Delhi to Helsinki

When I reflect on the last 14 days, I've been in 7 cities on 3 continents. Jet lag only begins to explain my state of mind. Our final days in Delhi pre-departure were replete with active days and nights, hot afternoons in CP, Bollywood hits, lunch coffees at Barista, a night of talking Harare politics over Tiger beers with two Zimbabwe friends, and fantastic steak dinner and drinks at Smokehouse Grill in South Ex. Before my departure, and hiatus in California, we organized a feast amongst friends at the apartment, and managed to convince three non-residents to make the trek to Gurgaon. As our conversations moved from the ethics of development to stupid humor, and as my house manager, Kapil, embraced me and apologized for any sins or troubles he had caused me, it only reaffirmed to me that bonds grow strong quickly in new worlds. I dismissed Kapil's appeal with my jocular nickname for him, "Sri Baba Kapil ji," but was moved by the extent to which relationships in India, despite their often disturbing stratification, are genuine, poignant, and resolute.

After a three-hour delay at the appalling Delhi International Airport (the worst capital city airport I have ever been to, except for perhaps San Salvador) I boarded my FinnAir flight to Helsinki at 4am. Despite months of joy, a few hours in Delhi International can affirm any seeded desire to return home, and leave you counting down the delayed minutes until departure.

But when I arrived in Helsinki, Finland, I immediately missed the chaos and color of India. I stepped into fresh, clean, Nordic air under a deep blue sky. Before me new C-class Mercedes passed one after the other as airport taxis, gliding over clean cobbled streets. Although with each breath into my lungs I felt as though I gained strength post-Delhi pollution, and although I could have eaten my lunch directly off the pavement it was so clean, I immediately missed the vibrance of India. I missed the camaraderie that is ubiquitous; I missed the smiles and the bobbles; I missed the momentary entertainment that is a rickshaw negotiation, a languid buffalo, a paan-wala tout, or a carefree shoeless child that protects a makeshift wicket with a stick. India is uniquely complex, and while riddled with problems, it retains an endearing quality that is deeper than the superficial foreign understanding of its squalor and crowds. India is alive.

UP Nights... Films, Barat, and Kulfi

An afternoon by the Taj pool, and a fantastic book, "In Spite of the Gods" later, I embarked for a movie at the local cinema. The first Pakistani movie to show in India in many years, I chose to watch a well-rated film called "Khuda Ke Liye," or "In the name of God." Though the movie was in Urdu, its spoken form is remarkably similar to Hindi, and so I managed the basics that along with visual tips allow for decent understanding. Khuda Ke Liye was a fantastic movie that, while lacking in much acting prowess, articulated a complex modern Pakistani, and Muslim, dynamic in the post-9/11 world. A British Pakistani girl is married by her father, and against her will, to an extremist cousin in Waziristan, marooned in Western Pakistan to the chagrin of her feckless mother. Captive in a Pashto village, the protagonist battles between accepting a culture unknown to her, but her own, and squelching a hatred for her father. Her husband, a young musician turned rock-to-faith, joins in a battle alongside the Taliban as his progressive brother moves to Chicago to marry his American love. While one man lives free, another is persecuted as an extremist. All too familiarly, a World Bank friend explained the plight of a former Stanford classmate of ours who was deported, despite a fervid love of American opportunity, for having studied Chemical Engineering.

Exiting the theater, I used the local bathroom to don my Sherwani and I quickly made for my good friend's wedding. As I was escorted out the exit, half of the hotel staff offered a hand to shut the heavy door of my white Ambassador car, waving with smiles and compliments, and asking who my Indian bride was. At the residence, with photographs, marigolds, and bountiful traditions of puja and dance and incredibly loud band music, we began the wedding festivities. Though I've before been to Andhran, Keralan, and Maharashtran weddings, I hadn't yet been to one from Uttar Pradesh, or the North. The Barat, or procession, began from the groom's residence.

Fit with a white horse, twenty men to carry heavy lights atop their heads, a truck blasting the recent Bollywood hits like Darde Disco and Mauja hi Mauja, and even a small man pushing a generator, we danced for two hours down the streets. Snaking through the darkened streets, through air suffused with heavy heat, a lingering presence of the afternoon sun, we danced and danced as the white horse and my princely friend followed. Eventually reaching the wedding hall, Kushagra bribed his way inside, paying handsomely to the bride's sisters and family to make his entrance. As we tossed marigold petals atop their regal attire, and they exchanged flowers and furtive glances, they were slowly (quite) conjoined in marriage. To celebrate, after a liquor and contraceptive yatra for the newly interested parties at 4am, we celebrated by eating all of the remaining ice cream (kulfi) from the ceremony. An hour later I flew home and went to work, having only just changed from my Sherwani.

Now... Lucknow

After having been upgraded into a first-class sleeper, to my surprise and approval, I arrived in the capital of UP, Lucknow. I quickly hired an auto, and began site-seeing before the inevitable heat (105 F+) of the Gangetic Plain confined me to the shade. Though my morning bargaining skills were lacking, I secured a tour of various the sites of Lucknow, such as the Bara (Big) Imambara, a Shiite muslim shrine and the Chota (Small) Imambara. Within the Bara Imambara complex, there is an amazing bhulbhulayah, or labyrinth, that served as a protective surrounding to the Imambara. Nearly lost within its narrow stone passages, I contemplated climbing down a wall before I managed my way out. Like Theseus and the Minotaur, fortunately, my string and bred crumbs got out of the labyrinth, and back to the Taj.

