I have been in India for two months and I still feel like the foreigner. Whenever I leave my apartment, people are staring at me - and they are not shy about staring, so I know I'm not imagining it. I still don't know what the names of all the dishes I'm eating or how public transportation works. There is still a lot about India for me to learn. But last week I had one of my colleagues staying with me. Sheila spent several days in China before coming to India. Her first few days she spent in Delhi and Agra with our colleagues, but then she came to Dehradun and we spent the next five days working together, visiting nearby places, and hanging out. It was during this time that I realized, maybe I have adjusted to living in India.
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| Driving to Rishikesh - selling chickens and drinks |
First, driving. Driving in general in India is notorious for it's chaos - the scenes in movies are actually pretty accurate. The lane marking, if there are any, is only along the center and is really there just to show the middle of the road. Even if you are the only car on the road, your driver may be playing Pacman with the lane markings, eating up every dash. However, being the only car on the road only happens in the rarest of circumstances and doesn't last long. More often than not, you are negotiating motorcycles, trucks, auto-rickshaws (three wheeled taxis), bicycles, cows, dogs, monkeys, and people all while trying to get to your destination as quickly as possible. This means a lot of weaving in and out and sudden start and stops. Apparently, I had gotten used to this constant game to chicken and slalom, because I was just enjoying the drive while Sheila was wide-eyed and constantly telling Namit or Sachin to slow down or watch out. We quickly decided that Sheila should not have a direct line of sight to the road - no shotgun and no middle in the back.
Once we got to our destinations we would park the car then just walk around. When walking in India, at least where I have been, you don't walk against traffic. This goes against everything that I have been taught since I started walking to school in kindergarten. When I first got here, I started walking against traffic (which was challenging enough since they drive on the opposite side of the road), but I felt out of place. I realized I was not only walking against the flow of traffic, but against the flow of people. As soon as I switch sides of the road, I no longer had to dodge people. Now this is habit for me as I walk to work or to get snacks on the weekend. But walking around Mussorie and Rishikesh, I was reminded of how awkward I found this at first as Sheila started off walking against traffic and we had to constantly steer her to the other side of the road.
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| My coders - wide awake at 4:00am |
Working at night. Don't get me wrong, working the night shift is hard, and I don't think I would ever want to do it full time, but I have definitely adjusted to it. The night shift hours are 8:30pm to 5:30am. The question then is when do you sleep? Some people go home and sleep right away and get up mid-afternoon, others stay up and go for a drive to maggi point, hang out for a while before returning home to sleep or watch a movie then sleep. Personally, I stay up, finish some work, surf the internet, watch some tv and sleep from 11:00am or noon to about 7:00pm. Whenever you decide to sleep, we all make it through the night awake, more or less. Some nights are more difficult than others, but most often, we make it to at least 5:30am awake and coherent. By 3:00am, Sheila was a walking zombie. She was wandering through the office, drinking chai or coffee, just trying to stay awake for another two and a half hours. As soon as the clock hit 5:30am, Sheila was out of the office and on her way to bed. I remember the first few weeks of the night shift. I was constantly exhausted, I couldn't seem to get enough sleep. Some days I would sleep right away and I would sleep all day, other days I would have insomnia, if you can call it insomnia staying awake until mid-afternoon instead of sleeping.
Trash disposal. This is the area that I'm still adjusting to. I've definitely become accustomed to the trash disposal methods here - just throw it out the car window or toss it on the side of the street. Don't get me wrong, there are dumpsters around to throw trash bags in but there aren't many around. Where there are dumpsters, they are often overflowing, surrounded my various animals (dogs, pigs, chickens), and there is trash on the ground outside the dumpster. But more often than not, trash is just discarded on the side of the road while walking or driving along. I've traveled a lot, to many different countries, but how to get rid of trash has been one of the hardest things to get used to here in India. Sheila and I got a cup of coffee while walking around Mussorie. We finished the coffee and kept walking with empty cups in our hands. At some point we were going to want to get rid of these cups. Thankfully, Harpreet finished her coffee and put her cup down on the side of the road. I followed suit, feeling less awkward since I wasn't the first (although I had been wanting to do that for several minutes I just couldn't bring myself to do it). Sheila still had issues with just putting her cup on the side of the road - thankfully we actually came across a rare trash can a few minutes later.
These are just a few things that came to me during the week that Sheila was here. It was a great week sharing India with another foreigner, and seeing it all again through fresh foreign eyes. I'm sure there are more difference that will come to me this weekend as my parents, aunt, and uncle are visiting. This is my life now, living and working in India. I'm enjoying it, but will definitely be ready to return to Los Angeles.
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