Delhi Belly

Here’s the next chapter of my India whirlwind tour and some new observations:

It’s amazing how westernized India is becoming. I’m currently in a car with a driver driving from Bombay to Pune (a current educational and up-and-coming tech center in India). Beyonce is blasting on his CD player. Funny. There is also some strange obsession with Bryan Adams over here. I was at a few different hotels/stores where I heard elevator music versions of Bryan Adams songs. I chalked this up as coincidence until I was having a conversation with a guy about the caliber of American concerts they get in Bangalore. “Oh we get great concerts here sir. Like Aerosmith, Rolling Stones, Metallica, Bryan Adams” Never heard Bryan Adams in that context before. Gautam confirmed this was true. Apparently almost every India party will play traditional India dance music and at some point, “Summer of 69”.

Text messaging is everywhere. Not just as a means of person-to-person communication, but business-to-consumer communication. At the bottom of every billboard is a short code you can text for further information about the product being advertised. Want to check your flight status? Text the flight number to FLIGHT. In fact, some airlines allow you to buy a plane ticket via text message. There is huge opportunity to help US companies explore this advertising/commerce channel.

I feel spoiled having English as a first language. Almost all signs in the city are in English in India. It’s very easy to get around and conduct day-to-day activities. Due to the British influence, English is taught in the schools from a very young age. Even the labor workers have some grasp of English. I’ve found the communication gaps with Indians is rarely to do with their grasp of the English language, and more with the speed in which they speak it. Apparently native US English speakers speak 80 words per minute. Indians in their native tongue speak 120 words a minute. So even if they know what they are saying, they are often saying it faster than we’re used to hearing. That combined with an accent makes it difficult at times. B.T.W., The Chinese native tongue speaks 160 words a minute.

“50 cent“ playing on the radio now.

There are some very interesting business customs here. Every company I’ve visited has presented me with a bouquet of flowers when I walk in the door. Often presented by an Indian woman in traditional Indian dress. One business actually presented me with a Hawaiian-like “lay” of beautiful Indian flowers, painted a red spot on my forehead and swished aromatic candles under my nose. This apparently is a traditional Hindu blessing. The folks I’ve come to visit here have been extremely hospitable, which has inevitably lead to the “Delhi Belly” incident.

Two nights ago I sat down to dinner with a rep from one of the firms I was visiting for some Southern Indian fare (traditionally spicy). He asked if I liked spicy food, and being pretty conservative to date, I decided to see if I could hang. “Yeah I love spicy food” We proceeded to sit for a 3 hour dinner eating more and more “aggressive dishes”. They were excellent and. . really. . .frickin. . .hot. It was a great meal and after dinner and a couple beers I retired to my room. The next morning I woke up with a little “rumbling” in the intestinal region. I chalked this up to the combo of spicy food and beers and headed to my meetings. I only had a few minutes for lunch between my morning and afternoon meeting. The last thing I really wanted was more Indian food at this point, but with limited time to hunt around for other options, I resigned to shoveling down some more Indian food at the hotel’s buffet. . . .more rumbling.
My afternoon meeting was with the company I had dinner with the night before. It was great (more flowers), friendly conversations, strategizing on how we can utilize their European network to bring our services to Europe, very exciting stuff! Towards the end of the meeting the VP of Sales stood up and said “I understand from Raj that you are a big fan of spicy Indian food. I have arranged to have Hyderabad’s specialty dish, Briyani”, catered in for our meeting from the infamous Palace Restaurant. B.T.W. Palace’s Briyani is really. . .fricking. . .hot. With a rumbling belly full of buffet Indian food I’d rather eat my shoe at this point, but I obviously had to be a good sport. A plate full of Briyani later I was headed to the airport. . .sweating.

Reader discretion is advised for the rest of the story:

Now I heard a lot of horror stories before I came over about the lack of availability of toilet paper at public restrooms in India. My first few days here I carried around a roll just in case disaster struck. This was inconvenient as it did not fill well into my briefcase and I had to be discreet whenever taking out my laptop so my toilet paper didn’t roll across the conference room table. The fact is I hadn’t found TPA (toilet paper availability) to be a problem at all. So this particular morning, I decided not to pack the just-in-case roll. Arriving at the Hyderabad airport I checked in quickly and made a beeline for the “Gents” bathroom. Stall number one, no TP. Stall number two, no TP. Upstairs bathroom stall one, TPA test, negative. I started to realize something. It wasn’t that they were out of toilet paper, there wasn’t even a dispenser mounted to the wall to hold it. Stalls consisted of a toilet and a water spicket coming out of the back wall. The spicket was the same style you would connect an outdoor hose to. I didn’t see how this could be of any help. Oh, and no paper towels either. I ran out into the terminal frantically looking around. I saw a magazine vending machine off to my left. This would not be pretty, but could be functional. Side note here: Indians have some weird fear of change. Every transaction that I’ve done that has rounded to anything less than 10 rupees (the smallest bill), has resulted in either the merchant conceding the change required or rounding the price up so change wouldn’t have to be issued. Needless to say the magazine vending machine took 5 rupee coins and I didn’t have any.

Scouring the terminal I was starting to freak out a little (think Ben Stiller in Along Came Polly). Did Indian people not poop? What the hell did these people do! All of a sudden, a little corner kiosk/store caught my eye that was called, and I’m not kidding, ‘Fancy Man Things”. They sold dress shirts, ties and three packs of cotton handkerchiefs for 115 rupees. “I’ll take that box of handkerchiefs” I said handing him 200 rupees “keep the change”. As I was running out of the store they shop keeper yelled after me , “I have some nice one’s with colored patterns if you want”. Thanks for the suggestion pal, but style didn’t really matter here.
Well you can probably guess the rest of the story. I got over my first bout of “Delhi Belly” successfully. Debriefing with Gautam that evening, he informed me there is an effective clean up process that utilizes the spicket, but I would most likely be too uncoordinated to accomplish it. I’ll stick to carrying my private roll for now.

Well, laptop battery’s going. Going to try to catch some shut eye, even though Cam’ron is blasting in the background. Every time a new song comes on the driver turns around and smiles at me as if to say “Cool right?” It’s no Bryan Adams, but yeah, it’s cool.

Talk to you all later,

-J