The land of scuzzy portion size

There are a few aspects of Indian culture I just don't get. No matter how much I try to rationalise it I can't make sense of it. In those instances it's very hard for me to admit that these aspects aren't wrong but just different.

My biggest frustrations always seem to be food related. So although this aspect of Indian culture relates to a wide variety of negotiations for me it largely comes down to food. I am happy to haggle for a handbag, but not my food.

I am passionate about ice-cream. I love it. It is the best concoction ever created. I am not talking about the cheap nasty stuff; I rarely waste my stomach space on that… it has to be the good stuff. In Australia I am quite partial to Royal Copenhagen, Maggie Beer's concoctions, and on occasion New Zealand Natural. In Delhi it's Haagen Dazs and once upon a time Gelato Vinto. However, I will no longer patronise Gelato Vinto no matter how good there product… why? Because of scuzzy portion sizes. I don't expect big American size portions but the last time I ordered at Gelato Vinto I received this tiny ball of ice-cream barely more than a tablespoon rolling around the bottom of my cup. Now you might ask... why didn't you say something? I could have, and they might have given me a skerrick more… but why should I have to? Now days when I order ice-cream I send Ray and he deals with it and demands more. The idea that I have to ask for my fair share, for some reason, makes anger bubble up inside me. This sort of situation is not just limited to ice-cream but also most things and for some reason french fries. We have ordered a side of fries at a few places and what arrives is literally 10 chips on a plate. Maybe they give one potatoes worth per serve. Even at McDonalds the servings are laughable.

For shops like Gelato Vinto I don't understand it from a business point of view. To me normal or even generous servings means repeat business and scuzzy serves the opposite. Surely I am not the only one boycotting Gelato Vinto.
I wonder where the balance lies. Surely a decent serve and more business is the way to go rather than skimping on product.

So over three years I have been mulling over the scuzzy portion sizes and have tried to get my head around it. I have wondered if it is the establishments owners that tell there staff to give the minimum. Or do the staff give little so they can skim some off for themselves… I couldn't work it out… I thought someone must be giving the directive…but I just learnt that no one says a word.

I recently read a book and I discovered it's ingrained in the culture. The book was called OMG Delhi. It is a novel by an Indian author who has a central character who is used to narrate chapters of anecdotes about Indian culture and the way things work in Delhi. The author even makes a point in many of the chapters to highlight the nature of give and take in all aspects of Indian culture. Most of the chapters are summarised with the line 'maximum for minimum' in the case of the consumer and the reverse for the vendor. This book opened my eyes. I now understand that a boss doesn't have to tell the staff to scrimp on servings, it's just the way it is. Unlike other cultures there is no clear cut fair share. You just have to ask for more until you can get no more or in reverse you try and hang on to as much as you can. There are no rules, there is no right or wrong and you can't even consider the ethics of the situation.
The ethics is the hardest part for me. In many situations in India it's not that things are ethical or unethical it just doesn't come into play. I can't articulate it, it just isn't part of the equation. So many people and companies (Airtel!) conduct business and and their lives in which I would judge completely unethical but really that is just a foreign concept from a foreign culture. And who am I to judge. Ok… here comes a long tangent which I will save for another day.

Water Woes

Ray: There is no water
Me: What sort of water?
Ray: What do you mean? There's no water
Me: Tap water or drinking water?
Ray: There is no water coming out of the tap
Me: Try the butt hose… there is always water in the butt hose.

This is one of those conversations you could only have in India. Back home in Australia, free flowing water coming straight from the tap that is clear and drinkable and never runs dry is something we take for granted. In India things are a little different. In Delhi most dwellings have black water tanks on the roof. We get water for an hour or so each day and pump our supply up to tanks on the roof. When the tanks are full, water can be gravity fed into bathrooms and kitchens.

Delhi has particularly rickety infrastructure when in comes to water supply. Thankfully in my neighbourhood we have it pretty good. If I run out of water I run downstairs and ask the landlord to turn on the pump. Occasionally the water coming out of the tap is dirty but most of the time it appears clear. The water is pretty hard so clothes don't come out of the wash as clean as they could and most Delhites are plagued by 'hair fall' so there are countless varieties of hair fall shampoo available… They don't work… My hair is getting thinner by the week... Good thing I started with a lot.

In contrast, many slum dwellers have to fight the crowds for their water. Many slums have no piped water supply so the Municipal Jal (water) Board truck delivers water a couple of times a day. However there is never enough for the growing slum populations and many people receive no water at all. Coupled with this the water deliveries are supposed to be free but in reality residents must pay bribes to have the water delivered.

