Breaking Bad

All that you never wanted to know about Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) Reconstruction Surgery

As some of you know, I recently suffered from a ligament injury. This blog post is meant to give some background and update on the injury to the people who know me, and to serve as an informational resource to others who might be going through a similar issue.

Short story:

1998. Boy meets girl, girl meets boy. Boy professes his love to the girl. Girl accepts. Fast forward 15 years. Boy & Girl – now happily married (and to each other!) – go to Switzerland to celebrate the special anniversary. Boy decides to ski in Zermatt, has two bad falls, and damages ligaments in his knee. They complete their trip, come back to India, and the boy then goes through knee surgery. He is now recovering quite well and has started walking. Running, and more importantly, riding his bullet motorcycle are still 6 months away. Much to the delight of one of his friends, who is happily thumping along on the cycle for the interim period.

The Long Version:

I will skip the boy meets girl part – that’s better narrated in-person. :)

Let me start from the fall at the ski resort. This happened in Zermatt – an absolutely gorgeous, car-free town in Switzerland. Zermatt’s ski resort is quite famous – it has Europe’s largest summer ski runs and is one of the most preferred places for professional skiers to practice during the summer & fall months.

(2nd Sep 2013. In Zermatt. Matterhorn in the background. One day before the fall)

Anyway, as I started skiing, fell once, and most likely partially tore one of the side ligaments of my knee (the MCL). I realized after the fall that I needed to pack & go back. I also noted that the only way to go back was to ski all the way down the slope. I started doing that, and as I was navigating a turn, felt a searing pain in the MCL due to which I couldn’t balance myself, and went into a completely uncontrolled fall. Pretty bad one. Once I had stopped tumbling, I found myself howling away in pain on the ski slope. After a few minutes, a nice person stopped by, and we communicated in broken English

Me: “Help. Knee. Pain. No Ski”

“Bring doctor – here?”

“No, no doctor. I go back. To Hotel”

“Ok. I go down, tell office. Ok?”

“Yes, danke. Danke so much!”

15 agonizing minutes later my savior came on a ski mobile. The first question he asked was “Do you have a credit card?” I’ve never been happier with my Capital One card.

(In cable car, on the way back from the ski slope. Notice the bump on the left side of the knee)

About an hour later, I was back at the hotel, narrating the incident to Neha & discussing next steps.  We went to the amazingly nice local doctor, who confirmed that I didn’t have a fracture but most likely had damaged one or more of my ligaments.  I was told to “pay the PRICE and do no HARM”:

PRICE = Protect, Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation

No HARM = No Heat, Alcohol, Running, Massage

Interesting outcome of this – the doctor told me to take some injection to prevent DVT (blood clots) on the flight back. And since we were going to do a bit of traveling for the next few days, he taught me how to apply the injection myself. We took turns, just for the fun of it – I did it once and Neha did it the second time. That was a new experience that I wasn’t expecting to come out of the Swiss trip!

Anyway, 4 days and 7000 miles later, we were back in Delhi/Gurgaon, where an MRI confirmed that I had

(a)    a partial (grade 2) tear of the MCL,

(b)   a full (grade 3) tear of the ACL

By this time, I had learnt that:

·         Knee ligaments prevent the knee from unnatural movement, such as excessive sideway movement, twisting movement, etc. There are four such ligaments in each knee

·         If there is a large degree of unnatural movement with significant amount of force, the ligaments get damaged or torn

·         ACL injuries are fairly common while playing football (both kinds), basketball, and skiing

Here’s a short (about 5 min) but very informative video on the ligaments, their purpose, what happens when you tear the ACL, and an overview of the surgery

(Note that the surgery example given here uses a graft from the hamstring. The one that I got done used a different graft – more later)

