5th to present

The past 2 weeks have been crazy. Somewhere along the way i lost track of my blog posts. For a while i was diligently jotting notes during the day so i would remember what had happened, but then it got so busy i stopped doing that. So now i shall sort of recap the craziness of the last few days, or to be more exact, from the 5th thru today, the 23rd.

Well, the packers showed up like they had promised, on the 5th morning. It took them almost all day to unpack and put things away where we wanted. Unfortunately our packers in Seattle had not organized things very efficiently. Their packing skills were superb, everything arrived intact, but they had packed kitchen dishes with art work, bedlinens with electronic equipment, clothes with rugs and odd combinations like that, so we had to open almost every box to figure out what was in what. Since we are renting this place for a year, we didn't want to unpack everything, just the bare minimum we will need for a year. So after opening the boxes, we had to sort of repack and put some away in storage to be opened next year.

The past 2 weeks have basically been spent settling in. The house we are renting needed a lot of plumbing and electrical work to be redone in order for it to be livable, so we have been running around to hardware stores, electrical stores, bath fitting stores trying to get everything. There's no place like Home Depot or something where you can get everything you need for a house under one roof. One has to scout around town to find out where to buy what. For all electrical and electronic products one goes to Gujarati gulley, a 6 foot wide pedestrian choked alley....Gujarati gulley may have electronics but no bathroom accessories...for that you have to go to Troop Bazaar in Abids...Troop Bazaar may have bathroom fittings but no kitchen hardware...for that one has to go to Begum Bazaar and so on.....so we spent days on end running around trying to get all these. Then once we got them we had to call the plumber, the electrician and the carpenter to fix everything. Sounds simple right? No way! They give you a time....to which one should realistically add an hour, so for example if the carpenter says he'll come at 10am, plan on 11am....and if he does show up at 11am, you are lucky! So we have been going round and round trying to get all these dudes to come home. Then when they eventually show up, they have very likely forgotten one very important tool like a drill or a ladder or a wrench or something....so they disappear again only by now its lunch time so they've gone for their afternoon siesta and then you are so fed up you give up and don't call them and they never show up!!!!!!!!!!!!! Day wasted! But the thing is that they are genuinely nice sincere people so one just puts up with it. And when they finally do get the job done its with a happy cheerful attitude and a job done well....so all in all i have learned tremendous patience over the past few days.

Once we sort of moved in the next order of business was to get our phone and Internet connections. Again sounds simple right? Again no way......to be able to get any sort of service, one has to provide "proof of residency" or some sort of identification. The all powerful US passport which gets you into virtually any foreign country doesn't work since it doesn't have an address on it. The locals here need something showing a local address. So Raga had to apply for a drivers license. Normally this could take up to a week but again knowing people in the right places helps....he got it in an hour or so. Once the phone connection was established, Internet connection followed. Same story with the phone and Internet guys....they give you a time and show up 2 hours later. So you plan your whole day around their schedule and nothing else gets done. But again when they do show up they are happy and cheerful. Basically a very laid back attitude....so different from the US!

This is such a country of paradoxes. Here's a prefect example. R and I had gone a few days ago to the civil supplies office. This is where they give your your "ration card". For those unfamiliar with this card, it is a card mostly for the underprivelaged, which enables them to buy essential commodities like rice, sugar, flour etc at very subsidised prices. Everyone needs this card, event those who have no use for it and can afford all the luxuries of life, because this card is the "holy grail". THIS is your proof of residency, THIS is your identification, THIS is YOU! While opening a new bank account, this card basically waives all other forms of identification.....THAT'S how essential this card is. So anyway, we went to the office and like any government office, it was this small pokey, hot, crowded, stuffy place with papers and records from the past 100 years stacked up against the wall. But beleive it or not, what do you think they were using as a means to make sure someone else couldn't use your card....RETINAL IMAGE SCANNING!!!! In the midst of all this chaos - there was this totally state-of-the-art machine, all gleaming and occupying center stage in the room! Raga and I were stunned! The guy in charge instructed us to gaze into i, one eyeball at a time and then "zap"....he clicked it and the image showed up. What was funny is how he had to explain this apparatus to the people who were coming in for their cards. I mean, these are people who are not very well educated at all and have never even heard of anything like this. I think initially they thought it was some kind of eye chart to check their eyesight but when they peered into it there was nothing to read, they simply couldn't understand why they had to look into this machine one eye at a time. It was in a way sort of sad too....!

Anyway, now we are armed with a ration card, the most powerful form of ID one can possess here. Raga and have been working like busy bees....Our house is finally in a livable state and is beginning to feel like a home. I am heading to the RTA office tomorrow to get my drivers license. Initially I had made up my mind that I wasn't going to even attempt to drive in this crazy traffic, but I am realizing fast that I simply cannot depend on Raga to take me places all the time and it also dawned on me that learning to drive here is a lot easier cos if I stall the car or something, people just ignore me or honk at me and drive around me! No problem! As Raga puts it, the traffic here is like an orchestra without a conductor...absolute mayhem but every now and then there is some music!

Oh, forgot to mention that somewhere along the way, our wedding anniversary came and went in the blur of unpacking and settling down. Raga and I have been planning for days now to sit down one evening and watch a movie - that is yet to happen. We have settled into some sort of routine. We have a maid who comes in twice a day and does the dishes, the laundry, the mopping and sweeping of the house and bathroom cleaning daily for Rs 1,200 a month, thats about $28!!!! I get my clothes ironed daily by a guy around the corner for Rs 2 for each item, thats about 5 cents! Living here is definitely a lot cheaper....so if you can take the bad with the good, its pretty cool!

I have taken lots of pics...shall post them soon. Not sure if i will have a aily post, but maybe every other day or so.