Mumbai Diaries - Week 12 - Of showdowns, Ganesha's and salon-boys!

Week 11 was spent out of Mumbai, travelling within Paris, Versailles, Brussels, Ghent, Brugge and finally a quick weekend trip to New York, to run errands, catch up with friends and run the Half-Marathon. In short, the week was a gist of my life at the moment, shuttling between both my homes/ work places, with some travel in between :)

The Diary notes below, are from Week 12; the first half of which was spent in NY and the remainder in Mumbai.

1. The week started with my fifth Half-Marathon (4th NYC Half Marathon). Having trained on treadmills all season long, this was my first outdoor race of the year. I crossed the finish line at 2:39:42, not my best time so far; in fact, it's 40 whole minutes slower, than my fastest half ever, that I ran in 2007. Need to pick up on the training.

2. I landed in Mumbai, on Tuesday night. Parents, as always, came to pick me up at the airport and we came back to my place for the night. Adorable Mum had brought along 'ghar ka khana' for me, so after some catching up and a satiating dinner, I called it a semi jet-lagged night.

3. Mum and co-workers think I am more tanned after the one week vacation, than I ve been after moving to Mumbai for the past two months.

4. Wednesday, the team rejoiced as 'Boss' was back in town. Before they asked 'How are you?' they wanted to know, 'Where are the chocolates?' Strangers, who I've barely spoken to before, came to my desk, inviting themselves to the 'foreign made chocolates'. Gradually the bag of Ghirardelli Squares, depleted itself. The updates were given, more fun-related than work-related. A fun second-first day at work!

5. The gym instructor is elated. Turns out over the brief vacation, I actually lost a kg. All the more motivation to keep going at it :)

6. The sis-in-law is tying the knot. There is much excitement all around and a lot of planning to be done. Soon tickets, shopping, designing, etc will take over our lives. Thursday night dinner was with sis-in-law and the new bro-in-law to be. A fun-filled dinner, that included lot of catching up and getting to know the new bro-in-law, at Parabola, in the Rodas Ecotel at Powai. Looking forward to many more such evenings, before the wedding frenzy sets in.

7. Word has come from the client's side (Mumbai International Airport Ltd) that "The joinery detail package is one of the most sophisticatedly drawn and comprehensively detailed one, that we have received from L&T by far". Boss and her team, are now taking a bow!

8. Office administration is hilarious. New hires abound, coming in, by the dozens, each day and no place to sit or work station to work on. Its funny how every day they scout around the whole office, asking around if someone is out today, so they can grab their desk for the day. Makes for our daily dose of 'musical chairs'.

9. Two more friends are visiting next week from NYC. Mumbai continues to be my new 'social convergence' point.

10. Black Forest cake to celebrate Martin's Birthday. The usual cake-smearing on the face and the magic candles that never blow out. This time we even had wafers, so it was right out of a kiddie birthday party, all with paper plates, wafers and cake :)

11. Big big big showdown with two senior management officials from L&T, who needed to be shown their place. Political games abound here, as they do in most other work places, but this time, as they say, the water had gone well over. A lot of arguing, finally gave way to some reason. Not one to give up so easily to injustice, I stomped straight, into the Project Director's office for clarification on issues that the fight had revolved around, only to be told, I was absolutely correct in my endeavour.

The Project Director also added, that the old school-ers at L&T needed to get their act straight and that I had nothing to fear, in standing up for what I thought should be the 'process'. Big high, winning this, I must arrogantly claim. After all, its not every day that I get to brag, having successfully argued out two gentlemen, much older than my dad, with tremendous experience, that I seriously doubt now :)
Overnight, there seems to be a 'hero' status in the office, post-issue.
Dubey - the office chai-boy summarised it when he said "Madumm, fataa-fat angrezi mein baat karre jaa rahee theen; bilkul Jhansi ki rani lageen. Bahut accha sabak sikhaaya Madumm-ji ne un khusat buddhon ko aur unhe chhup karr diya." When a colleague asked Dubey, how he knew all this; he innocently replied "Hum kitchen kee deewar se kaan jo lagaaye sun rahey they na"
:)

12. The air is pregnant with Ganpati mantras. It's beautiful, as if the whole city is in a state of solemn divinity and utmost devotion. I wake up to an 'aarti' that comes from a 'pandal' behind the hills somewhere and sleep to one; that is possibly being said in the house next door. A thrill that will last only for a few more days, I know.