A partial tear gets fixed by itself (as long as you protect it). A full tear can’t be fixed and you have two broad options:

a.       Live with a torn ACL: Usually recommended for the elderly or those who don't live very active lives. The risk is that your knee will keep hurting and can give way with even a minor misstep

b.      Get surgery done to reconstruct the ACL: Recommended for most people less than 60/70 years of age. The surgeon will remove the torn ACL and insert a “substitute” ACL. The substitute could be “harvested” from:

a.       Part of your own hamstring

b.      Part of your own Patellar Tendon (the ligament that joins the knee cap to the shin bone)

c.       From a cadaver

There’s much discussion about which kind of ACL reconstruction to go for. Here’s what I have learnt (note that I am by no means a professional – you need to talk to your doctor if you are evaluating this decision):

1.       Cadaver harvesting is less painful. But chances of complications are more, since there’s a foreign body being inserted into your knee. Also, the ACL might give way after a few years and might need replacement again

2.       The differences between hamstring vs. PT harvesting are minor. If your surgeon is more comfortable with one vs. the other, then go with whatever he/she wants to do. PT harvesting does leave a bad-ass scar (4-5 inches), so if you care a lot about that, you can go with the hamstring option

Here’s a great resource with more information: http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=a00297

My surgeon wanted to evaluate the condition of the knee during surgery and make the decision then between Hamstring vs. Patellar Tendor. I was cool with it. He ultimately went with PT.

Surgery.

I was brought into my room at about 8am. Preparations started in full swing. A battery of tests was done. I was given a good shave of the leg. A big fat arrow was made on my left leg using a marker pen (to remind people which leg to operate upon). I was asked to change into this pink attire:

(Don't mess with me, even if I am wearing pink!)

I was wheeled away from the room around noon, from where I was taken to the pre-surgery prep room. That’s where two questions were asked at least 15 times at different stages:

“Which leg is it”

“When did you last eat or drink something”

I am glad that the folks at Medanta don’t leave any room for error here.

I was then administered regional (spinal) anesthesia. The thing is injected into the spine – it hurt more than a regular syringe, but less than how much I thought it would – what with the needle going into a bone etc. Within 5 minutes, my lower half of the body was completely numb. The surgeon joked that even if I wanted to run away from the surgery, I could no longer do it, given that my brain couldn't control my legs.

I was then taken into the OT, where the operation lasted for about 45 minutes (or so I’m told). The surgery is done using arthroscopy (fancy word for camera-assisted). Here’s a fascinating video of the entire procedure (This is not the video of my surgery, but the operation is identical to mine. Note: Graphic Advisory):

("Glorified Carpenters" at work - in words of my surgeon)

I could hear the drills, the hammer, feel being pushed & pulled, but magically (&thankfully) didn’t feel any pain at all. I wanted to see the operation, but they had put curtains to prevent me from doing it. My surgeon had promised me that he'd give me a DVD of the operation (which I now have!).

The down side of the operation was that half-way into the procedure I started feeling queasy, dizzy, and threw up. This happened multiple times in the post-operative area and later in my room as well. I was told that my body reacted strongly to the anesthesia, and this does happen to a few people.

Post-surgery

Quick notes post surgery:

·         The attendant (Rhea) during my stay in the hospital was awesome. Neha was extremely uncomfortable in leaving me alone, given that I was puking my way to glory. The attendant tried to convince her that she was there at the press of a button, but Neha requested her to stay by me the entire night. And she did! The entire night, she sat inside the room by the entrance, doing her paperwork in the light coming from the bathroom. Once I started feeling better, I told her that she could go back to her attendant station, but she said that she had promised Neha she’d be there by me, and so she wasn’t leaving. I was just bowled over by this dedication. Thanks sister Rhea – I will never forget this!

·         There was pain and discomfort the first night, and I didn’t get much sleep

·         Was discharged from the hospital the next day. The incisions in my knee had been stapled (21 staples in all!!) and the leg was wrapped up tightly in crepe bandage. Finally, a dial-a-loc brace was fitted, that prevented any knee bending. I was allowed to walk using a walker

(Another use for Milton's stapler!)

