6 January 2001
Left UK to the sounds of snoring and me swearing at stepping on the smashed glass in the floor on at 3 in the morning. Evaded Bombay hawkers by exiting international terminal the other side of the building and running under cover of luggage trolley to the free bus. Arrived Bangalore 24 hours after I left house.
Not much changed since December. Same junk on table, same lack of anything vaguely edible in the fridge. Same cleaner knocking on the door at 8.00am. Managed a smile from her (finally, after three months) by telling her not to come until Monday.
Discover the jackass—sorry, that’s Governer Bush—has been officially recognized as president-elect. Oh ’rah ’rah.
7 January 2001
Find some flat pepsi in the fridge, which I drink and instantly regret. Walk into town and realize as I walk past a cafe that the last time I ate something substantial was four days ago. Back to cafe for veg noodles. can’t quite understand why ‘chinese’ cuisine is so popular here. Perhaps it’s just easy to prepare.
Discover with regret that my status on MG and Brigade roads has been reset back to tourist from resident alien not worth pestering. Am beset again with miniature chess sets, backgammon boards, watches and monosyllabic utterances which stand for ‘Spare any change, sir?’
Guys at the Shanthi recognize me as I come in for some food and engage in some smalltalk while I’m waiting. Discover we’re not good at that, try C and Pascal, then give up. Food excellent as always.
8 January 2001
Power cut overnight leaves the house UPS drained after half an hour and me retreating quickly to the office from the constant high pitched whine of the batteries which I can’t switch off. Office in mess and minor states of calamity. Four air conditioning units are now fixed to the walls trailing control pads and drain pipes everywhere. Server room now contains the new firewall (functioning) and the file server (not functioning). Also has uncool AC remote hanging down straight into the doorway and ceiling fan directly under the light resulting in weird strobe effect. Claustrophobic and badly lit—it’s a scene from Aliens.
Smashed glass in UK equals departed housemate. Worries grow over quick return to UK to move stuff out of current house or find new place to live.
9 January 2001
The Kumbh Mela begins today at the junction of the Ganges, Yamuna and (the invisible) Saraswati rivers near the city of Allahabad. This is a religious festival held once every 12 years where this time around an estimated 70 million people will have bathe in the waters there. Around 600 celebs are also expected to show up including Madonna, Pierce Brosnan and Sharon Stone. And yes, it has its own website.
Meanwhile in the office, ISP guy shows up and asks for a cheque for this months line rental. John is out of cheques. oops.
10 January 2001
Wake up flick through channels. Watch film - spookily this first film of my second stay here is that of the first book I read in September. Is there a cycle repeating here? If I see Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal before I leave, I guess so.
Stroll into office and sure enough, we have neither internet nor mail. Seems the chequebook we told HSBC to leave at the bank for collection was posted to Mumbai because there was no-one at the Bangalore office when the courier brought it around. They just can’t do anything right. ISP woes eventually cured by pooling and paying in cash. Wallet is now a great deal lighter.
Lunar Eclipse last night and the moon went red. It was “so exciting in fact that the cat got up to watch it from the window,“ said an interviewee on the BBC News site.
Return to UK put off by remaining housemate agreeing to pay rest of rent until I return. Phew.
11 January 2001
Traffic heavier than usual on way in to work - several ricks using the now-paved sidewalks as alternate routes for 50yds as traffic lights back up the cars, bikes, ricks, lorries and buses on their way into town. Twice avoid being run down on the pavement.
First editorial meeting, first enforcing of a schedule. Groan. Zope people watch out. O’Reilly canned its Zope book today, leaving ours the only one to come. Will see if we can’t just get the two together huh? Maybe GFDL it too.
Learn of darker underworld in India. Nina and Sonny’s headmaster has been ousted from his position by owner of all the other local schools, and is now being run out of the country, having been first locked out of his apartment, then followed by private detectives and now being (falsely) accused of a hit and run incident. Apparently his lawyer said, “Yep. That’s about right.” Just charming.
12 January 2001
Apparently Indian cinema is having its arbitrary censorship laws (over sex and violence) reviewed, possibly to the US ratings of G, PG, PG-13, R and NC-17. Surely they missed the EM rating for excessive number of bad musical segments?
Kumbh mela progressing. Nearly all 7200 hectares of tent city are full and its only day 3. First main bathing day is Jan 14, to coincide with Telugu new year, “Makar Sankranti”.
13 January 2001
The weekend! Resolve to do as little as possible and succeed in grand style. Watch the second half of the same film (True Blue) twice in effort to see the first half and complete reluctance to change the channel once it was on again. Considered making some designs for a henna tattoo that Grace has offered me. Don’t know quite what to do.
14 January 2001
Woke to high drone of three mosquitos that had found way in last night and dispatched of them in short order. Must have had quite a bit to eat of me - really had to scrub my hands to get rid of all the blood that sprayed onto them during their death.
Big day at Kumbh Mela. Papers report about 7 million people going for a dip there today. And the holy men didn’t fight over who took first dip. Which was nice—it’s polluted already anyway.