By Elephant or Indian Rail

On Sunday, after having hired an elephant for the morning to walk across the Raj Ghat corner of New Delhi, and after a four-hour, Moet champagne brunch at the Oberoi hotel, I boarded a third-class train car from New Delhi train station. I was bound for Lucknow, the capital of India's largest state, Uttar Pradesh. UP, as it's shortened, has a population near 200 million people, and is one of the most complex regions of India to govern. It spans some of the most densely populated land on Earth, and combines a complex mix of topographic, linguistic, and religious differences. As I was dropped at the station by my driver, a man who explained to me last week how he had named his son after Saddam Hussein, the typical chaos ensued.

With a Moet-induced calm, I traversed a piling of bodies and bags outside the station, ducking my way under street lights buzzing with mosquitos, and shuffling past the burning metal of passing rickshaws and motorcycles. Once inside the station, having passed through a two-by-four 'metal detector,' I descended to the train platform upon which I was lifted and carried by an inching smash of human arms, bobbing heads, and fabrics. It was a festival weekend, and as a Bihari man explained to me on the concrete steps, everyone on the platform was bound for Patna for the long weekend. This man, the owner of a hot air balloon company explained to me how I could buy a second-hand Indian military helicopter, and then quizzed me in my minimal Hindi.

I was the only foreigner on the platform, but as I scampered over legs, past rice bags, under dupattas, between shoulders and through the heavy summer air that pinned me between bodies and a low ceiling, many helped me along my way. I managed to throw out a few high-fives before jumping onto my moving train, as my seats had inevitably changed and I boarded the wrong car. I eventually found that I had been upgraded, thanks to the Rail Minister Lalu Prasad's initiative at the helm of a million-person organization. Nine hours later I arrived in Lucknow.

College Tour 2008

Today I spent meandering the campus streets of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in South Delhi with a Bihari friend studying in a Ph.D Linguistics program. Founded in 1967, JNU is one of a few Delhi academic institutions including the more urban Delhi University, and the famous Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). It is a school named after a man with one of the strongest Indian political legacies. Nehru, India's first Prime Minister, and longest serving, held the first post-colonial post from 1947 until his death in 1964. The school that bears his name is, as was explained to me, fairly liberal in its academic flexibility, but hasn't yet moved as far in the direction of development as its eponymous namesake could have hoped. Whereas campuses in Hyderabad host wireless internet, the classrooms and library at JNU are, while palatable, not modern.

Over a dhaba lunch, and a five rupee coffee, I realized that despite different appearances India is home to a surprisingly strong cafe culture. Similar to a weekend afternoon in Europe, scores of students sat around makeshift chairs, crumbled concrete cubes atop a dusty hillside, nursing small chai and coffees over long conversations. It's Indian dhaba culture, and I've noticed it across UP, Punjab, and Haryana.

Despite the tranquility of our sunny afternoon, my friend explained to me issues that cause academic concerns. In the past five years government scholarships have grown to address Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) in funding, in addition to need-based funding for families who earn under 1 lakh rupees ($2500 per year). Preferential treatments, however, are controversial. Members of ST, and students who speak one of 24 specified languages, can take their pre-college exams in their mother tongue. Though locations change, some fundamental inequalities are issues that transgress international boundaries.

Bollywood Politics

When asked by a DC friend how the China-Tibet issues were surfacing in India, I had to reply that I hadn't heard much about it recently, as the news has been dominated by far more important issues. Bizarrely, the quibbles between Bollywood and local regional politicians is more news-worthy than Chinese incursions and draconian actions against peace-loving people in Tibet. For example, in the past weeks, news has been drowned in the absurd dialogue between fringe-party Shiv Sena ("Shiva's army") and Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan. Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackery of Bombay claims that the superstar, originally from Uttar Pradesh (UP) but made a star in Maharashtra, hasn't done enough for the state that brought him riches.

At the same time as Bachchan is derided by a xenophobic regional leader for his dismissal of Maharashtran issues, another Tollywood (not Bollywood) superstar from Karnataka, a ridiculous Sly Stone action hero named Rajinikanth, has been lionized by Thackery for his commitment to Tamil Nadu on issues related to local water. Despite his roots in Karnataka, Rajinikanth's siding with Tamil Nadu (TN) is precedent for Thackery's absurd public excoriation of Bachchan. It amazes me that this news eclipses neighboring China's aggressive measures just North of the Indian border. But when it comes to Bollywood and Cricket, the sub-continental notion is clearly "do not disturb."