Note: This pic was taken 2 weeks after surgery, hence the absence of swelling

·         The crepe bandage felt too tight. Apparently the doctor had told my wife (when I was puking away) that when I come back to my senses, I will start complaining about how tight the bandage was, and that is to be expected. That’s exactly what I felt. It all started to feel better after 3 days

·         Pain subsided significantly after the 3^rd night, just as the surgeon had predicted

·         I couldn’t lift my leg at all for the first 4-5 days. Getting in and out of bed was difficult – someone had to lift the leg for me

·         Key thing during the first few days is to make sure you don’t keep anything (pillow etc) under the knee. Your knee should be perfectly straight. And keep doing the few exercises they tell you to do – especially the one in which you need to tighten your thigh muscles. You can’t do enough of those

·         Garbage bags come in very handy to water-proof the leg as you are taking a shower

·         I had a lot of swelling in my ankle. A lot - it felt like the foot would burst! Apparently its normal. Keeping the leg horizontal helps. Keeping it above the level of the heart helps even more

·         If you feel uncomfortable with the brace and can’t sleep, don’t worry. You’ll get used to it very quickly. The brace is extremely important while you are sleeping – it makes sure you don’t do anything stupid in sleep. Don’t remove it unless your doctor allows you to

·         Having to sleep in one position the entire night was a bummer. I kept getting up a few times every night

·         I started a little bit of work (from home) day 2 post surgery. But couldn’t accomplish much in days 2-5, partly due to the uneasiness & pain, and partly due to headaches that I was getting which were the after effects of the anesthesia. Starting day 5, I resumed work (still from home) with about 80% efficiency. I plan to start going to the office now (2 weeks from surgery), given that I can now bend my knee

Current condition:

I’ve completed 2 weeks post surgery (and 4 weeks post incident). I got the staples removed yesterday and am now allowed to walk using a stick.

(On way to getting the staples removed and knee lock relaxed. Can you feel the excitement?)

I can (and need to) bend my knee as well. Currently I can manage about 45 degrees, but will most likely be able to go to 60 degrees in a few days. 90 degrees will come in a week or so (all of this per my fabulous surgeon Dr. Vivek Dahiya of Medanta, who’s been spot-on with his predictions so far). The walking stick / crutch will go away week 6 post surgery. Driving can start week 8. Running is 6 months post surgery. Intense sports (soccer, skiing, etc) can resume 12 months post surgery. The speed and amount of recovery depends upon how well do I stick to the physiotherapy regime. It might also depend on how much fun I have with all the attention I am getting these days – here are a few examples:

(Foot painting in action. You can still see the arrow mark that was painted pre-surgery)

(I am now a work of art - Guess this whole surgery thing ain't that bad)

So that’s it folks. Thanks to the awesome staff at Medanta. Thanks to everyone for their wishes. And big thanks to Neha for being the most patient wife ever!

Cheers!

Lazy Indian Advertisers

Aaaggghhhh.....Crappy Ads.....!!

This blog entry is about really crappy ads. When I was in the US, all of us desis would often remember those nice, funny ads that we used to have back in India, and complain about the utter lack of creativity in American ads (please, spare us those 100x zoom of burgers and sandwiches and other edibles!).

Having moved back, I've realized that Indian advertisers have also caught upto their American counterparts. Here's a list of really crappy ads from India that make you want to puke!

1. Let's start with chocolate and candy. And I know that moving from "puking" to "chocolate" isn't a very sensible segue, but its at least more sensible than the ad I'm talking about.

Do you like chocolate brownies? How much do you like them? Would you still eat them if you knew that your head would explode as soon as you've tasted the first bite? That's probably the loyalty test that Eclairs seems to be going for here:



What earns this ad a position in this list? Well, the utterly ridiculous & scary imagery. There's a guy who is completely engrossed in enjoying his candy, soaking in the flavor. There's another woman totally absorbed in playing her musical instrument. And BAM!! Their heads explode into bursts of chocolate. Then there's the bonus dash of sadism that the DJ brings in, when he rewinds and re-explodes people's heads a few more times. Finally, in order to make sure that you never ever try this flavor of Eclairs again, they leave you with a parting shot of another head explosion.

