$$$

Yesterday I went to the local D-Mart to buy some eye drops.  I handed over a one thousand rupee note to pay for the eye drops that cost Rs. 110.  The sales clerk takes a look at it and pushes it back to me and says "I can't take this note" and points to the ripped corner of the note, which I had not even noticed previously.  I am thinking to myself, "Can this guy be for real, but ok... fine."  I ask him what I should do with this slightly damaged 1000 rupee note, he tells me I have to go to the bank to exchange this for an undamaged note.  Annoying... yes, but, not totally ridiculous.  Mostly annoying because I don't carry very much cash on me or a credit card (since I don't really need very much cash on the daily), so I had to leave without my eye drops. 

This morning I asked my driver if he would go to the bank and exchange this damaged note for an undamaged one.  He calls me about 30 minutes after he dropped me off at work and says "The bank won't exchange it, they want the missing piece."  Un-fuckin-believable.  Do they think someone else is going to try to exchange the tiny missing corner for a new note?   I am so irritated by this.  Not that a wasted Rs. 1000, $21.60 USD, is an unrecoverable loss for me, but IT IS for some people here.  Like my driver, who went to the Bank to exchange this for me, he makes between 5000 Rs. and 10,000 Rs. a month, depending on how much overtime he works.  If he were to have withdrawn this very 1000 rupee note from an ATM that would have been A FIFTH of his income, POOF! GONE!, and there is nothing that he could have done about it.  How is someone supposed to recover from something like this?  

It's things like this that make me miss home, things that should be simple but aren't.  Running over to the drug store to buy eye drops should not be an ordeal that takes three days.  You come to appreciate how you can walk into any store back home and use a bill as long as you have at least a 2/3rds of it.  If its ripped completely in half you can just tape it together and go to the bank and get a new one, no questions asked.  

With this useless 1000 rupee note, I could have purchased the following:  
30 lunches at the canteen
200 tiny cups of black coffee from the canteen
4 movie tickets
2 redbull vodkas
50 loaves of bread
4 cans of lunch meat in a can
6 awesome watches off the street
20 cups of coffee from Cafe Coffee Day (The Starbucks of India)
83 Vada Pav sandwiches from Jumbo King
1 Marriott burger,fries and a diet coke from room service at the Renaissance (I know its ridiculously over priced)

 I know all this, because I have purchased all of the above while in Mumbai.

Bean Bag 32668802

For some reason through out the city of Mumbai people have tagged walls, fences, and buildings with "Bean Bag" and a phone number.

I found this to be really perplexing. I know what a bean bag is, everyone knows what a bean bag is-- giant bag filled with beans that is not really as comfortable to sit on as you would think. But why would Bean Bag be tagged all over the city?

I asked my new driver, Jhaved, what 'Bean Bag' meant. He said bean bags are "The flowers that float on Lake Powai, people collect them and can sell by calling the Bean Bag number." I thought this was a little odd, but I didn't question him about this.

Today at work I instant messaged one of my co-workers, to confirm what Jhaved had said.

Me... hey
do you have a sec?
Co-worker... hi
sure
Me... i have a kind of random question
Co-worker... go ahead
Me... have you seen that there is this graffiti around the city that says bean bag and has a phone number
what does that mean?
Co-worker...
it means that if you'd like to buy a bean bag, u could call that number
u see, bean bags are quite expensive
and these guys supposedly sell it for cheap
Me... A giant bag filled with beans to sit on, right?
Co-worker... right
Me... ok. mystery solved. thanks

Turns out, sometimes things are exactly what you think they are.

Red Tape

A part of working at Big Time Consulting is incurring expenses, while I have been in India I have incurred my fair share of expenses.  In order to get reimbursed for all these expenses on the 15th and last day of every month all Big Time Consulting employees have to make copies of all their receipts and the bar coded envelope that they use to mail them in before dropping this envelop in the mail.  Although annoying, this is pretty easy to do, when in the United States.    

