1 November 2000
IT.com finally here. Stall up and looks a treat from front and
back.
Giant book made it too. Public not allowed in before 4pm, so quiet during the mornings
but as suspected, Joe Q. Volunteers ready and willing.
Public shows up with some classic enquiries that they really should be hit for. Take
for example, a fourteen or so year old schoolboy, who came up to the stall.
“So you’d like to be a writer then?”
“Yes”
(sceptically) “So what do you know, C, C++ for example?”
“Yes, I know everything, C , C++, Unix”
(sensing a bubble to be burst) “Unix eh? Have you worked with Linux?”
“What’s that then? Some type of Unix?”
“O-o-okay. What flavour of Unix have you used, Solaris, HP, AIX?”
(big silence) ...
And so it continued. Roughly translated, that
little conversation meant ‘I know basic C to the point where I know more about computers
and programming than anyone in my family. Thus, I am God.’ Or words to that effect.
Expecting more to come.
Also spent some time reigning in our great, but very zealous
sales guy, Sriraman, who is great, but does seem to be scaring the public.
Spent evening in the Cosmo Club, a thai place with decor like
someone’s living room and big sofa’s to match. Turns out that Indianized thai food
tastes very much like regular take away Chinese in UK. Chicken cooked in banana leaf
recommended though.
2 November 2000
Need to kill a rickshaw driver. Doesn’t matter which one.
First rick driver took us to the wrong side of the palace
grounds in the morning. Expected the exhibitor’s entrance and saw a funfair we didn’t
know even existed instead. Much shouting resolved this place to be 400 yards away
from the public car parks for the show. Helpful? No.
Also needed to pop out to the IISc where some Linux tech talks
were being given to accompany the show. Not a single rick driver would put the meter
on when I asked them too and nor would they charge me less than 100 rupees for a 30
rupee ride. Guess (white guy == target) == TRUE in their books at the moment. After
wasting half an hour trying five different ricks and getting straight back out again,
got lift with Dilip instead.
Meal out with Mumbai guys. Discover green washing up liquid
dishwasher water that gets served with puri is called Rasam - apparently made with
Tamarind. Still don’t care. Still tastes like last weeks sewage. Sriraman lives on
this stuff though. Beginning to understand why he is generally hyper.
Learn India has holistic alternative medicine practice here
called Ayurveda (eye-your-veddah). Somewhat the equivalent of Tai Chi.
3 November 2000
Sriraman off out of town today to do a quick sales jobby about
50km away. Am worried about the effects of roadside rasam might have on him.
Wish we could reword the poster that asks for authors, reviewers
and speakers to ‘programmers who would like to write, review or present.’ Got cornered
by retired army commander who has been working for IEEE on and off for thirty years
or so and really wanted to go on the lecture circuit to ‘give back a little bit to
the community’, expressing his concerns over the speed with which technology has developed
and the excess of information that everyone has access to over the internet. His solution
sounded like a breach of the fifth amendment and a cross between big brother and a
communist attitude and I couldn’t get rid of him for half an hour.
Try for early night with result of writing cover pages for
wroxindia.com until about 2am. And they’re still not up yet. Banglinux.com also on
hold as UK dragging heels about the Apache server there.
4 November 2000
Back at IISc scouting for speakers. Bandwidth management and
QoS routing guy had voice on permanent fast forward—too fast and high pitched. Poor
guy speaking on Indian Language Processing got shouted down by some intolerable voice
at the back of the hall who’d obviously spent far too many years on said subject.
Walked back and found the show awash with people—about
100,000 of them to be exact (big panorama photo here)
as a sunny afternoon brought out the masses to see what was what. Stand full to bursting
and John performing duties as crowd barrier for
a good portion of time.
5 November 2000
Last day - more crowds,
more throngs of people, more sales, more bizarre
conversations. Chatted with the people from sonicbloom.com who
are developing a scientifically proven device that sings to plants to make them grow
faster—at the right time and pitch and with the right music, of course—and an
accompanying bio-fertilizer to help them listen.
Other showstoppers have included:
“Have you got a book on hacking? All these are programming books.
I want one on hacking.“
“Have you got a book on how to start building websites?“
“Sure, here you go“
“Thanks - how do I become a technical reviewer?“.