2. Now that you've eaten chocolate, let's get your teeth cleaned. The next one is from Colgate:



By the time you have seen this ad, you probably have a lot of questions in your mind. Where did the woman suddenly come from? This is a frikkin' plane after all. Given that there is food service going on, its fair to assume that the plane is in flight. So where did she suddenly appear from, along with her entourage? Does she go around hiding in planes, waiting to pounce on some unsuspecting poor soul who happens to have a toothache? And why is she so angry? What's up with the sudden barrage of questions? Why are her people clicking the guy's photographs? Why is the guy carrying the box of the toothpaste with him while he is sitting in a plane? (I've never sat in a plane with the toothpaste carton in my lap, but maybe that's just me). After the job is done, why does the woman run away so quickly - where's she gonna go - jump off the plane?

Too many questions...

3. Another crappy chocolate ad - this one is from Choc on. This ad is being bombarded on us at an average of 3 times during every movie screening in the hall. I utterly fail to see the point that the marketer is trying to convey here. Maybe the overall thought goes along the lines of "Katrina is pretty, and we will show her in 3 pretty dresses. She is also fairly expensive to hire, which means that we have done our bit of spending a lot of the brand owner's money. Now will you please buy their chocolate?"



The only saving grace of this ad is that we are not subjected to Katrina's heavily accented Hindi. But that's about it. The connection between the blue Katrina, the white Katrina, and the red Katrina is not very clear in my mind. Then of course there are some puzzling questions around why the blue Katrina is roaming around in what seems to be an abandoned haveli, coming right out of a horror movie. Are the other two Katrinas real or are they imaginary? What's with the wolf/dog? How did the blue Katrina suddenly get a Choc on in her hand, as soon as the white Katrina got one? And finally, why should I eat Choc on? Will I start seeing two more versions of myself once I've had the chocolate bar?

In any case, this is one crappy ad, and I have vowed to never eat Choc on in my life, as a matter of principle. They gave me one for free when I was in PVR last week - its lying around somewhere...

4. Not a great Idea Sirjee!

Idea ads have always been pretty pointless. This one takes it to heavenly heights.




I don't think I need to add too much commentary here. Apparently Idea will change not just my life, but my after life as well, one app at a time. How you ask? Through the use of Google Googles!
And the watchman at the heavenly gates is a Gurkha/Nepalese guy. I guess he couldn't escape from the lowly job, even in heaven.

What comes to mind about the creator of this Sir-G ad - that he was "lay-G" (read lazy)...or that his experience & degree is completely "fur-G" (aka fake)...or that he should be sent back to standard LK-G...Anyway moving on...

5. Fair and Lovely - Poor impression

You want to get a job - first go and apply Fair and Lovely. Earlier, only women could use this short-cut, now the smart scientists at Hindustan Lever have invented a concoction that works for men as well. So you don't need to talk about your experience, your educational background, or any of the other nonsense that might prove how valuable you could be to the firm. Once you've spent enough money on Fair and Lovely, you can just walk into an interview where there are 15 people ready to interview you, but apparently you do all the questioning. One interviewer will do all the answering. And everyone else will nod and give you the job. Simple.




6. And now coming to the crappiest of them all - from J K Cement:

This one packs the entire laziness and nonsense into a short burst of 10 seconds. Enjoy!



(Sorry about the poor quality of the video)
Another one of those ads where I don't need to add any commentary. The pointlessness is fairly...revealing, should I say?

So that's a quick round-up of some really crappy, puke-inducing ads that I've come across these days.
Not wanting to leave you with a bad taste in your mouth, here are a few refreshing ones:

1. Maruti



Funny, very Indian, amazing reaction of the girl, and great connection with the product & its USP.

2. Airtel



Once again, hilarious and quintessentially Indian. Blends well with the Airtel theme of "har friend zaroori hai".

3. Idea - bunny



Catchy tune. And connects with the product pitch.

4. Axis



I find this ad to have a lot of warmth. Great example of trickle down economics. The story comes full circle at the end. And its all related to products of the brand. Very Indian too. Well done.

The ad reminds me of another great ad that Amex in the US came up with in 2009:



Superb music, great positivity, and a warm fuzzy feeling that will connect with every entrepreneur.

