FROM BANGALORE, INDIA

(click on images to enlarge, including above map of India)

Mumbai 2007, An Encore

MUMBAI, July 18, 2007 - Well, I am back in Mumbai after three days in Bangalore.  All business.  No time for sightseeing.  So here's a quick travelogue from the financial district of India's financial capital...

First, my hotel, the five-star Grand Hyatt, is an excellent hotel in all respects for a business traveler... close to the airport, excellent service, everything works on the first try - the internet, electronic blinds, CNN, CNBC... the works.  Well, almost everything...  

Last night, for example, I had an "exciting" start to my night. I went to bed around 11:30 and was awakened by loud noises just as I was falling asleep.  I thought there was some sort of a party going on in the concierge club lounge which was close by.  I walked out in my shorts and T-shirt to see what was going on, and saw a bunch of workers with ladders and hammers bantering noisily as they were getting ready to repair some lights.  I went to see the club lounge clerks, who were very apologetic and very nice.  They immediately upgraded me up to a suite four floors up, and sent a porter to help me move my things on a trolley without having to repack and unpack.  Which is how I got into the nice suite you can see in above two photos.

I had a good night's sleep after that.  As far as it went.  I was awakened by a call at 7:15 from what sounded the front entrance of the hotel.  My driver for the day had arrived 1:45 hours too early.  I am not kidding.  He was 105 mins early!  I was still sleepy so it took me a while to get rid of the hotel person on the phone whom I asked to tell the driver to come back at 9AM as scheduled.  Nor was it the first time this had happened here.  My rides were always either too early or too late.

I asked my host, "what it is about you people that you seem to be having such a hard time keeping track of time?  Is that an Indian thing or what?"  I wasn't angry when I asked that, just curious... Was it a cultural thing or just the individual?  I never got a straight answer, just sheepish looks.  Oh, well...

Above are the views from my hotel room of the immediate neighborhood around the hotel.  As you can see, even here in the heart of Mumbai's financial district and around a five-star hotels, there are slums.  In India, extreme wealth and extreme poverty are never far from each other.

My meetings today took place in an amazing building... with a huge glass cupola/dome over this enormous structure that houses several IT companies, among other tenants.  I was especially impressed by the heavy security all around it (as was the case with my hotel, too, by the way).  During the lunch break, I went for a walk, as usual.  And on my way out, I found this four-legged brown guy (right photo) cooling off on marble floors.  He had somehow breached the security.  Or was he a part of it?  If so, he was not doing his job very well.  He let everyone come and go as they pleased.  :-)

These are some of the sights from my luncheon walk... Pretty impressive, huh?  The second building from the right, by the way, is India's "Wall Street" (the National Stock Exchange).

Amid all this steel, glass, concrete and marble, one can see relatively small trees with humongous jungle-size leaves.  I've placed my cell phone on top of one so you can get an idea how big they are.  Also, the arrow on the right shows how high the curbs are around here, over a foot in some places.  Yet I saw yesterday a motorcycle driver in Bangalore jump the curve and do a U-e after being frustrated by a traffic tie-up.

How Many Indians Does It Take to Change Light Bulb?

MUMBAI, July 19, 2007 - We've all heard of the old light bulb jokes, right?  Well, how many Indians does it take to change a light bulb?

Answer: Three.  And that's no joke.  Take a look at the left photo.

Okay, so how many Indians does it take to turn off a water fountain?  Answer: Nine.  And that's no joke, either.  Count the number of workers in the right photo.

What better illustration does one need of "cheap labor?"  In a country of one billion, there are always willing hands to work for meager wages.  So labor savings are never the reason to buy this or that techno-gadget or launch a project.  That's one of the lessons I learned on this trip.

By the way, the preceding labor examples were some of the scenes I caught as I walked around the hotel today.  Others included unusual art pieces, such as those sculptures above...

...or these pretty pool scenes.  Sadly, as beautiful as the pool area is, there was nobody using it.  And it was hot and humid.  Guess all the guests must have been off - laboring... :-)

And that's all she wrote from Mumbai...

TO BE CONTINUED, hopefully in Thailand...

Back to World Trip July 2007 Index

Back to Home