Worlds Between

After three months in India in 2008, bringing my time on the sub-continent to 9 months, I realize a sad and awkward reality that I belong in two places. In the words of my Indian friend, I'm wedded to the country, and torn between two worlds. I miss California, yet I am at home in India. I am pulled between relationships on two continents, and I harbor an elusive status that precludes the depth that is sufficient to satisfy. As I dined in a pillow-adorned buggy in South Delhi with an edgy and charismatic girl, as I landed in Hyderabad and was greeted by my driver and friends, and as I encountered a high-school friend in a South Indian bar, I am reminded of my tryst with two worlds. My worlds are multiple, and my experiences have afforded me an ability to recognize and understand pride in Spain, Switzerland, Ecuador, and India. But with each understanding I have gained, I have left those behind who might have become great friends. In the perpetual and elusive change, I am both broadened and saddened by my global friendships.

Over the past week, as I walked alone through Old Delhi's Chowri Bazaar, my thoughts tumbled slowly through my mind as my body negotiated the surrounding chaos. The dichotomies envelope my every moment, thought, surrounding, and intention. As a dusty man sleeps atop crumbled concrete, I dismiss my haste with a claim that I am powerless to help one man, and that I will devote my efforts to affect broader change. But sometimes the demands of time and commitment and comfort deceive the good intentions of decent people. Intentions become excuses and then they become the fodder for champagne toasts; they become the stories of reflective prose; they become a lingering guilt that grows into indignation and questions what others have failed to achieve, and not what one's self has failed to demand.

But as I've vomited bile from the window of a cab, alone in Calcutta, I no longer desired the hard adventure that ostensibly broadens us, and defines us in youth. I craved comforts, and I had the audacity to desire them as I passed Kolkata slums. Moments in India challenge compassion and humanity; they challenge self-definition; moments make us question who we are and what we believe in. Some raise a glass, and others raise a fit. The truth is, many people do both, existing in the hypocritical world of dichotomies that appeases both our human desire for comfort, and our privileged but genuine philanthropic vanity.

PVR "Bringing Smiles"

As is inevitable in India, one will encounter a set of arbitrary 'rules' for which no logic is sufficient for understanding. Pretenses are a favorite on the sub-continent, and enforcement and actual sense are less common. For example, each day I walk through a rectangle of two-by-fours which rifles off a loud beep to a man standing nearby who never looks up from his newspaper. Why then have the 'metal detector' if the goal and end of its positioning is not enhanced safety? Employment, I suppose.

The same illogical application of rules worms its way into diurnal activities. Today, as I attempted to enter PVR cinemas, a venue which prides itself on its 'bringing smiles' advertising campaign, I nearly thrust my fist through its colorful facade. After passing through a set of two-by-fours, being frisked by three separate men, and emptying the contents of my small backpack, my chewing gum box was confiscated and I was told I could not enter with my bag. Understanding the stupidity of nearly all Indian rules, and the flexibility with which they are typically enforced, I asked in a number of increasingly simplistic ways if I could both keep my gum and enter with my bag. Now, I understand the logic of no chewing gum in a theater, but why confiscate a stale pack at the bottom of my bag when the teenage girls around me chomp away on Trident? Wouldn't it make more sense to employ a dental agent at the door aside the two-by-fours prying gum from under each person's tongue? Ok, well perhaps it's no better. But to the second point, that bags are not allowed in the theater, my counter-argument was obvious: we're in a shopping mall.

Unyielding to even my most simplistic and sycophantic requests, I erupted into a slur of expletives, and leaned into the man's hollow face, shouting at him and excoriating his lemming-like dearth of purpose. I eventually gained entrance to the theater and watched a dreadfully bad movie that, as its highlight, featured Bipasha Basu dancing. Arbitrary rules, lack of context, and idiocy with which they are invariably enforced is painstaking across India, and affirms my desire to land on Finnish soil in three weeks. I hope that as I board my FinnAir flight, the tranquility promised bears more veracity than PVR's successfully well-orchestrated 'Bringing Smiles' campaign.

Another 'Real India' Poolside

In continuing tradition, Thursday night marked the start of our weekend, aside from early next-day meetings. Endeavoring to alter the standard GK-1 N Block fare, we opted for poolside at the Park Hotel's Aqua lounge. Combining a group from Bain, and celebrating the admission of a few friends' to HBS, our overzealous ordering showed its striking face in the form of Rupees on our bill. Bombay and Delhi host venues that rival the likes of Hong Kong, London, and New York in price. Though India is understood internationally for its population and poverty, it's also host to Asia's largest number of 55 billionaires and over 83,000 millionaires. It's a country of contrasts and challenges and one that is remarkably pluralistic and diverse culturally, geographically, topographically, linguistically, and economically. It's a country in which some things do not move, and others are world class. I realize these differences on a weekly basis as I learn phrases in Guju, Punjabi, and Hindi; I learn this each time I arrive in a new city; I learn this each week as I frequent a chic bar or restaurant with Indian friends from work, and then spend my Saturday traversing the frenetic streets of Old Delhi.

The 'real India' is a country that varies and is personally dependent. Last year I went searching for it on trains and in small villages. This year I find an equally 'real India' that exists in an efficient Kingfisher flight with brand new AirBus 320 aircraft; it exists in as high-heeled women make a morning trip to Barista for lattes; it exists in a villager with a mobile phone, and multi-million dollar Bollywood escapism; it exists with bamboo scaffolding to erect glass wonders; it exists with an S-Class Mercedes and a chauffeur, in a taxi, in an auto-rickshaw, on a cycle-rickshaw, and over bare feet. I can only try to understand that these worlds are not mutually exclusive, but are the various versions of India that those around me all know and love.