5. Camlin



Really funny, in a setting which seems anything but. Again, very Indian. And with an extremely witty connect with the product. Take the last few seconds out, and no one would have guessed that this is a Camlin ad!

6. and two of my personal favorites - Seagram





Great music in the background, superb acting by both the guys, and a hilarious twist at the end.



Hope you enjoyed the post! Remember to rate this post using the options below.

Cheers!


 

Whats yours is mine and whats mine is my own

I am back! And with a lot of material / nonsense / thoughts / experiences to share. Let's start with an exciting topic - taxes!

Recently I posted a quick comment on Facebook about quirky corporate tax laws in India, and sensed that there was some interest. So this piece talks more about a few specific issues on corporate taxes, advance tax withholding.


Before I get into the specifics, let me share some interesting background. A friend asked me what the corporate tax rate in India was. In order to answer that question, and provide some comparisons, I have plotted the corporate tax rates for a few countries:

(Click the picture to see a larger size image)

Some interesting takeaways here:

1. US, the bastion of capitalism and free markets, has the highest corporate tax rates in pretty much the entire world (40%). It was awarded the first position when Japan dropped its tax rates to about 38% last year (March 2012)
2. I used to think that the US and UK have similar policies towards openness, free markets, government involvement, etc. The corporate tax rates suggest otherwise: 23% vs. 40%
3. India is at 32% - definitely on the higher side. China is at 25% and Hong Kong is at a paltry 17% - roughly half of India's. Yes, we have finally beat China on some dimension! :)
4. Another surprise to me was that some of the European nations that I thought were nanny states & would charge higher taxes - France, Belgium, Sweden, etc - don't actually have very high tax rates (relatively speaking)

(Clarification: The knowledgeable might respond back by saying that the US tax rate mentioned above is nominal, and that the reality is different due to tax shelters and tax havens. This is true. But my goal here is to compare the tax rates as imposed by the government. How organizations react to it is a different mattter)

Anyway, now getting back to the interesting intricacies of the Indian tax system that I wanted to write about:

 

India has a concept of TDS (Tax Deduction at Source). This was adopted to prevent non-payment of taxes. The overall scheme is straightforward - every business is required to hold back 10% on all vendor payments and is required to deposit these to the government as advance tax on behalf of the vendor. The vendor can then account for these appropriately when it files its taxes at the year end. The Indian government also charges 12.36% Service Tax on all services rendered by organizations (similar to sales taxes charged on products). This is where the fun starts:

 

Say you are a consulting company that is raising an invoice of $1M. Your client will pay you only $900k and will deposit $100k as advance income tax (TDS) on your behalf. You will also have to deposit service tax of $110k immediately. So you end up getting $790k in your hands. Note that this is before you have made any profits or accounted for any costs. Now say you are a growth stage company and you planned to reinvest the $1M completely. This means that you end up with a loss of $110k (due to the service tax). You are still ok with it and file your taxes at year end, asking the government to return your $100k of advance income tax, since there wasn't any income. The fun thing is that the government will take its own sweet time to return this money (we are still waiting for our return from last year). But it tries to be good, and promises to pay you a 6% interest rate on the delay. You decide to ignore the fact that the delay is not counted from the day when the TDS was deducted, but from the end of the financial year (Really? So you are going to enjoy the float on my money?). Then the government tries to generally start messing with you and slips in the fact that this 6% interest will be taxed as income (WTF!). Add to this the fact that inflation in the country is 11%, so effectively the 6% return is a -5% loss in real income anyway. By the way, if you are a start-up, you know that your real cost of funds are orders of magnitude more than 6%, so that $100k getting delayed by a year kinda hurts. Anyway, you hope that life would be fair and that any delays in your tax filing would be treated similarly. Ha ha ha - hard luck - apparently when money is owed BY the government, it will pay you 6%, but when it is owed TO the government, you have to pay them 18%. By this time, you give up and utter that phrase that most Indians speak when they hit a brick wall with the system - "Mera Bharat Mahaan"

 

So that was the interesting tidbit I wanted to share. Before I wrap up, another juicy fact related to taxes. Recently, I found out that the Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon was sitting on about Rs. 650 Cr (~$130M) of surplus corpus from previous year. What did the MCG do with this money in the last 12 months? Did it put this sizable money into developing parks? Or maybe they improved the road light situation. Who knows, they might think of improving the roads. No, no, and no. Our local government, in all its wisdom, decided to put the money into fixed deposit saving schemes, earning 9.85% interest rate. Remember that 9.85% is less than inflation, so the real return is negative / close to zero. This is absolutely criminal - the MCG can think of no useful way to use this surplus cash to make the lives of the residents any better!

