Mowing the Lawn, India Edition

When I owned a house (which I no longer do!), I was known to complain about mowing the lawn. I'd go embarrassingly long without mowing it and then rely on the lawn mower (and patience) to chew through practically shoulder height grass. In India... there are plenty of people to fill landscaping jobs; however, some of these people have better employers than others. This first guy was 'mowing' a football field sized lot outside a hotel in New Delhi.

Yes... he's cutting the grass with hedge clippers. He took fairly frequent breaks to text on his phone... but STILL. Once he completed that patch of grass, he hand carried away the clippings as well. 

This next picture is a much luckier gardener, who was using a push mower at Agra Fort. It was a two person job (the other person is not in the picture, but would use a stick to empty the clippings bucket). In this case, they were both tickled pink by my son's incredible interest in what they were doing. They even helped him jump the fence onto the the grass so he could help. (Have I ever mentioned how much people in India love children?)

Shopping Misconceptions

I recently signed up for a new much cheaper and much faster internet company. However, the new company does not provide a router. I didn't think this was an issue, because I had one from the US. Unfortunately, the technician helpfully plugged my 110v router into our 220v outlet, and immediately unplugged it when it started smoking. I was then faced with a choice... buy one locally, or wait a couple weeks for one purchased online to arrive. I went with the former. Unfortunately, between work and not really knowing where any electronics stores are, I procrastinated for several weeks until it would have been faster to just order it. Oh well, I asked one of my local staff where to go to get a router. He gave me a store name, I followed up by asking if they had parking, since parking is the hardest part of driving in Chennai. He looked at me funny and said, "No, they don't have parking. I will just call them and they will bring your purchase here."

I guess that's what I get for internally assuming that the electronics store would be a big box place, like Best Buy. I've since driven past other stores of the same chain... they are open air counters facing the street with all the merchandise on shelves behind the counter. It's like buying your electronics from a pharmacy. Also, it costs the company so little to send an employee on a two-wheeler to drop off a purchase and accept payment... so why wouldn't they?

Note: We went from paying $48/month for 8mbps down and .5mbps up with a 95gb limit to paying $20/month for 40mbps down and 6mbps up with a 75gb limit. Insanity...

Chennai Holidays: Republic Day

Today is Republic Day! I think it's pretty standard for every country to celebrate some day related to their founding. This year, President Obama was invited by Prime Minister Modi to be the "Chief Guest" at the Republic Day Parade in New Delhi. This has caused quite a stir in Mission India, but more on that in another post. Suffice to say, despite the "extra holidays" tag, many of the Americans in India are working today. Either way, Happy Republic Day!

PS: When I asked two of the local staff "How do you celebrate Republic Day?" They simultaneously answered with:
"Sleep in."
and
"Do nothing."

PPS: I love Modi's hat.

Chennai Holidays: Thiruvalluvar Day

Day two of our five day weekend (the fifth day being Martin Luther King day). Today is Thiruvalluvar Day. A holiday unique to Tamil Nadu, it is lumped in with the Pongal celebrations, but is actually in honor of the same-named Tamil poet. Thiruvalluvar lived sometime before the 2nd century BCE and has been called the greatest Tamil Scholar. His most famous work is the Tirukkuṛaḷ a work on ethics.

In the Pongal tradition, the day is dedicated to Surya, the sun god. Being a primarily agrarian celebration, the sun god naturally plays a central role. Sugar canes and coconuts are the gifts of choice for this day... which explains why I've seen autos all over town with sugar cane stalks strapped to them!

Chennai Holidays: Thai Pongal

Pongal! Although technically beginning yesterday, the State Government of Tamil Nadu recognizes the holiday on Thursday to allow for a 4 day weekend (spoiler alert, there's another holiday tomorrow!)

Pongal is a Tamil celebration dedicated to the harvest and abundance, not unlike American Thanksgiving. It is symbolized by a ritual of heating milk until it boils over and spills out of the pot. The word Pongal is actually Tamil for "overflowing."  On a colorful note, the normally white rice flour kolams were replaced with more colorful rangoli (a subset of Kolam) today! Pongal is also dish consisting mainly of rice sweetened with a dense cane sugar named "Jaggery." We had Pongal for breakfast earlier this week and it was delicious... though about as "breakfasty" as eating the Thai dessert "Sticky Rice with Mango."