Holi Weekend

This weekend marked the confluence of three holidays, one Muslim, one Hindu, and one Christian. Mawlid, or the birth of the Prophet, coincides with Good Friday. Saturday is the Hindu Holi festival day, or the celebration of colors and of spring, while Sunday is Easter. It's a remarkable conjoining of traditions, and one that is quite apparent in India. On Friday, as I ventured into New Delhi, thousands made their way in traditional dress and skull caps toward the Jama Masjid, one of the largest mosques in Asia. On Saturday, innumerable Hindus "Played Holi" throwing and smearing colored powder onto one another in celebration of Spring. On Sunday, as I walked the streets of Calcutta with a Christian friend, she reminded me of Easter tradition.

In the lingering post-Holi days (holidays), one can clearly identify Hindus from others, as their skin holds the lingering pink hue of indelible Holi inks. While I did not celebrate this year's Holi celebration, as I had enough of the dry powder in my face last Spring, I did celebrate with the small victory of setting my AirTel mobile ring back as the latest Atif Aslam song from the Bollywood film, Race.

Cali(fornia) to Cal(cutta)

As my plane touched down in Calcutta, I harbored innumerable expectations about a city I've wanted to visit for the past year. The capital of West Bengal, Calcutta, or Kolkata as it can now be called, is a sprawling mass of over 13 million people, most of them very poor. It's the home of Bengali sweets, of Tagore and other intellectuals who have defined Indian literature; it is the former British East India Company capital, and the site of Mother Theresa's tomb. It hosts the famous cricket ground Eden Gardens, the beautiful Victoria Memorial, and the posh Park Street.

Today it is a city that lags behind Delhi and Bombay, but also a city that quite resembles its ostensibly more developed counterparts. Upon arrival I expected images of destitution I hadn't yet seen across the sub-continent, as even my Indian friends warned me against going to Calcutta. I was told that traffic signals had only arrived a decade ago, and that infrastructure would be difficult.

In contrast to expectations set by Indian friends, what I found was a city that, to me, was unremarkably Indian. It was certainly no better than other Indian cities I have seen and experienced over the past year, but it was also certainly no worse. And despite its apparent status as a scapegoat city for many Indian natives, the challenges Calcutta has yet to overcome are the same as those extant elsewhere, yet it bears the sour reputation. While traffic signals may have only come in the past decade, Calcutta traffic was markedly better than Gurgaon, Hyderabad, and Bangalore, cities engineered in much more recent years.

Bubbles of developed infrastructure exist across India, but single stretches of highway in Delhi cannot assuage underlying problems in urban planning. In venturing into West Bengal's notorious capital, I was struck not by the penury, but by how remarkably similar it was to other purportedly developed Indian cities.

Sufis and Sitars

Due to frequent visits, my driver now asks if I am going to Epicenter before he asks if I am going home. "Haan jee, mai Epicenter ja raha hoon," I replay. This week I attended a fantastic Sufi music performance by Rene Singh with a lecture on Sufism by an erudite Delhi University professor delivered in Hindi and English, all before my 10pm call with CA. Discussing Turkic Sufism from that of the Indus Valley and that of the Gangetic plain, I learned that in Sufi poetry the linguistic genders intimate as much about intention as the word meanings themselves. For example, reflective diction is nearly always in the feminine gender while assertions of power and authority are masculine.

Flanked by two friends on Thursday night, I attended again another Epicenter performance of Sitar and Tabla by a student of Ravi Shankar. In a fantastic display, the artist willed emotion from the strings with each poignant pull and pluck. The resonant timbre of the instrument echoed through the hollow hall with the undulating dip and drive of the tabla to accompany. As he created notes from the Sitar, it was difficult to discern if the physiognomy of his face influenced his fingers, or if the music inspired the physiognomy. Both performances brought to life more of the Indian classical music that I've grown to love.

Gone to Goa

After a hectic week of interviews and presentations, I boarded a SpiceJet flight from Delhi to the former Portuguese outpost of Goa. India is full of linguistic pockets, both local and foreign. Pondicherry hosts blue tile street signs listed in French and Tamil; Cochin boasts its Dutch heritage; Goa contains Catholic relics for the Portuguese presence, and it's one of the few places in India where Christiano Ronaldo is more popular than Sachin Tendulkar!

A bumpy hour north of Panjim, the Goan capital, we arrived in Anjuna and checked into our humble hotel which cost 600 Rs per night. For an extra 200 Rs, we reserved motorbikes. A few King's beers into the night, we walked slowly down the country roads under a canopy of stars and silhouetted palm frawns. Whitewashed churches watched dimly from aside the dirt roads.

The weekend commenced eventfully with me crashing my bike on a sandy stretch of road. Having watched a number of Shah Rukh Khan movies (SRK), I launched myself from the bike and managed to escape with but a scrape on my elbow and knee. Perhaps Maverick might be a better comparison. Nursing my wounds with sun, sea, and beach soccer with a dozen British kids and their coach, an expat New Yorker who graced the beach in a Knicks jersey, I recovered by weekend's end, and celebrated with a henna tattoo.