It doesn't matter where you live in Delhi the water supply is contaminated with sewage, 70 per cent  of samples fail  purity tests conducted by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. Perhaps I should go back to brushing my teeth with filter water.

In our old apartment our landlord installed a fancy-schmancy water filter as he thought having 20L drums delivered was unseemly… whatever… For a while I enjoyed the convenience of the filter water but after a while I noticed a lot of residue building up in the ice cube trays, our filter clearly wasn't removing everything. So I went back to ordering in bottled water for drinking and used the filter water for cooking and washing vegetables etc.
Even though there is no proven correlation between hard water and kidney stones I seem to hear of a lot of people in Delhi being afflicted, so I would rather not take my chances.

As for the butt hose… I have no idea why it and the toilet never seem to run dry.

The most feral animals ever created

100th post… wow that's a lot of verbal diarrhoea.

I tend to read the Sydney Morning Herald on Ipad a couple of times a week. It keeps me up with the news back home as well as current themes in the media and special interest stories.
When I got to the World section yesterday there was an article on the problem of monkeys in urban Delhi. The article caught my eye as it is about my current home town and it was also about an animal I loathe.
I have never liked monkeys… something about their humanoid features creeps me out. It's not just their looks I don't like; they can be aggressive, they carry rabies and they spend their days picking who knows what out of each others fur… seriously, what's to like?

I knew the monkeys of Delhi were a problem but I did not realise how out of hand things were becoming.
I have lived in my particular neighbourhood of South Delhi for nearly two years now. It was months after I moved here that I saw my first monkey in this part of town. But now I see them regularly, almost daily. I hate them. I hate seeing a gang of them roaming down my street looking for ways into houses to pilfer food; especially when I am carrying bags of fruit and veg and I have to walk between rows of parked cars to avoid them. I hate that we have to have a monkey grate to close in our outdoor hallway so they can't get into our kitchen.

The article in the SMH said the reason the monkey population is getting so out of hand is because people feed them. Monkeys represent the Hindu god Hanuman and Hindu tradition calls for feeding of monkeys on Tuesdays and Saturdays… random.

Apparently there is a trapping program in Delhi. The city pays $12 for every monkey trapped. This is not bad money, yet in a city where there are millions of people looking for a job there are very few people applying.
The trapped monkeys are apparently taken to a large 'monkey prison' on the outskirts of Delhi. There has been no decision on what to do with them from there. Authorities want to send them to forests in neighbouring states but those states refuse to take them. There is also the problem that these monkeys are urbanised and would not survive in a forest where there are no kids to steal candy from.

Yesterday a friend was telling me that they went up onto their rooftop and found a monkey pulling the lid off their water tank and then hopping it to drink water. This is the water that they wash their clothes, dishes and shower with…ewww.

Channeling my inner Bruce Banner

I am not much of a movie buff but on the occasions that I have been to the cinema here in India it has always been enjoyable. In fact more enjoyable than home. And this is why…

• It's way cheaper… We saw Slumdog Millionaire for $1 when it came out. On average a ticket is about $5. which is a lot cheaper than the $17 tickets back home
• The seats are better… They all recline quite substantially
• They have intermission… I don't mind a mid movie break
• If you go to an English moving on a weekday morning you may have the whole cinema to yourself, or at the most 5 other people in there with you
• Sometimes the ushers come around and offer to make purchases from the candy bar for you

But today I saw the bad side of Indian cinemas...

I had a free ticket to see The Avengers. Not something I was particularly interested in seeing but hey, it's free and it's air-conditioned.
So I rock up to the ticket booth with my voucher and it is packed! What is going on? It's 10:40am on a Wednesday morning, why aren't these people at work. So I line up and as per usual there are people feeling that it is their right to march up to the front of the line and get served first… blood is starting to fizz ever so slightly but I am up for a relaxing morning so I let it go.

I get my ticket and get thoroughly searched for cameras and weapons… Is there any point trying to pirate a 3D movie?

The cinema is 70% full… a little unusual for a weekday morning. I get to my seat, all is good in the world.
A few advertisements.
A few previews.
Pre-movie 'switch off your phone and don't talk during the show' announcement is made.
Movie starts, talking does not stop.
Phones start ringing, people start answering… in their loud talking on a mobile phone voice.
What the!
The two guys in front of me are having a discussion. One of them makes a call… Who makes a call in a cinema! He has his conversation, hangs up and then turns back to the guy next to him with the details of his call. I begin to wonder if I am in a cinema with 200 people playing hooky from work? My blood starts to boil… I am identifying with Bruce Banner trying to contain my rage. 