15 January 2001
John still in office. Unfortunate as should currently be flying to UK for Wrox quarterly review. Instead, spends day talking to travel agents looking for a cancelled flight that preferably doesn’t take him six hours out of his way via Singapore. Finally gets ticket two hours before takeoff and departs hurriedly
With John gone and Dilip out, I take first managerial decision and leave early for the day at about 7pm. Landlord Jr. drops by to ask if I can be in tomorrow eveningand Mrs Landlord needs to show someone around. They can’t be trying to sell it, can they?
16 January 2001
Finally delegate some stuff to others and sit around wondering what I can get on with in all this free time. Find ‘Evil Window Manager’ on freshmeat. So it closes windows at random, loses settings at inconvenient times and stops anyone using anything else? That‘s Windows isn’t it?
Spend rest of day spec hacking with Manju and evading Grace and Nish who have decided that because I put a clean shirt on this morning I’m obviously going out this evening and want to know who with. Wish I knew too.
Mrs Bajaj came round for five seconds to show her florist what she had done with the plastic plants in my flat. And I hurried home to let her in for that? Sheesh.
John is stuck in Delhi on way home.
17 January 2001
Not heard from John so presume that he has at least made it out of Delhi, which is a start.
Ian comes up with a disturbingly accurate classification system for authors and reviewers based on fruit and Winnie the Pooh. When you’re on form, you’re on form.
The cable roulette wheel is being spun again. Nothing is where it was, the cricket has gone missing and the movie channels are showing nothing but rubbish.
18 January 2001
Our proxy firewall underscores its beta status and goes belly sideways alternating between normal, highly restricted and no surfing whatsoever during the day. And the guys that sold it to us are six hours train ride away in Chennai. Memories of 1993 when 650 bytes a second was really fast are rekindled.
Grace and Nish still on my case and the Miss India prelims are this evening. Saw group photo of contestants in paper. Don’t think India will produce Miss World this year if these are the hopefuls.
Bangalore’s cricket stadium will at last see some action on March 25 - a one day against Australia. Will see if I can extend stay accordingly.
19 January 2001
Chennai guys can’t recreate our proxy problems so they are sending a guy out to look at it - next Thursday. Groan.
Better progress elsewhere. BangLinux newsletter number one finally left the store. As did PHP and Zope specs for a bit. Tit for tat though. Initial calls for ideas for Pro MySQL are a bit patchy.
Had the worst curry since arriving in India. Seems to have been made with 85% mustard. Am sure that there was chicken in there somewhere too, but couldn’t tell. Seems to have dissolved into the gravy, bones and all.
20 January 2001
Inadvertently wore a Wrox shirt into a computer bookstore and ended up recommending books and answering questions for a while from punters looking at the books on the shelves. Managed to buy one or two myself.
Two presidents got inaugurated today by circumstances as opposed to by merit - a five foot Phillipino to replace Estrada and a six foot yank who wants to be better than his dad. 70,000 people took to the streets to see the former sworn in. Several hundred Texans stood by to watch the American. Go figure.
22 January 2001
John’s back although his luggage is not. Apparently it was lost on the way back to the UK, found four hours before he left and lost again on the way back. So I’ll make sure I never fly via Delhi then.
Spent whatever period of the day awake on the verge of falling asleep and feeling pretty miserable. Turned in at 4pm only to wake up, see Elizabeth Taylor demonstrate why she should only ever be seen at awards ceremonies these days and never given something to do, and fall back asleep again.
23 January 2001
Start the day invigorated by the equivalent of three nights sleep and promptly go and annoy four people over email. Perhaps I should wait until I’m a little sleepy before I write any more. Fail miserably to spell palce correctly throughout the entire day as well.
First deadline for banglinux has passed and 50% of the material is in, so about average turnout. Others are away at Linux World or Linux Expo this week anyway. As will Frank be in order to get his new visa, his old one running out in two weeks.
Thought I knew most of the Indian names for clothing but apparently not. A pashmina is a broad Kashmiri shawl / scarf that extends down to the waist. A dupatta is a longer, narrower piece of silk also worn as a shawl. Think of a dupatta as a bedsheet and a pashmina as a usually more patterned tablecloth and you’re about there.
24 January 2001
Woke to blackout and realization that the home UPS has disconnected itself from the mains. Thus stumble around in darkness trying to make breakfast and have a wash.
Vijay in from Mumbai today for meetings with various Bangalore firms. Trying to grow a beard currently, but effort looks a little unfortunate at the moment. Still, it’s nice to see him again and compare notes between conferences. Six more people registerd for the conference. Now we have seven.
Once again forget to actually eat anything of note after breakfast. Must investigate cooking lessons again. Memory lapse blamed this time on lack of food (sic) and eager awaiting of March 25 - India vs Australia in Bangalore stadium—which was confirmed today.
25 January 2001
30 million had a wash in the Ganges yesterday. There were so many people there you could see it from space and about 20 people were killed in the crush.