Goa is India in a crucible. It's all and nothing at once. What it retains in the constituent cultural elements of India, it loses in its pandering to tourists. To an undiscerning eye it's all just India. But beneath the puppets is Rajasthan; beneath the Kathikali is Kerala; beneath the laborer's story is Bihar. Judgement aside, it is a beautiful part of the world that is free and wild. It's a barefoot Royal Enfield motorcycle, a canopy of palms, a melange of nations, and a fish dinner. And who complains about that...

GK-1 N-Block Thursday

On Thursday nights, a club in the South Delhi section called GK-1 N-Block comes alive with a remarkable cross-section of new Delhi. It's IT professionals; it's Embassy staff; it's Bain and McKinsey consultants; it's an open world where conversations are international and reflective, and the talk is more than small.

As a Palo Alto kid, what's remarkable to me is that it nearly always ends in Facebook. It was true in Tanzania, it was true in the Maldives, and it's true in India. Punjabi bar talk turned into a discussion of Harvard's Kennedy School and international development, and ended with a Blackberry Facebook exchange and the realization that we had a mutual friend in New York, namely a girl I lived with my freshman year. Facebook is on the global map, and Malcom Gladwell knows what comes next.

Epicentre Gurgaon

On Wednesday night, after having completed twenty-one 30-minute interviews, I made the smart decision of not going home, but instead going to Epicentre Gurgaon for a Carnatic music performance. One of the few reasons to remain in Gurgaon, Epicentre has nightly performances for Sitar, Sarod, Sufi, and Carnatic music, in addition to festivals for Chinese films and international art. Carnatic music is a form of Classical Hindustani, or Indian, music that is musically and rhythmically complex. In an escalating progression, the music follows particular ragas, or modal themes, and builds on itself into complex drumming and vocal patterns. Though I drifted in and out of sleep, the event was fantastic and provided my first good reason not to flee to Delhi after traffic subsides.

Old New Delhi

From Rajiv Chowk, the central green within CP, there now exists a Delhi Metro stop. As we liken Gurgaon to the Gold Rush of 1849, with the daily boom of chaos and productivity creating change that is visibly measured in days and weeks, one can similarly observe the creation of the Delhi Metro. Three years ago it did not exist. Today, though photography is not permitted, it rivals Bangkok or Asia in its efficiency. And at six rupees per ticket, it beats New York in cost. Entering the station at Rajiv Chowk we shuffled over marble floors to an uncrowded ticket window. Handed a magnetic coin imprinted with an image of Qtub Minar, we pressed into the station where smoothly running cars glided in each minute. It was blissful, though Indians cannot handle the give and take necessary to efficiently board a train. Many Indians cram to board the car when others simply wish to exit. I’ve never tried it, but perhaps I should try to put my shoes on before my pants. That would work about as well.

Exiting the metro at Chowri Bazaar in central old Delhi, we emerged into the haze of the city and into a different time. At the top of the polished steps stood an idle cow, and we were immediately propositioned for a dozen cycle rickshaws. Inevitably in the way of someone, we dodged our way down a crumbling sidewalk past thousands of others. Men with twenty-feet of copper pipe would emerge before us as two children would clip at our heels and a moped would blast at us with its horn. Holes in the street would emerge, bricks and piles of dust would stand as obstacles, and men with hot pots of chai would careen past. As Tim paused to smoke his cigarette, a pensive and furrowed brow, the surrounding chaos made his casual stance look Guy Noir.

The walk before Jama Masjid and into Chandi Chowk is a journey that impresses itself into memory in a visceral, tangible, uncomfortabley sad and powerful way. A series of moments can outweigh the gravitas of novels, the words of authors, and the photos of magazines. It’s a sight, a smell, a wave, a smile, a whiff, a scare, and a moment that changes you. It’s a series of moments that comprise a minute of your life, and an eternity of theirs. It’s each passing life. It’s your transience and their permanence. It’s their home and your intrusion. A leper sleeps in the middle of the filthy street, face down on the concrete as rickshaws circle his crumpled mass and black feet; A man sweeps trash and dead dogs into a pile, the stench of death and garbage welling inside your nostrils; a child laughs despite poverty, tossing a rag into the air as a game, and stuffs it into his mouth after it lands on the road; a pool of frothy yellow urine pools around the feet of a man who turns to you and smiles with a head bobble; A beggar grabs your arm beckoning to you with her eyes, and her tout of "baba;" Four men shout "hello sir," and award you a grin worthy of welcome to the neighborhood; A rickshaw squeals its horn, and a woman brushes past you, her face mangled and nose missing, likely her terrible punishment as an unfaithful wife; A heroine addict stumbles into your shoulder as three men gape at you from their road-side mattress, hands clasping glasses of chai; Are you entertainment, or a target? You consider danger; you flex and smile. You engage, you glaze over, you reflect, you try, but you can't fully understand.

And then you enter a rooftop lounge, reflect over a Kingfisher, call an AC car, and return to a marble apartment.

