these "ghost" drivers because their life expectancy shrinks to a few minutes... in India my co-passengers didn't even notice anything unusual!]

I took the previous video quite smugly, hoping to post it on the internet to show how badly other people drive. But then our driver missed a turn and my father in law directed him to go back. The next legal turnaround was very far away so the driver simply did a U turn and started going the wrong way. Now we were the culprits, and here is the video ...

One thing that takes getting used to in India is that the "customer is not right". First time this happened I thought it was an anomaly. Gouri asked a tailor to make a dress for her with a modestly revealing neckline.

The tailor told her it was morally inappropriate, to which Gouri responded with characteristically-liberated-California-woman indignation that she is paying for the work so he should do what she asks. He nodded solemnly, but when Gouri got the dress back, the neck cut was 2 inches shorter than she asked for. At our new apartment, she asked a different tailor to make a dress from a design she found on an Internet site (yes, yes, that's how she spends most of her time...). She asked the guy to make a cut on the trousers from the ankle halfway up to the knee (not all the way up to the knee, mind you, just half way, thinking this time she would respect local prudishness). The tailor looked bewildered and said that this is not the done thing in India. Gouri said that the design was taken from an Indian website so how could it be inappropriate. The tailor said that those clothes were worn by movie stars and not normal women (I guess that means Gouri is not movie star material - shucks, I guess I was wrong). Eventually, though, after some discussion about how customers should be right, the tailor agreed to take the job. However, when Gouri got the pants back there was no cut at all - none whatsover!