OBSERVATIONS ON A WEDNESDAY

I have found that pattern of success which shall for the rest of this week define my EXACT breakfast.  Egg, cheese and chili-pepper omelet with a diet coke.  And to fill time while I wait for my omelet to be delivered, I indulge upon a donut.  The problem I now face is that I’ve already become recognized for these things, as the same folks are typically operating this restaurant each morning.  Why is that a problem?  Because I still can’t figure out the tipping rules here.  The situation is that breakfast is included in the hotel fee, so the only thing I have to sign for is the diet coke each morning.  That’s perhaps 200 rupees more or less.  Yes, there is a service charge on the bill, which is tantamount to a tip and so anything extra is “my choice” but it makes me feel uncomfortable not tipping.  Especially when, immediately after I sign the waiter comes over and picks up the closed bill “book” and immediately opens it up to look inside as he walks away.  Thus the problem: if I’m consistently disappointing this lad, what are the odds at getting a “personalized” omelet?

So tip the lad, I can hear you saying.  Riiiiiight.  Remember that I became very rich in cash when I entered this country.  So rich that the smallest currency I have is 500 rupees.  That’s like $7.50 or $8.  A little hefty on a $3 charge for a diet coke and a delivered omelet.

In spite of that, this morning I was bold and confident as I set out after breakfast to head to the office.  On my own.  As every day this week, it is a day full of meeting new people, trying in vain to remember their names and faces, then moving on to the next meeting.  The meetings are good but every night I get back to the hotel and just want to lie down, close my eyes and enjoy the solitude of just me and Spot.

And this little guy.  He's bigger than Spot and probably more dangerous.  He did not survive the day, I'm sad to say.

So before I move on to Thursday, some observations from today.

The area in which I’m staying and where the office is situated is called the “Diamond District.”  My route to the office takes me out of the hotel, across a bridge over very, VERY troubled waters, and then along a road which follows this body of water.  Between the road and the river is a chain link fence.  At one point along this fence is a sign.  It says “Diamond District – Clean and Beautiful.”  I took a couple of pictures to capture the moment.

Also notice the fine electrical work.

Clean.

And beautiful.

I do not know the official name of this conduit of mysterious gifts up farther upriver, but I have been calling it the Little Ganges.  If this is in any way typical of the tributaries that lead into that famous river, I now more than ever am terrified at falling into the Ganges, even though (a) I was already pretty much mortified at the prospect and (b) the Ganges is actually quite far to the north and the risk of accidental ingress into such waters is quite small.  Having said that, it is only a fool who walks confidently unprepared atop such unstable precipices of fate, and I, not wanting to ever be accused of being such a fool, always pack an extra pair of underwear lest I fall into a pool even when where I’m staying has no such facility.  Principle thus established, I fear falling into the Ganges from Bangalore.

So you saw the picture, and you’ve read my statements above, but what you cannot get, and will never fully appreciate, is the main clue which emanates from Little Ganges that leads one to such conclusions that this flow of stuff isn't quite potable.  Think back, if you will, to times when you have been so overwhelmed by a cloud of stench that you are willing to expel all of it from your lungs and hold your breath until long after your vision is fading, your lips have turned blue and an ambulance has already been called on your behalf.  Combine that thought with those times when you’ve been swimming in a pool enjoying the nice, cool, refreshing feel of the water as it slips over your clean yet vulnerable skin, only to swim into a patch that is suspiciously warmer than its surroundings.  Whether you bank on it or not, it occurs to you that a rather obvious if not heinous conclusion might be that someone has “warmed” that area for you by increasing the overall volume of liquid in the pool though a personal contribution of their own.  Now combine that with the feeling you think you’d have (as I suspect the probability of firsthand knowledge is rather slim here) were you to be in a dark room with no idea which way is the way toward an exit, and knowing that in all other directions lie certain, horrible consequences.

The smell wafting up, out and aggressively toward unsuspecting victims from Little Ganges is on the surface one which consists of unprocessed, raw sewage, garbage, undiscovered bacteriological life forms and cottage cheese aged for 693 days in a sealed Tupperware container locked in a discarded and closed refrigerator along with a cat who died from bursting lesions after drinking only some of the curdled milk still sitting beside the cottage cheese.  All that with a slight hint of sunflower.

When you walk into this foul fog of fetor, it is kind of like when you eat a Habanero pepper.  It has a bit of a spicy bite at first and you think to yourself, “this isn’t so bad.”  It is the slow, ever-intensifying burn that gets you after you’ve already been fooled into compounding with bite after bite.  This funk is like that.  Except that you don’t choose to imbibe more – you have no choice.  At first you’re like “oh, man, that’s awful.”  Then seconds later you’re like “no please, no more, I can’t… take much… more.”  And then a few more seconds and you’re not even able to think words because your brain has gone into shutdown mode to protect itself.

Walking back from the office to the hotel has made me appreciate how nice and fresh my hotel room smells.  Score: Bangalore 3, Scott 2.

But enough about such things.  Discussion on those topics is what therapy is for.

I mentioned earlier in this account the gangs of dogs.  Well, they are quite ubiquitous.  While I can only speculate, I imagine that the gangs of dogs are expanding their turf.  The other gang of 6 year old boys smoking cigarettes at 3 in the morning are certainly putting up a good fight, but they can only do so much, spending more money on cigarettes than on more useful weapons of turf warfare like tennis balls on ropes and milk bones.

I bring this up because on my treks to/from the office I have seen a number of these good doggies.  They are lean, muscular pups able to chew through a plastic garbage bag like batman can chew through a piece of tough celery.  And there are a lot of these bags around, probably as payments to the gang for protection.  The following picture is blurry because I had to take it while walking and not looking like I was standing there taking a picture of garbage.

It's also blurry because of these bags are in an uncertain quantum state.  They are both food and not food at the same time until observed, and I caught them as the quantum wave function was collapsing.  But you probably already assumed that.

I tried not to take pictures of the dogs in the act of tearing through the garbage lest they believe I am a scout for the 6 year olds.  Plus I didn’t want to look like the silly American tourist taking pictures of dogs in the Diamond District (“Clean and Beautiful”) ripping apart the trash bags for sweet morsels of curried curds.  However, steering clear meant still being near but keeping my distance.  I was vaccinated against several things coming here, but rabies was not one of them.  (This is also why I have avoided monkey bites, although those critters are smart and have been keeping their distance from ME, having been warned of Scott bites.)  So in the immortal words of Shakespeare, slightly altered using my poetic license, I indeed did whisper havoc and let slip the dogs of war.

P.S. I can’t find Spot.  I think he moved on.  He was a good spot.