Rooftop Mattresses

At 21:15 on Thursday evening, a unique group assembled in Delhi atop an apartment rooftop. Together with friends from Stanford and San Diego, employees of the World Bank and U.N., Fulbright Scholars and venture capitalists and hippy expats, we dragged pillows and mattresses to the top of the roof. Using a projector, a laptop, and an inventive tangle of extension cords we displayed the recent Oscar-winning film, "No Country for Old Men" on the whitewashed wall of an adjacent building. Flanked by bamboo scaffolding that stood silhouetted against the Delhi-lit sky, and accompanied by the tossing of bricks, occasional car alarm, dog fight, or backfiring truck, we sat atop a pile of mattresses and pillows on a brick rooftop under the stars. Nearly 20 of us gathered in a truly remarkable and memorable night at the movies. Though I did not return to Gurgaon until 2am, the trip into Def Col put a wide angle lens on my perspective for Thursday night potential. As the movie ended, and the lounge continued to the syncopated beat of J-Five under the darkened sky, I could have been anywhere else, but I wouldn't have wanted to.

Japanese in Delhi

Saturday night was one for the ages... It's rare that I do anything illegal, but drinking under the age of 25 has recently been added to this short list. On Saturday I managed my way past the Japanese bouncers at a party focused on the Tokyo expat community. With a friend's blessing, and Irish comrade, and a host of Japanese words like "Ohaiyo, genki deska?" we made an entrance. With each hint of Bollywood, the room of well-coiffed Japanese would erupt into a scene fit for Juhu. As the "Om Shanti Om," began to pulse through the fogged darkness of the hall, "Om Tiger Om," as the party was dubbed, came alive. With posters of Deepika Padukone on the wall (thankfully not Shah Rukh), we found it apt that through a friend, we had forwarded the invite to Deepika herself the day prior.

Arigato gozaimasu... shukria... Hindi and Japanese, Bollywood and Tokyo united with Irish and Californian, Emerald Isle and Honshu meet Golden State in cosmopolitan splendor... in New Delhi. Almost akin to the Swahili / Arabic mix of Zanzibar, recounting Shinjuku tales in Delhi was fantastic, thanks to Tim's MP introductions and our willingness to embrace East Asia in South Asia post-GK1 afternoon.

Sufi Music & Soccer

On the three nights of the week when I am not in the office until 11pm, straining to communicate with my California counterparts in 1440 x 900, I attempt to create a life in between the maddening chaos of construction that is Gurgaon. On Wednesday I watched a fantastic free performance of Sufi musicians in Gurgaon. Sufi music draws you into its dream with the monotonous buzz and undulating dips of the tabla. You slip into a gossamer world of circumspection, and a series of moments veiled in mystery, until the lyrics, strong and poignantly flat, are emotive, and tell a tale that varies depending on your ear. The story is personal, and it relates to me.

On Thursday I ventured into Delhi traffic at the perilous time of 5:30. I made my way toward the US Embassy off Shanti (peace) road. The American Community Service Center boasts a fortified baseball diamond that looks more like a Marine barrack. In fact, you must pass Marines to arrive within its chain-linked walls. Inside, however, to the tune of 100 rupees, you can assemble some mates for a weekly football match. I've managed to find a Euro expat circle that plays each Thursday.

We played for over 2 hours under the lights. Representing Slovakia, Poland, Scotland, Italy, the US, and India, football became a common language across countries and ages. I realized an hour in that the throbbing in my calf after a hard tackle, the sweat down my face, and the bruises I had acquired on my shins made me, again, feel alive. I played one-twos with Martin, a highly-skilled 18 year old from Bratislava. As I received each touch, and sprinted down the flank, I remembered how much I missed one of the fundamental freedoms that India denies, namely, the ability to exercise outdoors. Though I failed to slot a few break-away goals past the Polish keeper, I had a Dennis Bergkamp 1998 moment when, as a long ball dropped in over my shoulder, I took it out of the air and volleyed it into the far post in two fluid touches without letting the ball hit the dusty pitch. We called a break, and an Indian guy bought me a gatorade in congratulations for my goal. The language of football, while spoken less frequently, still apparently works in India.

Jodha Akbar & Jodhpur

After a typical Monday in Bombay, during which time you span one of the world's largest cities, dine at a fantastic restaurant called Khyber, encounter sadness beyond belief, challenge your originality in the banal ex-pat scene that is modern-day Leopold Cafe, and go out on Marine Drive, I flew home to Delhi at 4am. We had spent an afternoon walking Juhu Beach and stumbling upon a Bollywood model shoot. He had half invaded at the bequest of a mumbling beach-side man who half forced us to the bouncers because of our lighter than tan complexions. Don't worry, Shah Rukh wanted none of us.

Mid-week we spent ambling through Delhi and the various acronyms that make its scene cooler than it probably should be. Don't get me wrong, Delhi is fun, just not as fun as GK-1 would make it sound. That's a pretty damn cool name, and with rats running in South-Ex II, it's hard to argue that the place is as snazzy as the name. Speaking of rats, they're enormous... ENORMOUS. I giggled in nervousness as each one would dart into and out of street holes toward my feet. Good thing they can cook and they just won an Oscar for their artistry in animation. Hmm...

