Collapse of the Slums

Friday, June 30, 2006

The rains this past week have reduced many slums to a pile of cement and wood. In their place, are temporary tents to protect the residents from the rain. At night, you can see fireplaces in the shelter where they cook and keep themselves warm.

Breaking News and India Traffic

Thursday, June 29, 2006

I saw a CNBC news van on the other side of the road on my way to work and a thought came to me.

Given India's traffic, if there is breaking news to be covered live, how is the news crew going to get there in time to film the event?

Duck and Chicken Talk

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

A driver we had on Tuesday was supposed to bring us shopping after work but he got lost. So he stopped by the road to wait for Steve to rescue us. In the meantime, the driver (D) and Ivan (V) entertained us.

D stopped the car where there was a man sitting by the road. V was afraid so he tried to ask D to move forward. Guess what? D doesn't understand English! So V made hand gestures to ask him to move in front. D turned on the wiper! V said no, no, no. Then D turned up the air-con. V said no, no, no. By this time, we were all having a good laugh. D opened the window (because we were playing with the window controls earlier). Then V suggested us to get off the car and signal to him to move forward. We asked him to do it and he said he didn't dare to! What a man.

When Steve finally arrived, Charlotte was so furious that she just ran to his car without saying anything. We all followed suit. It was like some triad movie where people didn't need to say anything to understand what to do.

Really an experience. Now we know how we should feel when we told our taxi story to everyone (wanna know what I'm talking about, ask me personally-not convenient to say here).

Grooms/Brides Wanted

Monday, June 26, 2006

Seen in Hindustan Times, a 8 page pullout titled HT Matrimonials:



On the surface, Mumbai seems like a really open and modernized city. But in fact, it is still surprisingly traditional.

Walk into any shop and you can see that most, sometimes all, of the people working in the shop are men. It seems that Indian men are still expected to bring in the dough while the women stay at home to look after the house and children. Even if the women were working, they are expected to go home straight after work to cook dinner and look after the children while the men may go for drinks with their buddies after work (not much different from Singapore, in this case).

In fact the inequality has caused an outrage in India. It seems that women in the Indian army are paid much less than their male counterparts and they are not allowed in combat roles.

Returning to the Matrimonials. So many people are still looking to arranged marriages to look for their mates, only, newspapers have replaced the role of the matchmaker. Even people with high qualifications and good jobs overseas look to their home country to find their potential wives or husbands.

One interesting thing about all these ads are that the girls are always fair, slim and beautiful while the men are tall and handsome. Are there really that many good looking people around? If so, then Bollywood would have a field day if they were to hold a casting call.

Photos Taken on Saturday

Saturday, June 24, 2006

Taj Hotel (Where Ivan and Ridzwan are staying)

An Indian Taxi

A Water Ration Truck

Even the cars themselves ask people to horn. No wonder the streets of India are never quiet.

A Church that Steve brought us to.

First Weekend in Mumbai

Just passed the first day of my first weekend in Mumbai.

Charlotte's driver, Steve (nicknamed Stevie Wonder), brought us to Charlotte's apartment to meet her. We went up to take a look at her apartment. Aaahhh! We acted like country bumpkins who were in the city for the first time. I took out my camera and snapped everything, from the lift to the kitchen, to the room. The beds in her apartment looked so comfy that I wanted to jump into it and sleep my whole day away.

It reminded me of something my ex-manager said. She said that her Indian counterparts are the most un-(my company name)like people. In other words, their culture and working style are really different from offices based in other parts of the world.

Charlotte's budget is from Singapore and ours is from India. Hence, the difference. When we saw the hotel our boss was going to stay, our morale just went down. Firstly, their hotel is in such a good area. Secondly, they are living so comfortably.

I'll stop talking about the upsetting stuff.

We visited Gate of India and passed by a Mosque that is in the middle of the sea but most of the time was spent shopping, as expected of girls. Steve brought us to 2 pasar malam like place, only they were open in the day as well. 1 was in Colaba (Charlotte's area) and 1 in Brandra (our area). I bought 2 skirts (each less than $5). BUT, because the markets were by the road, the skirts were really dusty. They definitely have to be washed before they can be worn. They we went to another place that was sort of like a wholesale area for punjabis and other traditional clothes. The clothes were really nice and bright but not for me.

Steve has been really helpful.