Since Big Time Consulting is an global consulting firm you would think this would be pretty easy to execute while at Big Time Consulting Mumbai Office.  This has not been the case.  At every US Big Time Consulting office you will find stacks upon stacks of expense envelopes, one type for mailing expenses from inside the United States and one type for mailing expenses from outside the United States.  On September 30th I walked over to the Facilities and Services office at the Mumbai office and asked for some international expense envelopes so I could mail my expenses.  Of course, they had no idea what I was talking about.  Apparently you can only get international expense envelopes while you are physically in a domestic Big Time Consulting office.  I placed an order to have said international expense envelopes mailed to me at the hotel and finally 15 days after they were mailed I got them!   

Today after I xeroxed my receipts and envelopes I headed to the mail room in the office to drop off my envelopes and finally put an end to the "Missing Expense Notice" emails I have been receiving for the last couple weeks.  The first guy I spoke to told me I needed a charge code to mail this envelope (because we are Big Time Consulting we like to charge ourselves internally too!).  I showed him the envelope and explained that the postage would be paid by the addressee, so I didn't need to buy any postage.  He waves over his boss at this point. His boss takes a look at my envelope and says he need to make a phone call.  He calls someone and tells me to wait the person he called is on his way.  After a few minutes guy number 3 comes over and takes a look at my envelopes and makes a call to another guy.  Guy number 3 and guy number 4 confer on the telephone for a few minutes in Hindi, with a sprinkle of the English phrases that are written on the envelop: "No postage necessary if mailed to the United States;"  "International business reply mail;" "Postage will be paid by addressee."      

After the details of the envelope were discussed, I was told: 

"These envelopes are only for mailing things in the US.  You need a charge code to send this."
 
To which I replied:  
"But, it says 'International Business Reply, Postage Paid'" 
 
At this point guy number 3 smiles and responds:  
"I know. [Long Pause] But, I need a charge code for every letter."
 
I guess you can't fight the Big Time Consulting red tape, even in India.

Kelly Kapoor and The Office

I love "The Office," everyone in their right mind does, and I love Kelly from "The Office."

Charles Miner: Okay, I'm gonna call you "Kapoor", and you, "Hannon."

Kelly Erin Hannon: If we're changing names, can I be Erin? It's my middle name.

Charles Miner: Erin? Okay, that's... very pretty.

Kelly Kapoor: Well, you know what my name is? Rajanigandha, and I hate it. I hate it!

[runs out of Charles' office]

Kevin Malone: I thought Rajanigandha was a boy's name

What's not to love?  Not only do I love Kelly who is the perfect balance of self-involved and self-deprecation, I also love Mindy Kaling, who plays Kelly on "The Office."  I decided I loved her the first time I read her blog http://mindyephron.blogspot.com/ where she blogs about things she bought that she loves!  (The only irritating thing about the blog is that she stopped updating)  

Not many of you know this but... I know someone who knows someone who knows someone who is friends with Mindy.  Ok, so I don't really know what this chain is but I am pretty confident that it exists.  But, I am friends with someone who met Mindy (once) and she laughed at a joke he made and said he was funny.  He in turn thinks I am funny so I am sure if Mindy and I ever met she would think I was funny and we would hit it off and become like those inseparable best friends that play every day after school...er... I mean work, right?  Right?  

So why the tirade about how much I love Kelly and Mindy, well I just saw this: 

http://www.subtlesexuality.com/  

The music video is hilarious and awesome and I want this to spread like a case of crabs at MTVs spring break.   Also, I just saw the episode where Pam and Jim get married on the office and it was NON-STOP hilarity.  If you don't watch the office you should start stat um.  

I wish my work day was like a day at "The Office," even if it meant I had to move to Scranton, PA. 