13. Ganesha came this year with Ramzan, hand in hand, both on the same day. As I went home from Mom's place, I saw on either side of the road, two contrasting yet connected experiences. On one side of the road, devotees marched, bringing in their ganpati idols, all veiled up, since it was the day before Ganesh Chaturthi. On the other side of the road, multiple men bowed, wearing white caps, in tune to the 'azaan', as they started their first 'roza' for the Ramzan. The dichotomy took over me so overwhelmingly, that I missed a great photo-op. No regrets, however. I dont think the camera could have done justice to the moment, anyway.
Definitely another 'Mumbai moment'!
A few times in the past, such concurrences have occured, that have made me think, if calendar's can synchronise so well, why do people then, refuse to? And then come along, some people, who astonishingly defy all borders. I have new found respect for Salman Khan's tolerant religious practice, suddenly, who (as the news channels flashed), broke his 'roza' before taking his ganpati for 'visarjan'.

14. Moved into my third, and what I desperately hope, is my last apartment here at this stint in Mumbai. This one is slightly smaller, but has the best view, from the bedroom balcony. The Powai hills sprawl right outside and it being Monsoon, they are sprinkled with light green all over. The place is on the 13th floor (yes in India, they still have 13 floor) and awaits visits from friends and family :)

15. How many of you girls, have had your eyebrows done by a man? And a 'mast' hot oil 'champi' complete with some sort of hand massager that vibrates the devils out of one's head? I was funnily exposed to both of the above, over the weekend. Being a day before Ganpati, most salons in the city were closing earlier and my desperate hunt led me to a random place, where I decided to entrust my eyebrows into a strangers hands. The stranger turned out to be a 20-something young boy, who seemed to resemble the others of his clan-types, hanging out at the ice-cream parlour next door. And what a splendid job he did!

Similar story with the oil-massage place. The young boy giving me the 'champi' promised that I would dump my regular massage place to come to him all the time.

I guess, you never really know what lies out there, until you get out of your comfort zone.

16. Sunday morning, after a somewhat difficult 14 miler on the treadmill, I was ready for Ganesha. Mom and Pops came over and the three of us, left for a cousin's place for the first 'aarti' of the day and some tasty vegetarian, Ganpati festival food. The next stop for 'darshan' was at Snehi's Mom's place. To my disappointment, little Ira was fast asleep, still wearing her tiny 'ghagra choli', but that didnt stop us from sitting literally on top of her head and laughing out loud, as we caught up with each other.

Week 12 in pictures is here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/shweyta/MumbaiDiariesWeek12?feat=directlink

Thank you for reading the diaries and also for the numerous 'encore' emails and replies that make me pen these episodes down and share them with all of you.

As a dear friend Shagun, said in her email to me, earlier this week; it's nice to know that through my emails, you can journey into a more irregular and shall I say 'differently disciplined' world, that seems to function of it's own accord :)

The updates will be more regular now that Week 12 has passed and I am finally re-settled in, back in my Mumbai life.

So while I hope all of you are having a good day and being good, I shall sign off now, since the 'kaanda bhajjis' (or pyaaz ke pakode, as some of us know them) and 'chai' await me :)

Take care,
Shweyta

Mumbai diaries Week 10 - Of rakhi's, packing up and good-bye's...

Note: This diary is for the week before I left here for the vacation.

1. One week to go for Paris and the L'Affaire du Coeur with the stranger meeting me there. Cant wait! Before this week ends, I ll be with him :)

2. Lots of work to finish before I take off. The team cant wait till I leave nor can they wait till I am back to shield them from the line of fire. Strange feeling this, but a nice one somehow!

3. The weekend will be spent partly in Mumbai, partly in the air and partly in Europe :) A well deserved break this one - after ten, long, 6-day work-weeks.