We asked to visit the Bollywood studios and he said he would bring us there when there was filming going on. Then he brought us around the rich man's estate and pointed out all the mansions of the Bollywood stars. Shah Rukh Khan, etc. I felt like a stalker...stopping outside their homes and looking at the huge mansions when I didn't even know who they were.

Then he introduced his friend who owned a restaurant near our apartment to us. He made sure we got his number and the menu so that we could order from them the next time we needed dinner.

He even recommended a driver to us at a discounted rate.

I am really thankful that we met Charlotte and Steve.

Friday in Mumbai

Last night, Brian and Charlotte brought us to a really nice Indian restaurant. (Gajalee, if I remeber the name of the restaurant correctly). There were more waiters than customers so they were all hovering around us like eagles.

The restaurant's specialty might be seafood because when our orders were being taken, the waiters brought out the biggest crabs, pomfrets and prawns I have ever seen. Remember the "Lobster bigger than small girl" ad? Ok...not that big but the prawns were like 10 times bigger than those in Singapore. If my eyes were not fooling me, they were about the size of baby lobsters. They looked so swollen, like they were going to explode. Anyway, we didn't order those. We ordered hot and sour soup (choice of vegetarian or chicken soup), mixed vegetable curry, something called fish duck (it's actually fried fish, don't ask me about the name), and (guess what?)...CHICKEN tikka masala!

After dinner, we went to the supermarket to buy some breakfast. To prevent ourselves from dying either of high cholesterol from all the eggs or boredom from eating toast everyday. Back to the point. Entering the supermarket is a real hassle in India. Especially when we had our laptops with us. Bags are supposed to be left at a baggage counter. Of course, we will never leave our laptops with some security guard we didn't even trust so what we had to do was get the security guard at the baggage counter to write a ticket for us. On the ticket was our name and a description of the laptop bag. Then on showing the ticket to the other security guard at the door, could we go into the supermarket. Coming out is another hassle. After paying, the supermarket bag is sealed. When we are at the exit, we have to show the guard our ticket, our receipt and our shopping bags before we can leave the building.

When we enter a shopping mall, the laptop bags will be checked and given a sticker to say it has passed the security check. In fact, most shops have a security guard to prevent shoplifting or possibly bombing (i'm not sure).

Photos of My Apartment In Mumbai

Friday, June 23, 2006

The apartment is actually ok. There are two rooms, each with an attached bathroom. The only thing that scares me are the crows that fly by my window every morning.

We stocked up on water and soft drinks so we wouldn't have to buy them everyday.

This is the view from the hall.

My Room

My Bathroom

We have been putting the "Do not disturb" sign on our doors. So the housekeeping hasn't been done the whole week. We will only let them come in on weekends when we are home as we are still not comfortable with them going into our rooms when we are not around.

In the meantime, we have had to ration our toilet paper as one roll of toilet paper here is equivalent to half or one-third of what we get at home and we are only given two per toilet. (Sounds ridiculous but it's a very real situation.)

The view from my room. I can't really have a bird's eye view of the area even though I am on the 6th floor because of the two huge coconut trees right outside my window. So this is all I can see.

Photos of Our Original Apartment (The One We Had To Share A Bed)

My Meals in Mumbai

I think many people are concerned about how I'm eating here. So I shall talk a little about my meals.

Last night, after more encounters with restaurants of the third kind, we decided: "No more delivery" and had dinner at a restaurant. The restaurant was called The Noodle Bar. I had spaghetti in tomato sauce. It was quite nice. The best pasta I had so far. Winnie had sizzling chilli garlic noodles. The noodles were served on a hot plate and the fragrance of fried garlic and onion reminded me of food back home. I must say last night was the best meal we had so far. The meal cost about S$7 which was ok, considering that the restaurant was quite decent and expensive looking by Indian standards.

The only bummer was the heavy rain after dinner. We were all drenched and freezing in the car. The traffic was so bad that we took 1 and a half hours to get home. The rain could be a relief for Mumbai though because I read in the newspapers that there were plans to cut water supplies if the rain did not come soon. The late monsoon has caused Mumbai's catchment areas to dry up really quickly. So now, I have mixed feelings. On one hand, I don't want to have the water cut. On the other, I hate the kinds of rain they have here. It will be hard for us to go out and explore the city.

Well, back to food. Salt and oil here must be really cheap. Everything is so salty and oily. I had Hakka Fried Noodles for lunch yesterday. I was expecting to get something like mee goreng but I ended up with mamee type noodles with lots of salt. Try drinking sea water with mamee and you will know what I mean.