From someone who handed in a form with the heading “Become a Wrox technical reviewer
or author“
“What“s this form for?“
Averted potential disaster of having
stall ripped down by on-site goons after hours by hiring guards to keep it safe overnight
until workmen can do it properly tomorrow morning. Collapsed. Slept.
6 November 2000
Late morning heralds unexpected arrivals. Vijay, Shiva and
Yashmi appear with their bags having checked out of their hotel and having no place
else to go while two unsolicited copies of Beg PHP 4 arrive within five minutes of
each other from different senders by different couriers. Meanwhile Shiva has invited
himself to stay at Natasha until Sunday.
Vic’s last day, so one last drink with her, Dilip, Hari and
John, this time in a redecorated, deconsecrated church, now known as 180 Proof. Very
good actually - lots of character. Remember during second drink that Shiva hasn’t
left for Mumbai and isn’t in the pub with us, so must be somewhere else, locked out
of flat. Sure enough, find him sitting on back porch, waiting for us when we return.
7 November 2000
US elections today, but thanks to time lag, actual results
won’t be until tomorrow lunchtime. Work through six days of email while Vic buys silk
stuff for all at home. Six hours later, the junk has been removed and the stuff to
answer remains.
Other half’s birthday today, so give her a special call saying
Hi. Present includes putting her poem up
on this website.
Meanwhile, farewell to Vic as we drop her at Bangalore airport
for the seventeen hour journey back to Brum. Small shreds of regret that I’m not going
back now too, but on reflection, it’s not as though six weeks is a long time before
I return either.
Dinner take away with Shiv—small talk chit chat with some
Paneer Kofta. Apparently, he has lost both his parents this year, so understandably
he needed some time out of Mumbai here in Bangalore. He returns home Sunday.
8 November 2000
Neither network nor phone people are appearing in the office
for the eighth day in a row. I know. I waited all day. President of the USA became
senator for New York this morning and no-one noticed.
Added more photos of Lal Bagh Botanical Gardens to the photos
page.
9 November 2000
Workmen have definitely been stalling. They came and worked
today for three hours—we now have working ISDN, telephones and network sockets.
If they come back tomorrow, might have a completed LAN too. Interviewed first prospective
employee—most hopeful.
In bizarre moment of eccentricity, Patrick reveals a piece
of seven month old chipatti that has a face on it. Not quite the virgin mary, but
close I guess. Take a look
10 November 2000
The mystery of Shiva’s continued presence in Bangalore is
solved. Turns out he’s being meeting up with one of the girls from a stand in the
Linux Pavilion at IT.com. So not really working out details for wroxindia.com then.
11 November 2000
Got into ‘Winter Blues’ club night at Bangalore’s most exclusive
members only club. Thirteen year waiting list for membership, so not much point in
applying. Ironic how ‘exclusive’ here means 3 quid entry while in the UK, it means
20 quid minimum.
Saw Coyote Ugly in a different cinema to X-Men. Much nicer
seats. Empathized far too much with lead character in the film and promptly burnt
mouth on pizza whilst deep in thought in take away next door. Film was pretty good
irrespective of burnt palate though. Will make concerted effort soon to sit through
a Hindi film. Mission Kashmir seems like a good candidate. Rambo meets Singin in the
Rain. Can’t wait.
12 November 2000
Shiva goes back to Bombay after several hours on phone with
mysterious girl and Dilip also disappears until Thursday. In his case, he’s going
back to Kerala for the first time in eighteen months to celebrate the first anniversary
of his grandma’s death. Apparently 250 guests will come and get totally pissed in
memoriam. Apparently ten times that many attended the wake last year. Pretty popular
grandmother then.
Lennox Lewis beat David Tua to remain boxing heavyweight champion.
Meanwhile in the other fight, lightweights Gore and Bush are nitpicking over a judge’s
decision. Rematch in order but after all the hubbub has died down, who’s going to
remember either of them for anything other than this mess?
13 November 2000
Overwhelmed by mass of cold-calling salesmen with neither
receptionist nor lockable door to fend them off. Also spend entire day listening to
the ‘shhshh’ of brushes as housekeeping attempt the earth-shattering feat of cleaning
the office carpet without the aid of a net (well, vacuum cleaner or carpet shampoo).