My switch was about to flip, I was so so close to grabbing the guys phone and chucking it down the isle while screaming obscenities at him.
Intermission came and went with many cranky texts to Ray about why my morning sucked.
It was no better during the second half of the movie. I concluded I could not single out the annoying people in front of me with my rage as half the cinema was on their phone or chatting with people around them. I was not happy, lucky I wasn't paying for the experience.

So this whole thing got me thinking… Do people here think the rules apply to everyone else but them? Or, do they disregard the rules because there is so little recourse for breaking them? Or, perhaps it's a case of 'if you can't beat them, join them'

Sometimes I don't think this place is good for me… it just makes me mad.

The crazy man in the window

Our place is on the top floor. That's my bedroom window on the left.

I am not sure how to write this one… As I perceived it when it happened, or what actually happened once it was all over. I guess I will start and see where it goes...

It was about 11pm last night, I was tucked up in bed watching Private Practice on my MacBook with my earphones in. Every now and then I could here some yelling permeating through the sound from my earphones. I take one out and have a listen. Sounds like it's coming from down the street somewhere. I think nothing of it; people are very protective of their car spaces here; parking in someone else's spot can lead to a near death experience. So I plug my earphone back in and finish the last 10 minutes of my show.
When it's done I switch out the light and flop into bed. The yelling starts up again. Might as well have a sticky beak and see what it's all about. So I pull back the curtain and outside my window, standing on our second floor balcony, is a man in his underwear. I am officially freaked out. So I wake Ray up and tell him there is a man on our balcony and he starts yelling like the crazy person on our balcony. Ray bashes on the window to get the guys attention, then he goes outside and tells the guy to 'get the hell off our balcony. So, the crazy guy freaks out and throws himself over the balcony. I look out the window and all I can see are the two sets of fingers belonging to a guy who is now hanging off the side of our building, two stories off the ground.

I am throwing on clothes, while Ray comes back in and is looking for a weapon. The best I can offer is the hammer I have been using on stubborn coconuts that refuse to yield their water. So he goes back out weaponless.

By the time we get outside, the guy has managed to somehow fling himself onto the balcony below, where he is now encountering the wrath of our landlord and his family. Rather than let him out their gate they force him off their balcony onto the ground below. By this stage Ray has made it downstairs and is forcing this crazy incoherent guy out of the gate and down the street.

Meanwhile I have found the guys jeans and a few rocks outside our door. Still can't work out why he took his jeans off.
It turns out that this guy was being chased by someone. So rather than keep on running he heads for higher ground with a few rocks to throw down on his pursuers. Our landlord has a metal grill to keep both monkeys and crazy humans out and it turns out it's a pretty good climbing frame up onto our balcony.

So back to bed… but not for long. Half an hour later the doorbell rings. It's the police. They have the guy in handcuffs and on a leash. There are a whole bunch of other people as well… not sure how they are all involved. The cuffed guy is awkwardly pulling on his jeans, which we through off the balcony. He wants his shoes back… we don't have them. We are told the guy was running from someone who was trying to kill him… okay then. The police head off and our landlord and his son go with them to give a statement. Fortunately the police station is only 50 metres from our house.

I forgot to mention. We have a security guard that we share with our neighbours. It wasn't our usual guy on duty last night so I will go lightly… great lot of good he did waving his stick about and blowing his whistle.

Skanky Money

Something you learn very quickly on arriving in India is not to accept dirty, stained or ripped rupees, because once you have them, they are virtually impossible to get rid of. I have never come across a country that is so obsessed with crisp clean money and such a disdain for dirty bills.

It seems that the people of India believe that the value of cash is multidimensional; you have to take into account the number written on the bill as well as the condition… sometimes a rumpled old 20 rupee note is not actually worth 20 rupees when you consider the trouble to get rid of it.

I have become pretty good at scanning the cash that is handed to me and rejecting any of questionable quality, but Ray, not so much. And this means, that most of the time, it becomes my job to get these dirty buggers back into circulation.
So how do you get rid of them-

• Invest in a roll of invisible scotch tape… it will pay for itself.
• Repeat the karma and palm it off on someone else...à la Chicago bank roll- hidden amongst clean notes
• Give it to someone who wants your money no matter how dodgy the condition. I find this works well in cafes after you have eaten and you insist.. 'this is the only money I have'.
• Hand it over at a toll plaza or a parking garage and sit there until they open the boom gate; it doesn't take long before the people behind you are going off their na-na forcing acceptance.

Interestingly, I heard about an enterprising man sitting in a marketplace with a pile of dirty bills and a pile of crisp clean notes. He was changing old ripped and dirty currency for new clean notes and charging people for the service…entrepreneurial indeed. On average he would give people 70% of the notes face value.