4. The trainer is not very happy about my break, considering it will interrupt my training. This is going to be one regimented vacation!

5. Wednesday was 'Raksha Bandhan' and although I didnt really celebrate, it did feel like a different day. Traffic was crazy till late at night, men walked around wearing red 'tilaks' that their sisters put on their foreheads and multi-coloured 'rakhis' on their wrists. The guys in the office wore full-shirts in honour of the long-standing joke of wearing a full sleeved shirt to work, so no one could tie them a 'rakhi' :)
The non-gym evening on Wednesday was spent with Mom and Pops, doing small everyday things, like grocery shopping, drinking naariyal-paani, watching T.V etc. My first trip to a Mumbai grocery store after a very long time revealed there is nothing you dont get there, that you get in a US grocery store. Another role reversal of sorts, since just a few months ago Mom, Pops, Amit and I were grocery shopping in New Jersey buying stuff for our apartment and here I was, with Mom and Pop, buying stuff for their home here in Mumbai.

6. Manjari (the marathoner friend from NY) was leaving to go back to the US, from her internship here, in the city.
We met up for a good-bye dinner, locally, at Aura near Rodas in Powai on Wednesday night.
Aura, is a fashion/ music/ food kind of place, with strange mannequins that peep out of its glass windows, while in one end of the space, china-town kind of lanterns hang in dozens. The music is too loud, as is the case in most places in Mumbai and the air-conditioning is set on too cold. We had pasta, which appeared to be more like 'little pasta in lots of cream sauce' instead of being the other way around. Seems like most restaurants in the city prefer to serve their pastas like this, considering most Indians do not like dry pasta. An impromptu fun mid-week dinner that worked out very well on the time-front as well, especially since both of us, live next door to each other.

7. Turns out that I ll be missing out on a lot of events on my social calendar when I am away from Mumbai. A very good friend Kunal, from architecture school in LA, is getting engaged here in Mumbai, on the Sunday. Another good friend and ex-colleague from NYC, Bharati, is also getting married in Pune next Wednesday. And there's Janmashtami - Govinda day for Mumbaikars, with all the high hung "haandi's" and the human pyramids trying to reach and break them.

8. Ganpati idols have started appearing all over the bazaars and Ganesh 'mandaps' are sprouting up all over the city. This will be my second Ganesh Chaturthi in the city, in the last 7 years, so looking forward to it. It happens the weekend, right after I get back.

9. Still have so many people to meet in Mumbai. Turns out I still have so many friends here in Mumbai, so seems like, I'd be lucky, if I got to meet any of them more than once.

10. Saturday was a short work day, since I decided to take off work earlier, to pack etc and actually feel like my vacation is really about to start. The boys in the team decided to order a pizza, in honour of the 'Boss' who was departing ;)

I sure do hope there will be a 'welcome pizza' when the Boss returns too. Time will tell.

11. The flight out to Brussels was at 2:20 am, so the night's dinner out was planned with the parents, at Saffron Spice, near IIT Powai. I had heard a lot about this place from my American colleagues and thought we'd give it a shot. Powai has quite a few restaurants but seems like I am soon going to run out of places, since I try very hard not to repeat any of them. Dinner was basic Indian fare and my must-order Indian dish, Butter Chicken/ Chicken Tikka Masala or some sort of spicy gravy Indian chicken dish with Roti for Pops and me and corn subzi for Mom, which was too sweet. Of course the regular accompaniments included papad, achaar and salad. All in all, this was by far my most average food experience in the city.

12. At the airport, post-security, I went click-happy on some new developments I noticed, mainly in the concessions areas. The IIFA lounge was the most commendable addition, I have noticed in the recent past and must say, a very innovative one at that.

This diary is being sent out before the week really ends, since the week ends in Paris with the husband, on our second honeymoon :)

Week 10 in pictures is here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/shweyta/MumbaiDiariesWeek1002?feat=directlink

Hopefully I can manage to catch up with some of you, when I am back in NYC, for the weekend of Aug 14th - 17th.
Until then, take care, stay hale and hearty and please come cheer Amit and me, on Aug 16th, if you can, as we run the NYC Half-Marathon, yet again!