Finally figured out the concrete litter bins that pepper the
streets. There’s no dustbin men as such round here, so they simply light the contents
of the bin and then refill again when the fire has died down. Maybe have a little
barbecue if no-one’s around and there’s a recently dead cow handy.
14 November 2000
Racks for network switches now here. Still no-one to take
racks, switches, empty wires and working ISDN router, add them together and make a
network though. Did feel brave enough to remove all plastic from chairs and found
saviour of lunchtimes (which were becoming very ice-cream oriented) - the number for
the local Domino’s pizza delivery service.
15 November 2000
Trial by patience day. The network guy will be here at 2pm,
at 3pm, at 5pm, at 8pm. Eight hours after he was due, and with me still waiting in
the office, he appears at 10.00pm.
Learnt second valuable lesson of the office - close the windows
after sunset; failure to do so results in plague of bugs landing on your laptop, desk,
light fittings, blinds, servers, bookshelves and so on.
Got mysterious email saying ‘So what’s going on in town then?’.
Why? Should anything be happening? Find out much later from BBC that the actor chappy
they’re rather fond of around here was let free around lunchtime. So that’s nice -
a “few” people celebrated a bit.
16 November 2000
If I was in Manchester, I’d think Man Utd had just won the
triple and were doing their lap of honor around the streets. Instead it was Rajkumar
coming home after his 3 month sojourn in the wilds of Tamil Nadu. A police-accompanied
twenty car cavalcade drove him straight into a crowd of roughly 250000 people in the
centre of town if local news is to be believed.
Meanwhile in the LAN-challenged world of the office, the modem
and phone line still work and Pro Zope has finally been contracted. Sweet relief.
Just the other six to go then.
Large wasp nest has started to develop from the building overhang
about twenty yards from our office windows. As long as they stay outside.....
17 November 2000
Morning papers filled with Rajkumar. According to the headlines
in the Times of India, he saw ‘a goddess in woman doctor’ and bottom third of front
page has slightly less than thrilling headline ‘Thespian has lot of insect bites’.
Well he has been in the jungle for 108 days you know.
After giving them written notice yesterday, Ganesh and cronies
finally finished the LAN and ISDN so the office mow actually works!! Not that I’m
relieved that it’s over of course.....
Celebrated with beers in TGI and gave Dilip rudimentary lessons
in WWF appreciation.
18 November 2000
Braved “the ultimate shopping experience” that is
KempFort, a second-class Debenhams inside a building shaped like the castle in the
Disney logo. “Just browsing thanks” is not in the sales assistants’ vocabulary unfortunately.
“Shirt, sir? ... Track suit, sir? ... Trousers, sir?”. Telling them to go away results
in a backing off of no more than three feet until you move to a different section
and you become the human baton in an inter-section relay between the floor staff.
A walk round the ground floor involved being harangued by no less than six people
desperate to sell you something.
At six this evening, the sky turned almost completely magenta for
a good five minutes. Wonder if life on Mars goes wow when the sky goes black?
20 November 2000
Bangalore traffic around MG Road is forced to actually slow
down this afternoon and slowly work its way around two temporary obstacles. Just past
Brigade Rd there’s a a guy totally nude walking with the cars in the middle of the
road. He looks either off or out of his face or possibly both. In fact wouldn’t it
be mandatory for this kind of behaviour at four in the afternoon?
Slightly further down the road is a Bangalore funeral cortege,
(not that anyone cares as the blaring of horns clearly indicates) a strange mix of
New Orleans Dixie land celebration of recently passed life with the more British hearse-moving-at-5mph-holding-up-traffic
kind of funeral. Essentially it’s a local bus painted black presumably with the coffin
and relatives inside and professional mourners waving tambourines around in front
of the vehicle. Or it could be a branch davidian sect of the Salvation Army. All is
not quite clear.
After five weeks of monotonous sun and clear skies, a cloud
has appeared in the sky. Super - may soon be able to have a conversation about the
weather.
21 November 2000
Can’t keep film stars out of Indian papers. With Rajkumar
safe but bitten by lots of insects, the rest of Bollywood is appearing in the papers.