For the other days, I have been having western food: pasta, wraps, sandwiches. Still passable.

Today's lunch was the first meal of rice I had in days. It's really wierd that they only serve either vegetarian or chicken. Surely besides beef being taboo, there are other kinds of meat available here? I've been having chicken sandwich, chicken noodles, chicken cutlet, chicken anything...

Hopefully, when Brian brings us out tonight after work, we get to try out something else.

The Bombshell

Thursday, June 22, 2006

We just got a bombshell.

Gopal, the guy who is arranging transport for us, came over and asked if we were comfortable enough to take a cab to work. I said we were told that we could have the transport for one month before we decided we were comfortable with travelling on our own but we said he was told we only had 4 or 5 days to do so.

From transport for the whole 3 months, cut to 1 month, then now only 4, 5 days.

We told him to wait till our boss came over next week before we decide. He said he will arrange a conference call tomorrow with him and Subhasis, the HR manager here.

We emailed Ridzwan so all we can do is wait till tomorrow and see how the matter unfolds.

The next thing they might tell us is that we will need to look for our own apartment. Then probably, we can stay in the double-storey zinc houses.

sotsh @ 8:04 PM | 0 comments

Interesting Newspaper Articles

Read an interesting article yesterday that goes:

Wearing Underwired Bras Increases The Risk of Getting Struck By Lightning.
Think this article came out because of the frequent thunderstorms during the monsoon season. Most people interviewed did not believe the study. One of them even said something like, "It doesn't matter if you are wearing underwired or overwired bras. I think those with silicon breasts should be more concerned as it could melt in the summer heat. But then again, it might help you to float if there is a flood."

Another article reported that a girl was struck by lightning because of the electromagnetism field around her. She had a handful of mobile phones with her that she was safeguarding for her friends. It was thought that the electromagnetism force attracted the bolt of lightning.

sotsh @ 8:00 PM | 0 comments

Characters in Mumbai Office

Type 1: The Mercenary (A.K.A. The Dao Ones)

These characters are usually managers and above. They hardly acknowledge your presence in the office unless forced to.

Eg 1-You report to them so they need to get to know you or welcome you. They will introduce you to the whole team and tell them to take care of you. Once in a while when they remember your presence, they will say hi and ask how you are. But other times, you are just a blob sitting at the table.

Eg 2-They know who you are but they don't acknowledge you with even a smile or a hi. When in a team meeting, they just asks someone else to introduce you to the group. If they walk past you, you feel like you are transparent.

But when someone from the head office arrives, they will talk to them and asks if they need anything. They make sure their chairs, lap tops or office are ready for them. They will also ask how they find Mumbai, how's their husbands, etc. In short, chat with them and make them feel welcome.

Yesterday's Mumbai papers had two articles headlined "Mumbai is World's Rudest City" and " Mumbai is Richest City but Stingiest Too". How appropriate.

Type 2: The Eager to Learn (A.K.A. The Gan Cheong Spider/The Eager Beaver)

He comes early in the morning and once you in the office, he comes to you for the day's training. He notes down everything you say and asks about everything. Even if he doesn't understand, he just nods (or shakes) his head and asks you to go on. Would question you on why things are done a certain way rather than in the way it was done in his previous company.

After you go through everything there is to teach, he goes through it on his own and keeps coming back to ask questions.

When we are looking at the menu to order food, he worries we don't understand what is written and offers to explain the names to us. (Even if it's CHINESE food.)

If Nicola asks us things about Viision, he answers for us, thinking we know nothing about it. He will also butt in and tell her what he wants in Vision rather than what we need in the course of our work (which we would know better than him).

He likes to repeat things that we have confirmed to do. Worried that we will forget our appointment with him.

Type 3: The Motherly Type (A.K.A. The Auntie)

Married, with children. Likes to call home to check on them. Even when we are conducting a training session. Talks either about her chidren or her experience with her previous company. Takes breaks often and keeps asking if you want tea or coffee. Short attention span. Likes to look at what's is going on around the office even when you are talking. Doesn't take much notes but relies on you to write them for her. Must be included in every conversation. If you are talking among yourselves, she will stare at you like a hawk and butts in when given an opportunity. She's also really friendly and likes to invite you to her home for dinner.