Here is a thought… in a culture dense with social hierarchy, where rank is pervasive; I wonder if those of a higher rank can use their position to palm off their undesirable notes to those of lesser social stature.

Now, the official position of the Indian government is that money is money and that you should be able to trade your damaged notes at any bank, however, in reality, this is not the case. I have heard of people receiving dodgy notes from ATMs and upon taking them inside the branch they are refused an exchange as the ATM is serviced by another branch on the other side of the city.

It must be entertaining watching Indians traveling abroad refusing to accept damaged notes of other countries. I can just imagine the confusion of the other party.
Yes, the clean rupees fetish is just that; it is not a clean US dollar or Australian dollar fetish. In Australia damaged notes, where large chunks of the note are missing, are handed from person to person without incident until they find themselves at a bank and are removed from circulation.

Oh, and if you want to know where all the crisp new rupee notes come from, it seems to be from the ATM at the American embassy ;)

Outsourced

Madhuri from the TV show Outsourced... worth a watch

The other day I got to see what it is really like on the inside of an infamous Indian call centre. I was expecting some crazy loud place with all sorts of hoohaa going on and about a million people working there. But this was not the case, at least not in this particular call centre. It was a small, quiet place with about 30 cubicles sparsely furnished with just a computer and a phone on the desks and no pictures on the bland walls.

As it turned out, the reason I thought I was there was not the real reason I was there for at all. It all started when a linguistics company put out a call for Australians in Delhi to take part in a training session teaching Indian call centre workers to understand the Australian vernacular. They were to send a taxi to pick me up and drop me home and would pay me a reasonable amount for my time. So I thought, why not.

So I rock up to the building that housed the call centre and I go through some crazy security. All phones, iPods, cameras and memory sticks have to be locked in a locker and bags are left in the security office… I guess they don't want me nicking the data from all their calls to Australian households at dinner time.

So I meet the person I am to be working with and I am given my 'script'. Basically it is one of those typical questionnaires they run through over the phone when you are actually doing a survey, the only difference is my survey had all the answers filled in. At this point I am thinking something fishy is going on. I am given a run through of all the questions, the set answers and how to answer questions that require more than a yes or a no answer. Finally, I am told to be myself and answer the questions as any Australian would...Okay.

I am then taken to a small room outside the call centre and handed a mobile phone. A man is with me to supervise my 'performance'.
The phone rings and I answer it. I feel like I am back in Australia receiving a typical survey call from an Indian call centre. The person on the other end says his spiel, including the line 'this call may be recorded for training purposes' by now I know I am not here to educate call centre workers in the understanding of the Australian vernacular.
So, the survey is underway and I spend about half an hour answering the questions, as instructed, getting the occasional thumbs up from my supervisor. By the time the survey is over I have a few possibilities forming in my head as to why they need me to do this… all are dodgy-

Recreating lost recordings
Making up data
Skewing data to suit a purpose
Or, were they not able to get anyone to answer such a long-winded boring survey so they had to make it up?

Frankly, I though it best not to ask any questions; firstly because of all the security and secondly because I wouldn't mind being invited back… not because I want to be involved in dodgy dealings, just because I am intrigued and I could do with the cash.

I have so many thoughts and questions but I doubt any will be answered…
I wonder how many other Australians in Delhi have participated.
I imagine I am getting paid more for my 1 hour of work than the call centre workers are paid for 2 or more days. Is it really worth it for them to pay me a relatively large sum for a half hour recording?
I wonder what the Australian company that commissioned the survey would think if they knew? Do they know? Does this happen all the time?

A few hours later, back at home, I get a call. They left off one of the questions from the survey off the script, could they record it now? Sure. They tell me what to answer and ask me the question. I answer and they hang-up.

Well okay then

First world problems Vs Third world problems

I was stretching before my run around Lodi Gardens yesterday morning and I said to my friend that I was sick of my running playlist on my iPod. And my friend says… ahh, first world problem, my latest is not being able to open the sauce packets at McDonald's.

So this got me thinking about some of my first world problems and how ridiculous they are… lets put it into perspective.

Wondering if I am going to have the stamina to do my 6k run in 35 (95) degree heat.

Cycle rickshaw rider wondering if he will have the stamina to ride people around all day in 35 degree heat so he can feed is family.

Feeling exhausted after an hour driving through hideous Delhi traffic in my big air-conditioned car, avoiding all manner of obstacles including, cars, pedestrians and cows.

Feeling exhausted after begging all day in Delhi traffic while trying to avoid being hit by cars.

Calling Subway to get dinner home delivered only to be told they had no delivery boys today and I will have to pick it up.