One such is Hrithik Roshan who got rushed by 2000 fans while filming in Pune yesterday.
Imagine the UK tabloids would have headline “Everyone’s at Hrithik” (say it fast)
plastered on page 3.
First computers showed up from IBM this morning without CD
drives or monitors - so that’s useful. The drives turn up later but with no cables
or screws to fix them into the casing. Occupy myself with investigations into custard
apples instead - a well-named, great-flavoured fruit.
Got onto the roof of Carlton Towers after dark. Bangalore
looks amazing by night as do the aerial shows the local bats are putting on wheeling
about catching insects in and around the spotlights illuminating the building.
22 November 2000
Woke up to a power cut and invasion by landlady demanding
to know why I haven’t paid the electricity bill I never got. A human red letter bill
then whose name is still on my power bill it would seem.
At the office, Patrick our
driver is revealing another piece of his life before his cab driving days. Back
in the early fifties he was the David Beckham of
his time, scoring hatricks and winning the Indian
Football Association’s League Shield. His premature
knee injury a la Gazza even caused what papers referred to as ’the
Patrick Episode’.
Hurry home to get camera for the clippings and get caught
by mad Irish woman who ‘isn’t in any trouble or anything’ and needs to seek refuge
in a catholic church. Umm, err, oooeck.
All seven of seven computers in the office are either not
working all together or are complaining for some reason. This is what they call teething
troubles I guess.
23 November 2000
All comps now working again save one whose CD drive insists
that my Win2k install disk is the latest Britney Spears album. Guess if I put it in
a stereo I couldn’t tell the difference anyway.
25 November 2000
Best start to a weekend so far in this continent - a copy
of the Sunday Times and a quiet place to read it on a sunny day. Perhaps blessed even
by a ceremony asking good fortune for a newly opened jewellers next door.
A good weekend also for John’s previously table-less house
- a dining table and six chairs now fill an otherwise almost empty, cavernous space
that is their downstairs area. The table is amazing - a handmade solid polished marble
top on a base of fused bamboo. Beautiful save for the vibrant green glaze the craftsman
thought looked good on it - ouch.
26 November 2000
After a little over two months, have officially been through
the entire Shanthi Sagar menu. Strangely, the two best things they do are not curries.
Freshly made bread (of any variety) and noodles are. And what better way to finish
up a day of emails?
27 November 2000
Over the course of the day, it has been confirmed that coffee
should be spilt before drunk, poppadums are actually known as appalam and the barman
at 180 proof is convinced that when you ask for a sour drink what you actually mean
is you’d like a drink with sugar spirit and a cherry in it. This last piece of information
is the most useful of the above, and the most frustrating.
Looks like we get a Texas republican president until 2005.
Dynasty forming - President Bush the Second?
28 November 2000
Hari inadvertently starts World War 3 in the parking basement
as he simply overrules the guard on duty and parks in our space in an effort to deliver
wedding reception invitation to myself, Dilip and John for the weekend. On coming
back down to the lot, the guard has been fired and the supervisor is trying to tow
his car away. Later on, the supervisor is fired, Hari has left and then both firees
are hired back.
BangLinux has now a timetable, a website in beta and half
its sessions filled. All it needs now is some work. Knew I was forgetting something...
29 November 2000
If film stars are minor deities here in India, then Indian
cricketers are too. It would appear though that Mohammed Azharuddin is now a fallen
idol, causing weeping in the streets with the Hammer of Damocles over his head as
the Indian cricket board judges him for match fixing. Even his house is being vandalized
and his motorbikes burnt.
Believe this last action is now just something Indians do
for fun if they are bored. Several were set aflame by fans outside Rajkumar’s house
while they were waiting for him to return not so long ago too. So they do it when
they’re happy, they do it when they’re angry - what do they do when they’re really
drunk?
30 November 2000
Dave makes a flying visit into the office to make sure we’re
actually doing something while I do the same down the road to make sure the final
touches to the site are being made as well. Seems that he’s also brought the English
weather with him as Bangalore experiences a cold, gray, drizzly day. Bah.
In unrelated news, check out Al
and Dave’s new website and give them some feedback. If you’re running Linux, check
out Galeon too, a very
lightweight, very fast browser. Think Lynx with pictures.