Procrastiblog

August 5, 2006

Chandra done gone

Filed under: India — Chris @ 11:22 am

Chandra the houseboy has been replaced with a… houseman? (Gilbird, I think. Is that a name?) Inviting friends over to watch our TV has been replaced with scheduling a time to mop the floors and make the bed. He didn’t just leave lunch on the table; he started to set a place for me (before I told him not to bother). Then he made me sign for my lunch. Then he cleaned my room and bathroom and asked me to check it to make sure I was satisfied. Five years of hotel experience, he claims.

This is a little much.

P.S. I assume that Gilbird (??? that can’t be right…) is not responsible for the liter of Jack Daniel’s whiskey that disappeared while we were away, replaced with 50 ml of a 2 parts water/1 part Jack Daniel’s mixture.

The wife done gone

Filed under: India — Chris @ 8:25 am


Hilleary, departing
Originally uploaded by C+H.

My God, those six weeks went by fast.

H left last night for America via a stunning assortment of other intermediary destinations. The scene at the airport was absurd: a crowd of hundreds of people waiting to get through the front door of the terminal. Note: this was not the line to check in or to get through security. It took us at least twenty minutes—maneuvering through a typically chaotic Indian “queue”—to get from the curb to the terminal entrance, where I had to say goodbye, because (if I recall the sign correctly (meant to get a picture, but I got all discombobulated bidding farewell)), “Visitor entrance prohibited. Inconvenience caused is regretted.”

(BTW, according to our driver, the back-up was totally normal and not the result of, e.g., enhanced security measures. Just a typical evening at the Worst Airport Ever*.)

And so, for me, 12 weeks down, 3 weeks to go. I’m going to miss Hilleary, but after spending 6 weeks apart in May and June, I feel like the next 3 will go by in the blink of an eye. Then again, considering I have no plans whatsoever for the rest of the month except to work until my eyes bleed, I may be unpleasantly surprised.

* It’s not really the airport’s fault, I should note. The airport (and the buses and the roads and the trains, etc) of Bangalore were designed for a city like Palm Springs (the Bangalore of 25 years ago), not for a city like San Jose (the Bangalore of today). The infrastructure of the city is lagging about 10 years behind its economy.

August 4, 2006

On having returned

Filed under: India — Chris @ 12:17 pm

New photo sets:
Shimla and Chandigarh
Haridwar
Delhi, Rajasthan, and Agra

Quoth Hilleary

Filed under: India — Chris @ 8:43 am


Ha!
Originally uploaded by C+H.

“We take pictures of goats eating garbage. And they take pictures of us.”

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