Street (not) Meat

When I first got to India I was really careful about what I ate, I had heard the stories of days upon days spent confined to the bathroom from my co-workers in Chicago who had been here before I got here. But, as the weeks have gone by I have relaxed my strict criteria for what I will and will not eat for fear of getting sick. First I would forget to remain tight lipped in the shower, a la Charlotte in the SITC movie, thankfully I made it past that unscathed. Then there are the tiny cups of coffee that I drink, that may or may not be made with water that was brought to a full boil, it certainly isn't made with bottled water, still no terrible illness undertook me. A couple day's ago I started eating fruit with skin, that was most likely was washed in tap water, despite this my digestive system seems to be cooperating. Everyday I have been getting a little more brave or careless, whatever the case may be.

Yesterday was a turning point, with reckless abandon, I purchased my lunch from a street vendor. I ate Vada Pav, also known as the Indian version of the hamburger, from a vendor on the street. It was delicious! Vada Pav is some type of carbohydrate inside of another carbohydrate covered in chutney, what's not to like?

Since lunch of Vada Pav was a success, later in the day I ate 4 Pani Puri, also known as Gole Guppay. I had been wanting to eat these since I got to India, but had been pretty terrified because they are filled with pani, literally translating to water, which in actuality is water with a bunch of masala. I figured if I was going to get sick from eating Vada Pav off the street I might as well get really sick from eating Vada Pav and Pani Puri and call it a day.

When my Dad was in India he got really sick, despite being extremely careful the entire time he was here. After being miserable and not really talking to anyone for a couple days, one day out of the blue he declares:

"This is my last trip to India, I am never coming back!"

Although delicious, eating street food may have been the worst idea of my life, at this point this is TBD.

So...why are you in India?

Most people that know me know that I am India for work. However once in a while I hear from a friend that I don't talk to very often and they wonder why I have been missing in action for the last few weeks. The conversation invariably goes like this--

(8:33:31 PM) Friend: Where u been?
(8:33:36 PM) Me: India
(8:33:59 PM) Friend: Congrats how was ur wedding
(8:34:07 PM) Me: lol here for work
(8:34:23 PM) Friend: seriously tho u ok?

I am ok though, the first couple weeks were a little rough, but I think I have been doing ok holding my own in the worlds most heavily populated city.

The best 5K I ever spent

Ever wonder why why you see pictures of your friends and family on vacation in Mumbai they are looking a hot mess? Ever wonder why pretty much everyone, celebrities aside, are looking a hot mess in Mumbai? Well I have an answer for inquiring minds... even in the dead of what they would call "winter" here the high is at least 90 degrees and the humidity is off the charts. Ladies, its hard to look cute when you have to hose yourself down every time you get somewhere and you show up sportin' a hairstyle that looks like someones hand me down afro wig from a bad 70s costume party.

Most of you have seen my pictures on facebook and you must be thinking-- But despite the elements I am looking as cute as ever! I know I am pretty perfect, but I happened to have made one of the best decisions of my life, pretty unwittingly, before I left the US-- I got a super straight perm from Hair Mates in New York city. For around 500 bucks and 4 hours of my time I get to enjoy being able to have some of the best hair in Mumbai everyday. I am able to wash and brush my hair and walk out the door everyday. By the time I get to work my hair is pretty much dry due to the intense heat (even at 8:30 am).

For everyone out there that is tired of fighting with a blow dryer and flat iron every morning, I recommend you invest a few bucks and a few hours and get your hair permanently straightened at Hair Mates. The service is great there and the 500 covered, straightening and a hair cut. Hit the ATM first though, because the only take cash, don't hate though because C.R.E.A.M. too.

So that's 500 bucks, what about the other 4.5K you ask? I had LASIK at TLC Laser Eye Centers a mere 1 week and 3 days before I hopped on a flight to Mumbai. Everyone always raves about the improved quality of life they have after LASIK and I am jumping on that band wagon! Giddy up! I knew it would be great, but I never imagined it would be this great. I have perfect vision and I never have to worry about lost contacts, dust and dirt making my contacts uncomfortable to wear, etc. I have perfect vision from the time I get up until the time I hit the hay. I even have perfect, worry free vision in the pool where I will be tomorrow, with a stack of US Weekly's received via fed-ex today! (Thanks Gupi, love you girl!)