Accountant Adventures: India

I arrived in Delhi at 7am without a problem and I didn't have any luggage to get since I only brought a backpack and a small carry on. I went to the bathroom to “make a solid” but the doors on the stalls were weird and there were a lot of people watching me so I made a liquid instead and decided to wait. I walked out of the luggage claim area to try to find a pay phone to call Praj, so he would know where to find me. I couldn't locate a pay phone in the way I was used to finding one, instead they were phones at a table manned by an indian man. I showed him the 800 number for my calling card and asked him if it was free. “Ha Ha, nothing is free here sir” I tried to explain to him I would need to get some Rupees (their currency, that is worth 1/47 the Dollar) from the ATM before I could make the phone call, but he had already dialed Praj. I let Praj know where I was and then I explained to the man that I would have to get some Rupees and then I could pay him. I tried the ATM and it didn't work so I had to go and exchange money at a Kiosk that charges a fee and gives subpar rates. I returned to the man and handed him a 100 rupee bill. He returned a 50 Ruppee note to me and smiled. I told him that that was unacceptable and I needed more change. He gave me another 20 rupees back. I then said “30 rupees for a phone call, come on” and he told me “your next phone call will be free”. Great, I don't need to make anymore phone calls. So I pressed him further and made a gesture of 'give me more' he handed me a 10 rupee and I kept making the gesture and he handed me another 10 rupee note making the total call be 10 rupee. I decided that although I was probably still being ripped off, the equivalent of a quarter was okay with me for a phone call.

When I walked out, Praj was waiting for me and we embraced. I have decided that not enough people hug and I want to hug as many people as I can, hugs are nice and non threatening as long as you don't hold on too long. I ran this strategy by Praj and he warned me to be careful hugging women here, but hugging men is okay. I asked him about affection between men and he said it is common for men to hold hands, or sit on each others laps and there are no homosexual connotations. Praj and I will not be doing either of those things, but it's good to know what is normal in India.

We got a taxi ride back to the hotel that Praj had been staying in waiting for me to show up in. It was very nice with A/C (the average daily high in Delhi this time of year is over 100 Fahrenheit), television and wireless internet. The only downside was that the shower head had been broken off, so water just poured from the wall and there was only one bed. Prajwal is kind of high maintenance and by kind of I mean really high maintenance by Indian standards. As he put it “this is probably the first time an Indian has had higher standards than an American” I want to participate in real India as much as possible, without getting sick of course. We decided to leave the hotel he was staying at and go and stay at a friend of his places in south Delhi. Three middle class young professionals share this apartment (they are all engineers), it has three bedrooms (all in a row) a kitchen and a bathroom. The third bedroom is also the living room. There are florescent light tubes for lighting and fans to cool us down. The bathroom has a toilet, a sink (which spewed brown water the first time I turned it on) and a faucet with a drain in the middle of the bathroom. There is not a shower head or a bathtub. To clean oneself, you pour water into a bucket and use a cup from the bucket to put water on yourself. There is also a heating element that can be plugged into the wall and placed into the water to warm it, but that is not necessary this time of year because the weather is so warm.

I needed to get a haircut and decided to wait to come to India because I figured that it would be cheaper. We found a very nice, only 2 day old unisex hair saloon next door to the apartment we will be staying at in Delhi. I got my haircut by hand, everything was done with a razor (he used a new one) and scissors, no clippers or shavers and it cost me just over $1 USD including tip!

We walked down the street to find some food to eat and to allow me to see what india looks like. The building are old and the people are plentiful. There is trash all over and shop keepers sweep it up from in front of their business and put it in front of someone else's or throw it in an empty field or on the street. The brooms are short and home made and reqire the person to bend down to sweep. There are wild dogs and cows, large cows wandering around amongst the paved streets with shops selling everything from food to clothes to electronics. There are also so many people, just standing around on the streets, talking and existing. Today was a Saturday though, so I'm not sure if it will be different on Monday or not. When Praj and I went into any restaurant there are so many people working there. So far all of the restaurants we have been to have at most 10 tables and have 1-2 people that open the door, someone who speaks english to take the order, someone who brings drinks, another who brings the food, someone who takes the food, someone for the bill, someone to clean up the restaurant. There are often more people working there than people in the restaurant.

Transportation options to get around the town are Rickshaws (people on bikes pulling you in a cart), auto rickshaws (a motorcycle that has 1 wheel in the front and 2 in the back where people sit) and there are cabs. We have been taking auto riskshaws, known as “auto” anywhere that we were going because they are faster than rickshaws and cheaper than cabs.

The only tourist thing we did today was to go to he Baha'i House of Worship. It is also called the Lotus temple and it open to people of all faiths to come and talk with God silently. It looks beautiful from the outside but the inside is very plain.

When we went to lunch, I handed the guy a 500 ruppee note ($10) and it was too large for him to change, we had to give him smaller bills. While riding in an auto we asked the driver how much he made. He said that he owned his own Auto(he has 11 months of payments left) and after the payment and gas he makes around $90 USD per month. Some things are very cheap and other seem on par with what I would expect to pay in the US. I bought a towel for $4.50 USD to use at the apartment, but we had dinner at a Chinese place and drank 1 beer each and it was $20 USD (USD, in case you don't know is United States Dollars).

India is so much perfect for me, it is hot and everything is so cheap! So far, AMAZING!