Love,

Shweyta

Mumbai Diaries Week 9 - Of Mongini's cakes, meetha paan and paani puri!

1. One of our office 'macchas' had his birthday. The first Birthday celebration at work, here since I ve joined. Pretty much similar to an office birthday celebration in NYC, except of course there's just one small cake and 50 mouths to feed :) But then again, unlike in the US, there's one cake per person, per birthday. Something I never encountered in an NYC office.

And No, we didnt sing Happy Birthday in Tamil!

2. The L&T yearly appraisals and promotions were announced this week. Turns out most people I know in the company, received anywhere from Rs.5000 to Rs.1,50,000 as their yearly bonus. Quite a few even got promoted to the next rung in what seems like a rather long corporate ladder. All in all, this year, L&T has spent more than what they did last year, in bonuses/ appraisals and pay raises. Way to go Recession!

3. I lead a team comprising of three people at work; one of whom is also called 'Amit'. In a hilarious event in the past, when asked "How is Amit?" in my first week here, I had gone on to almost respond "He is fine. He is in NYC and missing me a lot." when I realised the Amit in question, was the team member.
In a similar situation last week, yet again I was asked "How is Amit?", to which my confident answer was "He's doing good. Learning well and even understands the project better than most people here." The co-worker/ friend who had posed the question, looked around somewhat confused, when I realised he was inquiring about the husband 'Amit' :)

4. Amit the team member, refers to me as "Sweetest Boss"; a title I am much flattered by. Apparently he has'nt had "bosses" that have been fun in the past, or so it seems. Amit, the husband as always has the last line in the situation; "Oh, so even in Mumbai you're Amit's boss, are you?"
:)

5. Wednesday night, being the gym-free night, calls for fun mid-week plans. This week, Wednesday was spent shopping around Bandra before meeting up with Deepti (architecture undergrad friend) for dinner at '5 Spice'.

'5 Spice' is a typical three-storeyed huge Chinese restaurant straight out of Chinatown. Each portion serves the entire table, so between the two of us, we had a tough time downing the spread of 5-Spice soup, chicken wrapped in fried noodles and spicy shrimp in garlic sauce with the regular kim-chi that adorns the tables of most Chinese restaurants in the city nowadays. Drinks were Sula Chantilly and Kingfisher pints! A lot to eat, over lots to chat and talk about, since the two of us were meeting after 3 years.

6. Cho, the comic Korean co-worker from NYC, landed for his last month-long trip, this week. He brings with him, hilarious day to day incidents that involve the cafetaria's Indian food and his grumpy face each time he eats there. He also brings with him loads of Korean food; canned kim-chi and udon, in the hope that it lasts him through his stay here.

7. At work, an 'employee notice' that seems to pop up every 10 days describes, to my utter shock, what women and men should wear to work. I know most companies like to regulate the office attire but didnt know this one said "Women - Salwar kameez's or chudidaar kurtas' with tightly pinned duppattas" That, thankfully, no one actually pays attention to these notices, is of course another story!

8. Saturday was to be the first submission of my assignment here. So the team and I, spent the entire day pulling together last minute details to put together our package, for the Joinery Details of the first phase of the Airport. And Saturday evening, we all slumped down in our chairs, breathing sighs of relief, at 7:30 pm when the package had been waved good-bye and sent out for QA/QC.

My first ever team-led package sent out. Truly, a great feeling.

An integral aspect of the Airport, can now say it was designed/ planned by your's truly :)

9. Sarika (good friend and ex-colleague from NY) was in town, for some of her meetings with prospective developers and clients. I invited her over at the office, for a "L&T lunch". It was fun to catch up over pav-bhaji (Saturday lunch special) while reminiscing about how we pined for food like this everyday in NY, at work.

Kashyap, (another Architect-friend from NY) was also in town and although we couldnt meet, we did catch up over the phone. Two more friends from NY are expected to be here, in Mumbai, in the next few weeks.

