In the ground in Chennai

After not sleeping for about 40 hours, I made the adjustment to local time. After a couple of days of feeling tired at odd times, I have felt remarkably normal, (in terms of jet lag). For the past 10 days or so, I've felt like I live here. The "in the ground" reference was a misprint from my facebook status. I was never quite that low. I'm glad Mom doesn't read facebook, or she might have drawn the wrong conclusion.

Chennai, my home for the next 7 months, is a city of contrasts. There are trees everywhere, and there are times when I don't feel that I'm in a city of 7 million people. From my balcony, I look out over rooftops with washing hung out to dry, palm trees and a flame of the forest tree in full bloom. I share my balcony with the crows--Indian crows have a grey head--and some pigeons. There are birds that I haven't seen but can hear, including one that sounds like a car alarm.



The neighborhood is very quiet. One of my neighbors, a half block down, is an important government minister named Stalin (no relation to the Russian dictator). There are barricades to close the road, and armed police in front of the building and the ends of the block, but so far I haven't seen much activity. Some friends live in another neighborhood nearby where Stalin's father lives, (the most important government minister in Tamil Nadu--there are giant posters of father and son smiling benevolently at everyone). I went over to my friend's house the other night (to barbecue pizza on the rooftop patio--barbecued pizza with dough and other fixin's from scratch--awesome), and they had barricades everywhere.

One advantage of sharing the neighborhood with the second most important man in Tamil Nadu is that power cuts on my block will be rare. We actually had one the other night for a short time, and although the fans and lights continued on the battery backup, the air conditioners shut down. In arriving at this time of year, I missed the worse of the hot weather so lack of air conditioning is not fatal. With the balcony doors and windows open, we get a nice breeze, although I have been using the air conditioner in my room at night. When the rains come and mosquitoes arise in their trillions, I'll have to keep the balcony doors closed and use the main air conditioning more. The cook-stove is gas, so we can always cook in case of a power cut. I am going to look into getting some kind of screen doors for the balconies--all the windows are already screened.

The apartment is within easy walking distance of a grocery store, an amazing bakery, and several good restaurants. The Thai place is pretty good and the Korean place is heaven descended to earth--I'll be a regular there for sure.

Traffic here is reminiscent of Bangkok. Lanes are optional--horns are obligatory. I have my own car and driver which simplifies things greatly. Rama is a very good driver, and I feel safe. He also knows the city and knows how to get things done.

"Rama. The lock to the small balcony is broken." "Yes sir. I will fix." The same afternoon and 100 rupees poorer (about US$ 2), the lock has been taken care of.

Raju comes in 6 days a week to clean and iron. 3 days he also stays to cook. He cooks enough for 3 to 4 people, and most of the time I've had people here to help eat it, but if not I'll have great leftovers. The drawback is that Raju doesn't speak English and he also doesn't speak Tamil, so I can't even have Rama translate. We've done OK with gestures, and he does have a few English words like "shopping", "iron" and "tomorrow". He actually splits his time between here and Will's apartment in another neighborhood. Will's company has a couple of people who speak Hindi and can communicate with Raju, so if I have something complicated to share with Raju, I e-mail them and they let him know.

Anthony, who I am replacing, has been here for a year and has done all the ground work for me to have an amazing life here. He is introducing me to the area, the best restaurants and to the large network of expats from all over the world living here. I am not the social butterfly that Anthony is, but it's nice to be part of a community and I'll be fairly involved.

The first weekend I was here we went to Ideal Beach south of Chennai near Mammalapuram. It's interesting to get out of the city into the countryside. The beach is your basic tropical paradise. Relaxing on the beach in a hammock--not bad.

I have been really active in my first two weeks here, so much so that I have been dilatory in getting this new phase of the blog underway. I've been to two movies, (I can't remember the last movie I went to in the States), several dinner parties and many great restaurants. I have toured the ruins at Mammalapuram, travelled to Vellore and many other things.

More later. Cheerio, Alan