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545 days ago

On Tuesday night if finally rained in Mumbai for the first time since I arrived on February 1. Since then it rained Wednesday night and tonight. For the last few weeks it has been getting more humid, windy and cloudy. The winds of change were evident and it was only a matter of time before the skies would finally open up. The rain represents the start of Monsoon season. It will now rain almost every day for the next 4 months. At that point Winter will set in and it will rarely rain until the next Monsoon 8 months later. Here is a graph of the average rainfall from weather.com. It is a incredible annual cycle of feast or famine. Based on soil samples, scientists have traced the beginning of this weather pattern to 15-20 million years ago. The most infamous Monsoon day in Mumbai is July 26, 2005. It rained 37 inches in one day. I find this almost impossible to comprehend. Over 3 feet of rain in one day. On average the Minneapolis, ...

Privy Social Engineering

557 days ago

Social engineering presents itself in many forms. You might see it in government sponsored public messages. You and your children participate in it first hand during primary and secondary school . This includes how to treat one another, stand in lines, ask questions and give honor to your country by signing the national anthem. In a country that is changing as fast as India, sometimes everyone needs some extra guidance to keep up. Here is a list of rules posted to the inside of the bathroom stalls at an IT office. Please flush the toilet after use. Please use dustbins for disposal of tissues. Please do not step on the western commode. Please do not litter. Please help us to keep the surrounding neat, clean and healthy. Please spare a thought for the next person using it. The bathroom posting has all the right intentions. And I only wish that US office bathrooms were kept as clean and tidy as in India. In the case of the Accenture office, almost every time I ...

Side Line Controversy

564 days ago

This year is the first year for the professional cricket league IPL 20Twenty. It has been very successful, but it has also spawned a The Times of India front-page grabbing controversy. This controversy is not about the organization's front office corruption. It is not about performance enhancing drugs. It is not about umpires betting on and fixing games. It is about the cheer leading squads. First I want to be clear that popular sports in India are not the same as in the US. Watching ESPN Asia has opened my mind to an entirely new set of sports (Here is one expat's point-of-view about ESPN Asia). Most of which do not conjure an image of a scantily clad cheering section. Try to picture the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders on the court side of the following ESPN Asia sporting events: Badminton Field Hockey Formula 1 Golf Table Tennis Second, the IPL cheerleaders are not what you might expect to see at an Indian sporting ...

Laundry Day

571 days ago

Laundry is a ritual of life. A common thread of humanity. My first memory relating to washing clothes is from my primary school days when my sister, who is six years older than I am, took an entire weekend to distress her new jeans, wash them over and over until the frayed threads were just right and the bleached areas were the right size, shape and shade. My personal laundry story starts around the age of 15 when my dad was driving a long distance for work and my mom returned to college to get another degree. It was either do my own laundry or loose my standing in the "Preppies" clique. During this time I used my parents washer and dryer. This was a supportive situation for a launderer-in-training because the costs were subsidized and I learned the ins and outs of laundry technique under some adult guidance. In college while I lived at the dorms I used the coin machines along with almost everyone else. On Sunday night the laundry room was a popular place on ...

Bangalore and Back

581 days ago

I spent this past weekend in Bangalore visiting my colleague Kai Hildebrandt. Bangalore was recently renamed to the pre-British Raj name, Bangaluru. He is from Germany and is part of the same program that I am. He and I have used each other as sounding boards for living the life of an Avanade expatriate. He speaks very good English. He also speaks German and Russian. One of the highlights of the trip was Friday night dinner at Hard Rock Cafe-Bangalore. It was first time I have had red meat in three months. The first bite into my hamburger transported me back to Minneapolis sitting at Maxwell's (RIP). I forgot how much I love hamburgers. The Indian touch that is an all imported foods is the pile of sautéed red onions near the front of the plate. Another highlight of the trip was attending the India Premiere League (IPL) cricket match between the Bangalore Royal Challengers and the Rajasthan Royals. This is a new league this year and it has created a great ...