 

This coming year again they expect a surplus of some Rs. 300 Cr or so. Guess where that's going.

 

Mera Bharat Mahaan!

 

More later. Let me know what you think about the post.

 

 

 

Of Tomato and Tamatar - Home Version

After taking a long hiatus from writing, I’m back. Thanks for all the readers for their reminders. Well thanks to everyone except one: No thanks to Bhawna for waking me up on a Sunday at 7am to remind me that I haven’t written a blog entry for a while!

Anyway, I am back, and have a lot of material for a few blog entries. Before I go into the details of this one, a quick summary of where we are (wrt the move to India) these days. We have totally settled into our life in Gurgaon, have started identifying “our” restaurants and “our” sabziwala, Indus Insights is as exciting and demanding as ever, our squash game has improved (thanks to the court in our apartment complex) and we no longer stop at red lights if there isn’t a compelling reason to. So, as our dear friend Kashyap puts it, we have passed the two stages of moving back (Stage I: “losing the romanticism”, and Stage II: “desperately wanting to move back”), and are onto the third stage – “being a part of the problem”.

While there’s so much to share, I’ll continue from where I left off. In my last article, I was talking about some minor differences between how Amreeka operates and how this country functions / tries to function. Drawing a parallel to MS Windows, this blog entry is the “Home” version, the next one will the “Professional” version, wherein I’ll talk about how the professional life is different. So without further ado:

• Hello hello bol key

Every country has a different set of introduction etiquette, and India is no exception. Infact, in many ways, it is similar to the US than many other Asian countries. But there are some interesting differences. The obvious one is that women usually don’t shake hands (either with men or with other women). So when our property broker would come every morning, he’d shake hands with me. Neha would get a 2 arms distance, a dazzling smile, and a “Namaste Madam, kaisey ho aap?” (Namaste madam, how are you?).

The other piece that is not immediately obvious is the myriad different ways of shaking hands that we desis have come up with:

(1) “Handle with care” Handshake: Looks like a regular handshake, but the grasp is extremely gentle, as if the other person is concerned that he might break your bones

(2) “Hold you forever” Handshake: The handshake has a regular start, but the end…well, you keep waiting for it, and it never comes. So you end up holding the hand of another guy for an awkward 30,45,60,120,…seconds

(3) “Multitasker” Handshake: The handshaker has something else in his hands (keys, his 2nd cellphone,…) and can’t/won’t keep this stuff in his pocket. He goes on to multitask, with some of his fingers holding on to his stuff, and extends a finger or two towards you. How you proceed is your call

(4) “Mother of the Multitasker” Handshake: Similar to the “Multitasker” handshake, but this time there’s larger stuff in the guy’s hand. Example range from a water bottle, as shown below, to a kicking and screaming baby (yes, that was my first experience with this handshake). The solution – the handshaker extends his wrist out to you. Quite awkward when it first happens to you, coz you are left wondering what to do with the extended wrist. Do you give it a wrist bump, do you extend your wrist out as well, or do you just waive a hello? Here’s what we did:

• Pass yaa fail

We go to a restaurant and order some food. As we wrap up the food, the waiter asks Neha if she would want some dessert (he asked the right person for sure!). Not sure what comes over Neha (she usually doesn’t say no to such questions), but she says, “Thanks, I’ll pass”. The waiter gives us completely bewildered looks, and asks the question again. Neha has the same reply. He thinks about it for a few seconds and then says, “Is that a yes or no?” The poor guy was wondering why was Neha telling her her expected examination results, and moreover, if she was so confident that she’d pass, she should be celebrating by ordering some desserts!