Friday's four hour stint at Bollywood blockbuster Jodha Akbar, written in Hindi and Arabic to accentuate the "Great" coming together of the Mughals and Rajputs, left us craving more Rajasthan, more Aishwarya, and well, more Jodhpur... so we boarded an Indian Air flight Saturday morning.

Jodhpur is the "blue city" due to its ubiquitous indigo paint and ancient 1459 Meherengarh Fort that stands 500m above the town on a massive rampart of rock. Descending from the fantastic palace, as we shuffled to the edge of a rock overlook, I was inclined, and did, burst into song. A whole new world had emerged, and we didn't buy the whole "riff-raff, street rat" gig. Though perhaps the most chaotic city center in India, Jodhpur is alive. It's narrow, it's grimy, it's friendly and intense. It's hundreds of cows, thick black rickshaw puffs, tiny lanes where bodies, animals, bikes, rickshaws, currents of street-side sewage, piles of gravel that tilt your vehicle degrees beyond sanity toward oncoming traffic, abandoned wagons and overturned machinery intwine in perilous moments of intersection where timing tempts the fate of futures and dreams. It is chaos incarnate inside the city walls, but after a few hours you learn the predictability that keeps you safe. You walk decisively. You move with pace and reason. You do not hesitate or you tempt judgement of those whose action may influence your own. Everyone does what they have to, and somehow, in the sheer disaster of it all, it works.

Cross-Country to Kerala

After a 24 hour journey across India from Hyderabad to Delhi to rendezvous with Aaron, in from his Amman flight, we made the impossibly inevitable decision to mix a night in GK1 Delhi with one hour of sleep and another cross-country flight, a mix as potent as any cocktail.

While our delayed flight got us into Kerala after we'd expected, a frenetic drive landed us at our houseboat dock in time for four hours of afternoon cruising on the placid backwaters of Kerala. Armed with fresh fish, good company, Kingfishers (both bird and bottle), and a boat staff of three, we set off down the flat reflection of the sky, where the coconut palms reached toward us in reverse order, crawling with their fawns over the ripples toward our hull. With some light Arabic tunes from Madinat in Dubai, the mood was pretty unbeatable, and we crashed under the stars.

When we awoke at dawn, our houseboat staff was preparing for a dip at the water's edge. Although my post-swim sickness doesn't corroborate my claim that the water looked clean, I lathered up and jumped in covered in soap like a Keralan village local. The calm, cool water opened up a new day.

Arriving back at the dock, we had time to kill and so boarded a 150cc bike with three men and all our luggage. Again, helmets are optional, and we chose the cautious path of "not necessary." After showing the business owner Google Analytics tips on his shack wireless connection, I naively assumed that we were on good terms. Not more than 10 minutes later, as he pocketed our wad of 500 rupee notes for his troubles, he altered the arrangements of our transport, demanding yet 1000 rupees more. In a fit of rage I pounded the car, got on my cell phone and said two words beginning in B and S no fewer than 10 times. This delicate tactic smoothed over what I like to refer to in India as the "quid pro screw you." What happened to the quo?

That afternoon we spent touring Fort Cochin with a rickshaw driver who charged us a paltry 50 Rs for his all-day services (1 dollar), and took us to a number of sites, including a ginger factory where we even got to paint transport boxes. Our tour ended at a Kathakali performance in traditional Keralan style, and we watched, mesmerized, as men in dhotis spun swords, fought in traditional martial arts style, and performed Kathakali, or dramatic-style Peking Opera.

Following the performance we attempted to organize a driver for Munnar, or the far-away tea plantations in central Kerala. 90km inland, the drive takes nearly 5 hours. Because in Communist Kerala all drivers were protesting gas prices, we were warned not to attempt the roads. We were advised that we would likely get stoned by villagers. Heeding caution, we paid a muscular-looking local named Hari to drive us in his tiny personal Tata Indica. He promised that he could drive fast, and I can attest to his insanity. We made the journey in 3.5 hours, though for much of it the puzzle-piece hillsides of Munnar appeared more like a blur, and less like tea. We survived without even one stoning, and after doing a yell with 30 kids at echo point, eating fresh pineapple and black pepper off the trees, made our return to Cochin, a drive I likened to nearly 4 hours strapped into Space Mountain. We pulled the G-Forces of Maverick, and arrived back in town feeling more like Goose, albeit we'd seen elephants.

Hyderabad Homecoming

After eight months in California, I returned to my home city of Hyderabad to smiling faces, the same sights and smells, and a yoga teacher who asked me where I had been. With rooftop drinks, 80 degree weather, a new office building, and motorcycle rides across town I began to comment that in comparison to my Gurgaon residence, "I'm a South Indian at heart."

Sunday marked the first ODI in a triangle cricket series between Australia, India, and Sri Lanka. As my friend drove me cross town on his motorcycle, the thought crossed my mind that my sunglasses would not protect me from a crash. Mother would be proud of my judgement. With an Indian win, an afternoon of home-cooked food and Kingfisher beers, it was a successful day when we merged onto the city-center airport fly-over.

