suburban blues

My guess is that you probably will not be able to see me on MSN anytime soon. The worst has just happened: my laptop seems to have given up on me, and my biggest worry is that I will be able to recover the information inside. i have been in Mumbai since Wednesday, having moved from Pune. If anything, i like Mumbai better because everything moves faster, its a super cosmopolitan place unlike sleepy Pune, but the weather is terrible. It is hot and humid, just like in Singapore, but the pollution here is infinitely worse.

Now I have started work at the Tatas, which is this big-ass organization in India dealing in everything from trucks to hotels to tea. I have been posted to their IT firm, and I will be in charge of maintaining the content in their web portal. The organizational culture is great, it seems like an efficient and dynamic place to be in, and everyone was pretty excited to see a fresh new face working with them. So they're all pretty nice to me.

On the downside, my accomodation is some damn ulu-mama place in the suburbans of Mumbai. Which means I have to travel like, 2.5 hours to get to my office. Outside my apartment are mostly slums, and its pretty far from the train stations, and since I'm a foreigner (or expat, in this case, haha), they like to cheat me of my money. the auto-rickshaw guy likes driving me in circles before i arrive at my destination. but i'm not familiar with the place, damn it, so there is just about nothing i can do right now.

i have to tell you about the trains. its crazy. i would like to swear, but my parents are probably reading this right now as well, so i shall refrain. ****. but the train is crazy. its so crowded, i think about half of india's 1 billion population is crammed into that rickety train. and then i have no bloody clue how and when to get off. being lost here is no joke. i was going to buy my train tickets, but there was this long queue, right? actually there were a couple of long queues, so i joined one of them to wait for my turn to purchase the tickets. then suddenly, without any indication, the ticket counter guy decides to take a break, leaving everyone in my queue stranded. see, india is like that, full of surprises. and see, when people queue for such a long time and then find out that they are not going to get their tickets, they get bloody pissed. so there i was, trying to buy my tickets, with a lot of very angry indians around me. so people started pushing and shoving around to try to get to the next available counter, so it was total chaos. chaos. chaos. chaos. somehow i managed to wrestle my way among all these angry people to get my tickets.

if you're wondering how i managed to post this entry with my dead laptop, i'm now at a super-rundown internet cafe in the suburbans. i'm not even complaining about win98, man, this is screwed up. the keyboard is DUSTY. my fingers are turning sooty black as we speak. and i'm surfing on 10mpbs. i'm so exasperated, i'm finding this funny. i think i shall take a picture of the internet cafe and post it when i am able to.

love
van.

sunset on sunset point

we watched the sunset from a place called sunset point, and the sight was magnificient. i felt like i had the world on my fingertips. *ahem*

we took turns to hold the sun. haha! this is my bus driver, he is the most reckless driver i have ever seen. he overtakes on downslopes and honks at every car in the way. he makes the rickety bus feel like a lamborghini (did i spell it right?)

and our pe-on (another word for slave, but the indians are too civilised and modern to have slaves) anyway we all had fun with the sun. ooooh that rhymes.

a very pretty sunset


so we decided to try out some bollywood dance moves.

saw a really interesting number plate. haha but i doubt james bond drives tata indigo cars.

my fellow travelers: terry, musa, gabriel, and vance.

gabriel attempts a cirque de soliel along a scary looking cliff.

breath taking scene, from one of mahabeleshwar's many magnificient heights and drops.

even the monkey was enchanted by its beauty.

this monkey attacks humans. i risked my life while taking this shot.

we came to a field where there were sheperds and lots of sheep.

sheperd and sheep.

more on mahabeleshwar

these strawberries look extremely suggestive.

the camel says hi, how are you doing today?

we went boating.

this smiley old woman came up to talk to me.

mahabeleshwar

yummylicious strawberries!

now you see them.

now you don't.

we passed by a sunflower field and there were happy sunflowers smiling happily at us.

my sister.

sadhana village

i think he looks like mahatma gandhiji.

went to a home for the mentally challenged, called sadhana village. it is situated in a rural village, about 40km off pune (pronounced poo-na). she is one of the "special friends" who reside in the home.


these are the kids from a day care centre in the rural village, they were really amazed to see foreigner with big camera, haha. classic expressions.

this is my favourite kid, she is shy and timid.

the kids have fun with my sunglasses.

5 birds please.

now, i’m most probably the last person you could think of who would actually bother about keeping a blog, when for the life of me i can’t seem to keep my room tidy. and then i got sick of sending the same picture to about 10 different people for about 20 times (because MSN is screwed up), and i finally snapped when i had to relate my horrifying experience in india for the 30th time to the 40th person. that simply doesn’t work when internet time here is so precious and hard to come by. i have to pay 10 rupees for every half hour i use the lousy older-than-ancient computers in the mosquito-infested internet café, which by the way, runs on win98. windows 98! that system was used about a gabazillion years ago, no? my first reaction, when i encountered the appalling state of the internet café, was to laugh my huge ass off. really. i thought it was pretty funny that the computers were running on operating systems dating a decade back. then realization dawned on the fact that i actually have to live here for the next 6 months.

*screams*

anyways. if you have been messaging me on MSN and i don’t seem to be replying, please don’t give up on messaging me yet. the problem here is that this lousy internet café closes at 10pm, classes here end really late, and in between i actually have to make it through gym, dinner, and really cold showers (because they freaking don’t have freaking hot water here, ****, its 20 freaking degrees outside). and then there’s the mountain of assignments here to do, and for the 60th time I’m bitching about this, internet isn’t freely available. so really, if you’re at home right now lounging around on the couch on wireless internet connection, you really should kiss your damn lucky stars.

now, for all that i am bitching about India, it really isn’t half as bad. for a start, nothing works around here in India, and if you want it too, you’re probably going to have to bribe your way through. haha otherwise known as the “10 rupee syndrome”. but Indian culture is so very fascinating, so very different from ours and so rich in their heritage. oh and the saree is a really sexy lah. (and i bought 2 of them, ahem.) well i must say that i never actually immersed myself in a developing country yet, i mean actually living and working in one, and this experience in itself has been enlightening. i don’t mean that i’m having the time of my life here now, but hey, having had the most enriching experience doesn’t mean it’s the best time of your life, me thinks.

in any case, the main purpose for the setup of this blog is to post my photos, so at least it’ll be a window for you to explore my Indian world here. i have to say that i’m not exactly the best photographer, but i do hope these will do. and if you think there’s anyway to better improve my pictures, do tell. pictures are currently the best mode of telling my experience here in India, but of course, you’re not getting the complete picture because the sounds and the smells that you get traveling along the spit-and rubbish-infested roads of India really completes the experience. i'm going to have to touch on that really interesting topic sometime.

meanwhile, here are my pictures. my very first pictures are dedicated to my family. ron and val and venus and the little twit ivan, i miss you guys very much, surprisingly. to my mom, for attempting to call me often to ask me how i've been (as well as to give me the permission to buy hot water for showering, haha.) and especially to my dad, for getting me my very first SLR.