Type 4: The Hospitable Type

No working relationship with them but they would introduce themselves to you and drop by your cubicle once in a while to find out how you're doing. Would also offer to bring you around Mumbai or offer to help if we need anything. If we meet on the way to the toilet, would smile and say hi.

Type 5: The Serious Type

Have a working relationship with them. If you have any questions that are work-related, you can ask them about it. May or may not say hi and bye to you in the morning and evenings.

Type 6: The Strangers

This is a group of people I haven't got to know yet. I only know they work here but I don't know their names or what they do in the company. May or may not smile and say hi/bye too. Hope to get to know some of them soon.

sotsh @ 1:50 PM | 0 comments

Encounters with Restaurants of the Third Kind

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Some background info:
During lunchtime, Indians normally get food delivered from home to office or they order from restaurants. So food delivery is really common here.

Encounter 1 (Last night)
Order-taker 1: Hello.
Me: Hi, I would like to order a pizza.
Order-taker 1: Can I have your name?
Me: Ivy
Order-taker 1: Would you like to place an order?
Me: Yes.
Order-taker 1: What would you like to order?

I place an order.

Order-taker 1: What is the address?
Me: AB's Service Apartment.
Order-taker 1: What is the block number?
Me: There is no block number.
Order-taker 1: What is the house number?
Me: There is no house number.
Order-taker 1: What is the block number?
Me: There is no block number. There is only one block in the estate.

Talking in the background and passes phone to order-taker 2.

Order-taker 2: Hello, can I have your block number?
Me: There is no block number.

Silence...I hang up and call another restaurant.

Encounter 2
Order-taker 3: Hello, would you like to place an order?
Me: Yes.

(I give my order.)

Order-taker 3: Can I have your address?

(I give my address and hang up.)

We go home and wait for an hour. No food turns up. I call the restaurant.

Order-taker 3: Hello?
Me: Hello, I ordered some food just now and I want to check if the food has been sent.

Order-taker 3: Is it from Pheonix?
Me: No. From AB's service apartment.

(Order-taker 3 checks his orders)

Order-taker 3: Are you at xxx road?
Me: No. AB's Service Apartment.

Order-taker 3 passes the phone to Order-taker 4.

Order-taker 4: Hello?
Me: Hi, I ordered some food to AB's service apartment and I want to check if the food has been sent.
Order-taker 4: I called just now to say it's too far and we won't be delivering it.
Me: But I didn't receive any phone call.
Order-taker 4: No, I called just now and told the person to tell mam that we are not delivering.

Fed-up Me hangs up the phone and tries to call a restaurant on Merzin's list. And we finally get our dinner at 9 pm.

Encounter 3
The first morning in Mumbai, I ordered scramble eggs at toast at our apartment's cafe. Food came as expected.

Second morning, I ordered sunny side up. Scrambled eggs came and I asked to change to sunny side up. I thought they didn't hear me or got mixed up.

This morning at the cafe. Sick of eating eggs every morning I ordered just toast while Winnie ordered sunny side up and toast.

Winnie's sunny side up and toast and my toast came.

Waiter (Pointing to eggs): Only 1?
Me: Yes.

Another serving of sunny side up appeared in front of me.

We concluded that they are programmed to serve the same food to the same guests everyday.

sotsh @ 3:50 PM | 0 comments

Observations in Mumbai

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

I just stupidly deleted a post I spent the whole afternoon writing. So now I have to recall what i wrote.

Observations In Mumbai:
1) (As observed by Winnie) There are three categories of poor people in India.
a) Those who have no homes and sleep on the streets.
b) Those who have single-storey homes built from wood.
c) Those who have double-storey homes built from zinc. We were especially fascinated with this category as the houses appear really sturdy despite the use of such flimsy materials.

2) Labour is so cheap here that the office can afford to hire people to do odd jobs like making coffee, moving furniture, getting stationery, etc. No wonder the slightly richer Indians are so high and mighty. I'm really not used to this. They call you mam even when they just bring you a pen. If we try to do things ourselves, they look at us like we are taking away their jobs.

3) People here spend more time chatting than working. No wonder they always take so long to get things done.

4) Different areas of Mumbai are closed on different days. We should have found out about this before we came. Last night, it happened to be Bandra's turn to close. So when we called all the restaurants in the area, there was no answer. In the end, Winnie had biscuits and I ordered room service.