True to all Indian construction, there's an overwhelming mix of labor, chaos, and an underlying magic in any completed project. Whereas there is continuity in an American or European project, in that progress is noticeable, in India progress seems to exist only as a finality. Sites are littered with laborer tents, squalor and sadness, dust and debris. There are no cranes, but only men. Women carry pail after pail of dirt on small head pans. Cows meander through the maze of bamboo shafts that support what may become a building. There is not the technology of Dubai; There are not the infinite cranes of China. There is only toil and tiny tasks, iterative enough that they amount to eventual change. And then, suddenly, in the fog of night a site goes from 200 Bihari hard-hat workers clambering over bamboo shafts to massive glass buildings. Despite a circumspect eye, it's hard to determine how such transformation is possible, or even when it actually happens. Apparently, though it's not normally noticeable, someone involved knows something about what they're doing.

One Goat Head, Please

On Saturday before my Hyderabad flight departure I spent the morning wondering the grotesque alleys of Old Delhi near Jama Masjid. Dusty blankets mark personal plots of concrete, a frenetic sea of traffic slithers through the streets, jamming up against the slower bullock carts of fruits. DVD shops blast Bollywood hits. A three-year-old finds empowerment as he drives pigeons into the sky, and an 18-year-old mother in a brilliant salwar chemise giggles. The steps are littered with beggars parading pitifully before the shaded and stoic tourist with an SLR camera. Their hardship is, however, not exaggerated, but the artifice in their positioning makes even missing limbs a hard sell. The sadness and frustration well up, but a dishonest tout quickly transforms this to anger. I offer a smile and a Hindi greeting to an elderly man, but he demands more.

On the street men sit around a small radio pulling back the facial skin on a pile of severed goat heads. I pause to stare in curiosity. I look down and realize the softness under my New Balance is a goat ear, flavored with the spit of a passing driver’s betelnut paan. The squeeling horn of a rickshaw clipping my heels quickly refocuses my attention. I shuffle through the crowd behind a cluster of women in burqas, and locate the rusty steel sign that points to Karim’s, an alley-side restaurant.

As we enter Karim’s, a famed meat restaurant, and we purchase our lunch, I’m able to separate my plate from the outside world. Compared with the mall-lined friviolity of Gurgaon, Old Delhi is, if not trendy, at least authentic. The men and women who line the streets live their own lives, not pandering to tawdry Western style and mediocre clubs. Despite the palpable squalor that manifests itself in sights, sounds, and smells, somehow I find that the encountered cultural authenticity is sufficient to refresh me.

Office Shenanigans

On Friday I was told, “good luck,” at least a dozen times after my willingness to participate in an office-wide Indian roast. I was to sit on stage and field questions from hundreds of coworkers, and tested critically on my wit and ability to respond to inquiries like “who killed the dead sea,” and “why is a manhole cover called a manhole cover?” Bollywood sound cues told me if my Shakespearean wit had failed or won the crowd.

When the tables turned and I was able to ask questions to my counterparts, I asked the office director, “Who’s a luckier man, Saif Ali Khan or Abishek Bacchan?” For those not versed in Bollywood gossip, Saif and Abishek are movie stars married (ostensibly in Saif’s case, based on recent reports and the large arm tatoo of Kareena’s name) to gorgeous Indian women, each with his own set of virtues and vices. For example, Saif has royal blood, and is a decendent of a former cricket captain and Nobel Prize laureate, while Abishek is married to Miss World Aishwarya Rai but lives in the shadow of his father, a man known across the sub-continent on every billboard and whiskey ad as the “Big B.” My question alluded to one obvious consideration, though the director parried my blow with a deft non-sequiter and a smile offering to keep it “family safe.”

Again, I asked, “in cricket, why are the ‘slips’ the guys with the surest hands?” After good laughs, laconic wit, and a general attempt to embrace the awkwardness that comes while sitting in front of 200 co-workers with an umbrella drink, being judged with Bollywood jingles, and walking the line between humor and homelessness, I survived.

Mid-Week Beats

India allows for a bizarre dynamic of challenge and ease, discomfort and glamor. As our car pulls to the front of Ministry of Sound, an overweight, akimbo bouncer in 11pm sunglasses steps aside as my Rajasthani friend Vrinda and I make our entrance.

Inside the beat is part Punjab and part American hip-hop. The crowd is college local, and the drinks are surprisingly expensive. For 200 INR apiece, 700 percent mark-up on a Kingfisher is no deterrant to the visceral beat calling me bar-side like a Siren.

Punjabis, light on their toes, with undulating motions beckon us to the dance floor, and we cut through the fog and strobing lights with our well-practiced moves. We return the exchange of culture later in the night, as knowing Will Smith lyrics and preemptively enacting moves in the form of cheesy lyrical dances markedly improves our coolness.

Our 2am return on N8 from South Delhi to Gurgaon leads us through the toll plaza of inefficiency. Lack of lanes and laws leads cars to infinitely wedge into narrow points of entry, and the arbitrary price of 16 rupees means that each car must wait for a dilatory man to open packs of change, and dispense 2 small coins to each driver. Where are the Bobs from Office Space when you need them?