Ohm... Shanti Shanti...
I'm south of India, city of Chennai (formely Madras), province Tamilnadu. Surprisingly enough, everyone here speaks enough English to communicate with outlanders. The native language is Tamil but most of the time you don't hear it, unless you're in a little village; or perhaps they all stop speaking it when they see a whitey.

I feel like a rock star. Surely, I'm the center of attention. Most people here have never seen a white person before. I bet they've never seen blond hair either. I don't know if I can handle all this popularity. Now I know what being a super hot woman in New York feels like. This is probably not going to change the way I look at super hot women, though.

On Partying...

There is a dozen of night clubs in Chennai. However, they all close down at 11pm. WTF??? At exactly 11pm the music stops, the lights are lit, and the bar is closed. Nobody really kicks you out at this point but 20 minutes later everyone wanders off anyway, thristy and craving more excitements. Fortunately, at this point everyone is unafficially invited to an afterparty - the party is at our office/hotel.

 

Back to Business

I'm here on a long business trip, which lasts about a month. There is a plethora of .NET developers to teach. What's really funny is that a lot of them are women. I always thought being a computer geek is a privelege of the male race but in this country many roles are reversed. If I'm in a bar talking to a local lady, chances are she's a programmer. You can tell it right away by the first words from their mouths. A classic example is "Do you play 'Dungeons and Dragons?' I love strategy video games." OK, maybe not the exact words but you get the picture.

 

On Whacky Food

If you are a New Yorker like myself, who is used to variety, you'll suffer greatly. Food out here is fairly basic; there is not much of a choice. Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Italian? Forgetabout it. Be prepared to eat the same stuff every day.

Also, food is just too damn spicy. Asking the chef NOT to put hot stuff into your dish won't help you. The standard response is, "No, my friend, this is just part of the food." My response is generally, "Nah, it's PART of the food because you PUT IT IN THERE."

Here's me munching on a Dosa. It's filled with chili peppers. This picture was clearly taken before I took the first bite

 

 

On Culture

But enough of my bashing. There were interesting things to see, like this unfinished sphere in Auroville - The Town of No Religion. This is the only place in India where people don't practice any religion. I didn't meet many people around there so it was tough to make anything out of it but I liked the concept.

 

Here's another interesting thing - getting blessed by an elephant. One leans in and the elephant blesses him, i.e. lightly taps him with its trunk.

This particular elephant won't bless you unless you give it a coin.

There were also nice temples; unfortunately we weren't allowed to photograph. Gotta respect that...