5) Stationery is really scarce in the office. When I asked for a highlighter, the staff rummaged through the drawer and found only a red marker. Then he got someone else to search throught the whole office before he found 2 green highlighter, 3 black pens and a notebook for us. We don't even have a ruler and stapler now.

6) Blackouts are getting frequent. This afternoon alone, there were 2 blackouts. Last night when we returned home, our apartment had a blackout too. I wonder if it's because of the coming monsoon or because we were here. We haven't heard of blackouts in the Indian office for a long time when we were back in Singapore.

We finally got the first glimspe of monsoon rain this afternoon. There was thunder for awhile then it started raining cats and dogs. Luckily it lasted only for about 10 minutes. Anyway, I foresee a tough time ahead teaching the new Indian schedulers. just keeping my fingers crossed in the mean time.

sotsh @ 6:58 PM | 0 comments

First Day In The Mumbai Office

Monday, June 19, 2006

This morning, I woke up at 8.00 am IST (Unusual for someone who always sleeps till 10.00 am or later. But, remember the time difference!). All ready for my first day of work in Mumbai. I had breakfast at the cafe: cornflakes with warm milk, toast, scrambled eggs, and a round potato thing. (Can't imagine having the same thing for the next 3 months.)

After breakfast, our driver brought us to the office. The journey took about 45 minutes. I must say I thought I was prepared for Indian traffic but apparently I wasn't prepared enough. The traffic reminded me of the junction in NTU some friends nicknamed 'Who dares win'. Indeed, who dares win in India. Whoever doesn't will reach their destination only in the evening.

Disney India office is really big and bustling with activity. There is no moment of quiet just like the traffic which I can hear from the fourth floor office. The day started with the usual introductions and orientation and waiting for my lap top.

Lunch was ordered in by Brian. We had pasta which was ok but really filling. There was a short promo meeting with the Singapore team afterwhich we sat in for the Vision training. Charlotte was going through planning schedules so we left halfway to work on our logs.

We were supposed to go through some things with the new Indian schedulers but they just didn't want to sit down with us. They kept saying they want to give us time to do our logs and stuff. More like excuses to go home early or avoid talking to us. Well, all the better. We got more time to go our logs. Only of course I wasn't doing my log but writing this blog entry. Hah...which means I have to get back to work now otherwise I won't have time to finish my log...

sotsh @ 8:28 PM | 0 comments

The Journey Begins

On 18th June at 5.00 am begins the journey of a girl (Me) from Singapore to Mumbai...

I reached the airport at 5.30 am and thereafter got on the plane at 7.30 am for the 5 hour flight. After watching Failure to Launch, playing some Dr. Mario and half-watching Moonlight in Tokyo, I reached Mumbai International Airport. The Mumbai airport wasn't as bad as most people thought it was. Clean and orderly. Lots of staff directing traffic at the immigration counter. Even the toilet had someone handing out, turning on the tap for you. Of course, there's a catch...they would stretch out their hands when you are about to leave. Too bad I didn't have small change so I just walked out.

Just when I thought everything was going smoothly, I got a shock when I reached the service apartment. I was promised a 2 room apartment with internet connection but what we got was a 1 room apartment with a double bed, there was also no internet connection. We needed to use dial up (which was really expensive) or to go to a cybercafe outside our apartment. Imagine our shock! Winnie (my travel partner) smsed our boss immediately to try to change our room.

So while waiting to get our rooms changed, I explored the neighbourhood trying to find some lunch but there was not much food available as it was a Sunday. So I went back to the apartment and ordered egg fried rice from room service. I spent the rest of the afternoon between bouts of sleep and watching Star Movies. I think I have never watched so many movies or half movies in a single day before. I watched Blue Crush, Nine Months, Parenthood and some other movies while I was dreaming. At 5.30 pm, I was all ready to move to our new apartment but in typical India fashion, the room was only ready at 6.30 pm.

There wasn't even time to pack as Manas (whom we met at the airport) kindly came to bring us out for dinner and to buy some drinks and snacks to stock up. We took 1 hour to reach our dinner place in Colaba (on the other side of town). It's a nice cosy Western restaurant with a bar. Expensive but nice food. I just asked Manas as many things as I could about India and the Indians' work ethics so that I won't get too much of a culture shock. When we finished dinner, it was already 1.30 am Singapore time. I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. Even on the way back, I was dozing off already.

So there goes my first day in Mumbai. Nice dinner, nice apartment, nice bed, zzz......

sotsh @ 7:42 PM | 0 comments