Wondering if there will be any food for dinner.

Having no clean cups in the kitchen because it's the maids day off.

Being a 13-year-old enslaved maid locked in an apartment for two weeks while the employers are overseas on holiday. Please read this link and sign the petition.

It looked like rain so I had to race home to bring the washing in.

It rained and all worldly possessions are saturated

Went shopping at an outlet store but had to leave earlier than I would have liked because I was hungry and couldn't concentrate.

The Indian subcontinent has nearly half the worlds starving people.

Thinking that traveling across Delhi to earn $30 for 2 hours work is not worth my time.

Earning $30 a month for 2 hours of work/per day.

And now I am lost for words... something to think about.

Sky Rats

Bordering my neighbourhood is a large flyover which straddles a train line. The crest of this flyover is covered with thousands of pigeons. In my mind pigeons equal pigeon poop, stray grimy feathers and mess… gross. Quite often when I am driving over the flyover I will see cars pulled over by the side of the road and the occupants will be spreading out grain or old chapatis for the pigeons. Sometimes I see people washing out the festy* water bowls and leaving fresh water for the pigeons… why? I don't get it. It's not like they are colourful pretty birds; they are ugly grey sky rats. On occasion I have been riding my scooter toward the crest of the flyover and all of a sudden all the pigeons take off and swoop across the road, turn sharply swoop the other way and then come back to land. It freaks the living daylights out of me.

Def Col/Jangpura flyover

On the way to Hunter's school there is a T intersection with a small traffic island. This is another spot that people seem to be compelled to feed pigeons. Sometimes the occasional goat or chicken trying to get in on the grain action as well, but mostly it's just pigeons. On the days I pick-up Hunter from school in a cycle rickshaw she just about has a panic attack when we round that corner of birds. I don't know where her irrational fear of birds came from.

So why do people around here insist on feeding these sky rodents… well I did a bit of research.

Apparently pigeons have religious significance in quite a few religions; two of which are Islam and Sikhism. Now my area has a rather large population of both Sikhs and Muslims so that equals a double whammy of pigeon feeding.

In Islam, doves and the pigeon family in general are respected and favoured because they are believed to have assisted the final prophet of Islam, Muhammad, in distracting his enemies outside the cave of Thaw'r in the great Hijra. This seems to have lead to a few folk tales and superstitions... Apparently there was a man who was very poor, he could not afford anything. But despite his poverty he would feed hungry birds, with scraps of left over food. In return the birds prayed to Allah over and over again so that the man would become richer and luckier. Allah heard the birds prayers and slowly the man became richer and richer with much luck.

Another superstition I came across is that if a woman is having trouble bearing a child, she should eat 7 or 11 grains that are still in chaff from the ground where pigeons feed in Makkah… ewww

In Old Delhi there is a sport played called Kabooter Bazi. In the late afternoon Kabooter Bazi players head up to their rooftops and give signals for their groups of pigeons to fly around in packs. They then throw seed in the air and the pigeons circle back to eat a few and then resume circling. The pigeons know which rooftop is there home and promptly return to their rooftop when seed is thrown. The aim of the game is to get other pigeons to join your pack, increasing the size of your pack and basically gaining ownership of the pigeons. You could basically say it's winner takes all gambling with pigeons. Apparently you can buy pigeons to train up to play and good pigeons can be ridiculously expensive.

So there you have it… I learned something new today.

*festy- Australian word related to the word fester.

Turn off your high-beams... grrr

Heads up! This is going to be a rant. All efforts to be diplomatic are out the window and as for the gross generalisation, tough luck… here we go!

Dear Drivers of Delhi,

Why do you insist on driving around with your high-beams on? Where does this come from? Are you selfish, do you have a herd mentality, or are you just plain clueless?

Seriously, is it not obvious to you that when people approach you from the opposite direction with high-beams blaring that you are temporarily blinded? Does it not occur to you that this might be dangerous? It does not need to be law, it is common sense… Just in case you needed clarification here is the law...

Under Rule 112.4 (a) of Delhi Motor Vehicles Act, "Driver of a motor vehicle shall at all times, when the lights of the vehicle are in use, so manipulate them that danger or undue convenience is not caused to any person by dazzle.

Also, here is the results of a survey, further highlighting how dangerous cruising around with your high-beams permanently on is… 'the main cause of road accidents are human error, use of high beam and drink driving'.
In my opinion the last two equal plain stupidity.
Now for the the generalisation… I have never come across a city of people that is so oblivious to how their actions might affect those around them. Where does this come from? I don't understand.

I just had to get that off my chest

Any abuse, name calling or clarification is welcome. I don't pretend this post won't raise a few hackles.