I always looked at NY as this great centre point, where everyone converged atleast once and so just by living there, I got to meet them all. Mumbai, now, seems to have become the new centre-point, somehow.

10. We work at L&T's Project Site-office; closer to the site (in our case the International Airport), nice and green, has a more earthy feel to it. A snail in the ladies room, a rat on a colleague's desk (who thankfully sits far far away) are then just part of the deal, I guess. Reminds me of my Auroville days, when we would pee on frogs (by mistake, obviously) and shower with squirrels.

11. Two more cakes and lots of magic candles at work, for a birthday boy and a new groom-to-be. I think I really like L&T's staple employee benefits; housing, transportation, food and birthday cake for each employee.

In the list above, I have yet to add the various allowances offered; children's school fee allowances, leave travel allowances and of course multiple vacation/ sick and personal days off. Makes it very hard to rationalise the US working system somehow.

12. Saturday night was to be another carbo-loading exercise. So after a lot of back-and-forth between Indian/ Chinese/ Italian cuisines, Snehi and Atit gave in to my pasta-dinner demand. Snehi, at her restaurant-picking best, went on to pick Shatranj Napoli, which serves Pasta and Indian as well, so everyone could eat what they wanted.

Signature, in Four Bungalows is now Shatranj-Napoli; nicely done up, with the quintessential semi-outdoor space and a bare light-coloured wooden, farm kind of feel. The waiter tried to stop me from taking pictures, thinking I was press, armed with my D-80. Took some yelling to convince him that I was just a regular customer, here to eat with my friends and taking pictures while I waited for them to arrive. Ignorance is not always bliss!

Dinner started with a foccacia bread recommendation made by the waiter, instead of the garlic bread that Snehi wanted to have. The Foccacia arrived looking more like a pizza base with herbs sprinkled on it. Two types of pastas with heavy sauces and a thin crust pizza was our dinner for the night. And of course, no matter what the meal, it always has to end with a 'meetha paan'.

Atit's generous self, offered 'Rakhi ka swayamwar' tickets to me and Snehi. While I was a little skeptical about scarring my public profile, by being seen at such a hideous event, Snehi was pretty sure, it was very beneath her, to attend. So the plan was shelved.

Post Dinner, we gave Atit the boot, so we could take a leisurely walk back home, where he would meet us with the car.

A different sort of an evening, this one, with Ira missing. A family I am definitely going to miss, when I am back in NY.

13. Sunday started with the last 11 miler before the Half Marathon. The race is now only a few days away and I cant imagine, how it will be to run it outdoors, with all my training for it having been done indoors. I can only hope the weather is blissful and cool, which will be a big help.

Sunday lunch was with Mum and Pops, eating Mommy-made food after ages. Post lunch chattering away and catching up with the folks continued for hours, after which I was off for a massage and a haircut :) More a re-style than a cut, this one. Say my team mates at work "Makes you look even more like a 'Madam'" I am not sure if that is a good or bad thing.

"The only Indian food I am craving now is paani puri, frankie and butta" I told Mom.

Mom, who's never been a big promoter of 'outside' food suggested we do all of the above for dinner. So after 'shaam ki chai' (evening tea) we were off to Chandru's for paani puri and then Tibb's frankie. Soon it was time to go home, since everyone had been talking about 'Rakhi ka Swayamwar' and I didnt want to miss it, since it would ensure complete entertainment and lots of laughter. So the rest of Sunday was spent packing a little for next weekend while watching Rakhi's prospectives and their families making fools of themselves on National TV.

14. A friend called Sunday night saying "Happy Friendship Day" to which I retorted with a "What?" which probably offended her. To add to the damage I even said "You actually believe in all this?".

I think she probably gave up on me that night when she said "Ok, chal bye" right away!

Week 9 was spent having fun and not shooting it as much, hence the lesser number of pictures :

http://picasaweb.google.com/shweyta/MumbaiDiariesWeek9?feat=directlink

Take care, be well and have fun while I go back to another deadline and some more printing to be done. A week away from the Euro-trip and not feeling like I am going on vacation at all, atleast as yet!

Love,

Shweyta