Back and browner than ever.

Apologies for taking so long to get back in the blogging saddle, but the two weeks in Thailand, the last hectic week in Bangalore and the move back Stateside and other travel really tapped my pith. As soon as I arrange these last few pics and thoughts, I'll post a better entry that'll bring a close to this first (of many) Indian experience!

I'm leaving on a jet plane...

for two weeks in Thailand! Just a heads-up to all of my adoring blog-fans (both of you)... expect radio silence until the week of 5/21. Stories promised upon my return!

A thousand words...

Now this photo may just look like two dogs sniffing each other's butt... and yet it illustrates volumes about life here. I took this shot at a very fancy house party last weekend. The dog on the left is an extremely expensive, pampered and purebred Dalmation, whose life is cradled in luxury. The dog on the right is the poor, homeless and starved mutt of a street dog (he comes around whenever there's a party because he knows there will be better scraps in the trash afterward). And the white line in the photo is the solid steel gate that divides their worlds...

You can tell which was my favorite (he was a super nice dog, and even had this little doggy smile). I think I got pretty far in convincing the owner's wife that all he needed was a bath and some shots and then the dogs could be best friends.

My favorite childhood superhero is coming to India!

"Dressed in a flowing dhoti, or a sarong, pointy shoes and a familiar red mask, he will swing between three-wheeled auto rickshaws and scooters down crowded Indian streets to take on the evil Rakshasa, or demon.

Creators of India's Spider-Man, who is called Pavitr Prabhakar, hope he will soon be as well-loved as the original one, Peter Parker.

Like Parker, Prabhakar is an orphan who lives with his aunt and uncle in Bombay, India's answer to New York City.

And like many residents of India's film capital, he dreams of becoming a movie star. The source of his powers is a yogi, or an ascetic, not a radioactive spider, and his enemy is a business tycoon who turns into a rakshasa, or demon, with a magic amulet." Full article.

Hmmm. Okay, I was all on board until the "dreams of becoming a movie star" quip and bit about where he doesn't get bitten by a spider... I mean I'm all for local adaptation, but no spider?! Sacrilege! :-)

I took a look at the sample sketches, and this new Spiderman is of a noticably smaller build. But I think the costume actually looks pretty cool... yay for cross-culturalism!

(She's going to kill me for bragging, but it's for a good cause...)

This weekend, Sonia is going to again prove her athletic prowess... by competing in her 2nd Wildflower Triathlon. This time, she's doing the olympic distance course: 1 mile swim, 25 mile bike ride, 6 mile run... in 65 degree water and 100 degree air. Above, you can see the elevation change during the ride. I fancy myself as being in good shape, but wow... I stand in admiration.

And speaking of admiration, my good friend Raj and his wife Sejal are also doing the tri this weekend, and up until two months ago, Raj was terrified of water and didn't know how to swim! They are part of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team In Training, raising funds for cancer research. They're almost at their goal of $2900 -- so, if you're inclined, I strongly endorse a small donation on their site here -- it's like sending a good luck wish to all of the participants!

Good luck, Sone! LYSSSSM

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Post-Race Update: Sonia kicked major tail -- finishing in 3:04, 73rd out of 339 in her age bracket!

I went to get my haircut yesterday. I may be inviting the ridicule of my friends, but this was a big deal for me, as I'm super picky about my hair. (Yes, I really do get my gel imported from Japan.) Anyway, I had a recommendation to go see the "stylish Burmese guy" at this salon called Spratt. So I called them up and wanted to see when I could make an appointment... "Pick anytime tomorrow," the receptionist said. Hmmm... ordinarily, I would be skeptical of any salon whose schedule seemed so empty, but I took the first morning slot anyway.

I showed up and was pretty impressed with the salon. I met Thundu, who turned out actually to be a Tibetan refugee, not Burmese. He also turned out to be a great hairstylist, and he was excited to cut my hair because he got to practice texturizing instead of the regular "formal cut" that he said all of the men usually requested. He lamented the fact that Bollywood stars were finally getting cool haircuts while the Kannadan film stars still only wanted "the poof." The reason this was troubling is because the film stars pave the fashion path for the population, and until they start getting more stylish, he'll be stuck doing the same old hairstyles.

After finishing, he recommended a spray wax, which I purchased. The total? 850 rupees. That's 550 for the wax and 300 for the cut. Only 300 bucks ($7) for a 45 minute haircut at Bangalore's best salon?! Wow.

Of course, the engineers back at the office almost laughed me out of the lunchroom, saying that they rarely paid more than 25 rupees ($.50!) for a haircut. But I figure you get what you pay for... here's the before and the after. :-)

Every now and again, I'm reminded just how many people live in this country. Of late, I've been noticing how many are employed doing the most inefficient things.