Got a Christmas card from some random law firm. Can’t decide if it’s a month late for Xmas, three months late for last Diwali, nine months early for this Diwali, or if they were thinking of either Chinese or Telugu new years which happen round about now.
Guy from Chennai appears to diagnose our ailing firewall / proxy. Hasn’t seen the logs we’d already sent though—bad feeling begins. He says proxy fine and blames ISP. ISP proves that they are fine. Chennai guy leaves in huff saying all will be fine anyway. Can you feel the scepticism?
Out with Velu, Hari, Divia and Navin. Try new bar called Mars 2230 supposedly set in the future. More like 2230 BC I think. Still, drank too much and rounded off the evening with dosa and chicken gravy, neither of which is useful for feeling better in the morning.
26 January 2001
Republic Day. National holiday, so nothing open except cinemas, pubs and restaurants. Power also off, so guess they’re on holiday too. Get bored and go into work anyway. Fancy learning python and see how far I get. Receive mysterious email from parents—“Heard news. Are you alright?” Must watch news more often—seriously big earthquake hit N.W. India this morning.
Discover that the second best restaurant in town is a chinese and realise that the more expensive a restuarant is, the more likely it is trying to cater to western tastes and the worse it will therefore be. Vis a vis - TGI Fridays.
Watch Arnie swagger through ‘The Sixth Day’ and comfort myself through the shock of exactly how lame it is by watching ‘Strange Days’ on TV on return home.
27 January 2001
Have bizarre dreams mixing both last nights films, some locations in Ireland and the sensations of being an amnesiac on the point of collapse under total exhaustion. Won’t forget that one in a hurry.
Wait all day at office for people to test our ISDN modem line to the phone exchange who never show. Learn more python, lose two speakers from the BangLinux lineup, convince one who pops by that he is a better speaker than any small citrus fruit he cares to point out and really that presenting two talks is easier than doing just the one. Am happy to learn that Jen Capriati has won the Aussie Tennis Open too.
28 January 2001
House power supply spikes and throughs between 150 and 270 volts for five hours. make sthe lights flicker more than the candles I’ve lit. Landlord pops round to check the non-functioning UPS, moves it slightly and the loose conncetion in there somewhere fixes itself. Sends a guy round to top up the batteries who promptly nudges it and once again it doesn’t work.
Finally figure out how to program TV, but reprogramming channels, 7, 12, 22, 31, 36, 42, 44 and 56 to 1 through 8 somehow takes the fun out of channel hopping. Still, someone spins the cable roulette wheel during the day and two channels go missing again anyway.
Go to landlord’s for chicken biryani and weird fishcakes made of chicken too. Earthquake all over tv. Estimated death toll seemingly rising every half an hour or so. Up to 20,000 so far plus injured. They have cleared the airport in one of the worst hit areas—Bhuj—though so aid can start coming in. Already, they are worrying about disease.
29 January 2001
Wake early to watch superbowl and find a mozzie-designed pincushion that used to be my left elbow. Can’t think why all of a sudden all those local would tune in on one particualr part of me but there you go.
Think I feel lorry go past at 8am, but the shaking goes on until I realise it’s an earthquake too and before I can do anything it stops. That would have been me dead then if it had been a strong one. Whole city takes this as a sign and local radio plants rumours that more quakes are due at 1pm and 4.30 pm this afternoon. Of course they don’t but all schools stay shut for the day and all high rise building are evacuated for the majority of it. A four day weekend instead of three.
John’s luggage has finally made it back to Bangalore a week after John did and with it comes my modem cable which is well timed as the office network is becoming more and more unusable. Random users get randomly good access to the net and mail for a random period of time, often not more than a minute. Not good. Modem is fine though. Slink off home in frustration to make use of it.
30 January 2001
Try not to work in the office in an effort to housekeep my over-burgeoning inbox. Most things are going along fine, but as usual, Zope is trying to get away. Today’s news: the artists formerly known as O’Reilly authors will also not be Wrox writers so the whole book is still quite empty, it won’t be an open sourced book and it is also being delayed until May to stave off some workload while PHP and bangLinux take priority.
Have horrid feeling that Indian telecom worker did the standard thing last week and, after not being able to find a spare phone connection in the junction box in the basement of Carlton Towers decided to splice our ISDN line to another place thus causing the interference.
Yesterday’s quake was 4.3 on the Richter scale. Gujarat is still experiencing one or two smaller aftershocks a day.
31 January 2001
Recent early exits and late arrivals from working at home are convincing Patrick that I am ill and Grace and Nish that I am in actual fact having a lazy affair with someone. “Explain” it is in fact one of the Bollywood starlets in town for last Friday’s (muted) celebrations and subject deftly turns into a ‘Guess the bimbo’ contest. Or rather I mention a name and see how big an ‘ooh’ I get. For both boys and girls. Seems you can distinguish between the Meryl Streeps of Bollywood and the Denise Richards, so to speak. Thought they just all sang a lot and swayed about every now and again.
Revised cricket watching plans - am now booked in for two days of the second test in Calcutta. Marvellous.