Take for instance, this Shell station. First, this thing was built in a matter of roughly 2.5 weeks, which is a testament to the manpower they could employ quickly. Second, you'll notice a ton of people at the station but only one car... that's because almost everyone else in this picture is an attendant! There are about 12 people on staff 24x7, including the guy to the lower left who motions cars in with his light-up wand as if they're taxiing aircraft, two guys who handle the fueling, and one guy who mans the little stop sign and tells you how far to pull forward. It's like an F1 pit crew!

Oh, and if you're wondering, gas is roughly 40 rupees per liter -- or $3.45 a gallon -- including taxes of 35%. Let me put this is perspective... PPP shows that this would be like Americans having to pay $13.27 a gallon. Think about that the next time you're griping at the pump!

Last week, we were called into a meeting by the Secretary of E-Governance for the Election Commission. When we arrived, we were shown to a couch & chairs in his office to wait for a while, as he was stuck in traffic on his way there. A few bits of hilarity ensued.

First, there was a full-blown committee meeting in progress in the other half of the same room. Ten people yelling and shouting and getting overly animated about some strange drawing on a whiteboard... it made it very hard to talk to prep for the meeting. As soon as the Secretary walked in, that group exited, and the room returned to its quiet state so that we could begin our meeting.

However, literally the minute the Secretary (a rather soft-spoken man) started talking, a protest started outside the window... there must have been a hundred people chanting and yelling in Kannada about who knows what. We were on the ground floor and couldn't close the windows because it was too hot -- it was maddness!

Then, he handed us all these glossy brochures his department had made about Bangalore's electronic goverment initiatives... I read the tagline and almost burst out laughing: "Bangalore on e." For anyone not part of Gen X or Y, the term "on e" is slang for "on ecstasy," the hallucinogenic drug. Hip hop stars use it in their songs, as in "trippin on e." Hilarious.

Anyway, I give the Indian government major props for pouring so much money into e-governance initiatives. The nice thing about not having a lot of technology to begin with is that they can more quickly adopt the state-of-the-art stuff that's out now. The US, by contrast, has a lot of path dependence on very old infrastructure that needs to be junked and replaced, but there's too much valuable data to do that. Most records here are still in paper (or don't exist, in the case of black-money land ownership), so the transition will be much easier.

Illustrating my below point, check out this stainless steel bowl I picked up for about $20; that's very expensive for India, but about half of what I'd expect it to fetch in the US. It's made by this company called Magppie (yes, that's two P's), which was started by two young brothers in India from their family's steel business. I thought I had the first scoop on a huge export market opportunity, but it turns out that they already have Karim Rashid designing for them!

But my favorite part about the company is the small tagline they put on their box...

Brilliant.

I will never be the same... being in India has changed me.

Before you get carried away thinking about the profundity of that statement, let me clarify. Specifically, I mean that I will never again be able to shop in the US without thinking I'm totally getting ripped off. :-)

Browsing a design site the other day, I came across these pillows. $89! Are you kidding me?! I can go to a designer home furnishings store here and pick up amazingly beautiful embroidered and beaded silk casings for around $7! I could name a hundred other instances of amazing stuff you can get on the cheap here: great shirts, furniture, cards, custom woodworking, candles, curtains, etc. If you wanted to outfit a new home, I bet the entire plane fare (roundtrip from SFO: $1200) could easily be made up in the price differences.

On one hand, I know that I'm going to be disappointed when I go back to paying US prices. On the other, an experience like this puts the concept of "willingness to pay" in perspective, and I'll be a more thoughtful consumer because of it.

I have to admit that I had a secret agenda in coming to India... to be discovered as the next Bollywood star! At the very least, I wanted an item number or the chance to be a recognizable extra. Little did I know that my name, at least, had already surpassed superstardom!

"Josh," pronounced jōsh, is acutally a Hindi word meaning inner strength, determination, or chutzpah. Regardless, I have to admit that it's pretty cool to see the equivalent of my name in Hindi in giant flaming letters on the screen.

What's more is that it stars Aishwarya Rai -- hands-down Bollywoods most popular actress -- who was recently declared the most beautiful woman in the world! (I would actually beg to differ, but there's no accounting for taste.) The male lead, Shahrukh Khan, is kinda cheesy, but I'm seeing that's a theme in Bollywood: beautiful women and their machismo/mustachioed counterparts.

While the plot might be a little predictable, the dancing rivals that of N*Sync in their heyday (and I do have a fascination for boy bands :-) And Mumbai Central says, "Josh is Definitely worth seeing." So if you anticipate a free Saturday night, throw this on your Amazon wishlist (Blockbuster and Netflix have yet to get with the times.)

P.S. I have now taken to pronouncing my name with a long-O. No autographs, please.