• To eat or not to eat

Similar to the one above, but with a role reversal. Its my first time at Haldiram’s – the chaat and fast food place. I order a Raj Kachori (the #1 ordered item at the place) and get a coupon for it. I go to the chaat area and give the coupon to the server. He looks at it and says “Hmm, Raj Kachori. Khana hai?” ("Do you want to eat it?") Similar to the waiter in the story above, I’m totally bewildered. I mean what all activities can you do with a Raj Kachori? I start thinking about all the various potential uses, and feel like one of the comedians on the prop round of “Whose Line is it Anyway” who have to come up with as many bizarre uses for the same prop as possible. After convincing myself that the guy isn’t thinking that I’m interested in just smelling the Kachori, and that throwing the Kachori at the face of another patron and starting a “Kachori Fight” isn’t probably what ppl do, I go with the offensive route. “Khanee hee hai, aur kya karoonga. Hadh hai!” ("What the heck, of course I want to eat it. What else would I do with it?"). The guy says “Sir, gussa kyon ho rahey ho, pack bhee kara saktey ho” ("Sir, why get angry, you could also get it packed"). Lesson learnt – the “khana hai?” question is the equivalent of the “For Here / To Go?” phrase in the US. Incidentally, that phrase also had me confused for a while in the US (more so because it is spoken so quickly)

• Co-existence w/ nature

Living in India means co-existing with other living variants of the non-flora kind. No matter how picky you are, how well designed your doors and windows are, which restaurant you are visiting, you’ll come across a few insects/rodents here and there. We saw a rat at a Haldiram’s, I have killed two lizards in our apartment so far (and scared off a few more), and the monsoons have brought with them a steady supply of random insects with <12 hours of average lifespan. Our first experience with this co-existing phenomenon happened at an Airtel customer service center. As we were explaining to the agent the kind of plan we needed for our blackberry, out crawled a baby cockroach, straight onto the agent’s desk – about a foot from Neha’s hand. Neha happened to notice it, and tried to induce a heart attack in the poor animal by giving out a 120 dB shriek. As everyone turned around to see what calamity had befallen on us, the agent asked Neha what had happened. Neha conveyed her big discovery – “there is a cockroach here!” The guy looked around, saw the insect in the limelight, and shrugged it off by saying “So what, it’s such a small one”. Needless to say, Neha was left speechless.

I guess I’ll leave everyone with this mental image of a baby cockroach. More material coming up pretty soon. And yeah, don’t forget to rate this blog entry by clicking on the options below.

Cheers,

D

You say tomato, I say tamatar

Having spent a fair bit of time outside the country, I consider myself part foreigner and part Indian. One of the advantages of being a part foreigner is that you get to observe the differences in how people act & interact – those minor things that a local doesn't notice, but a traveler finds amusing. So here are some of the interesting tidbits I’ve seen so far:

• Double 1 and Triple 2

When saying numbers, such as phone numbers or bank account numbers, people here have a tendency of using “double” or “triple”. The funny thing is that if you don’t use it, they will get confused and ask for a clarification. Case in point - my phone number is xxx43222. During our initial few days, when asked for my contact info, I would say “…four three two two two”. Quickly would come the verification – “Triple Two?”, as if I had committed a grave folly of calling 222 as "two two two" instead of "triple 2", and that the mistake needed to be corrected right away. This happened 100% of the time, whether we were talking in person or over the phone, to a business contact or a call center agent. (By the way, I have seen the opposite as well. Desis trying to use double 1 and triple 2 in the US, with little success. No one understands it over there).

There was a funny incident with this number reporting when someone gave me his number as “blah blah four three…”. I got the number, repeated it and he said that it was ok. I told the guy that a couple of digits seemed to be missing. After a few minutes of back and forth explanation, I realized that he was trying to shorten “3333”, didn’t want to say “double three double three” and probably hadn’t heard the word quadruple – hence the confusing “four three”.

• Sahab, Biwi aur Gulam

Noticed something a few weeks back that struck me as a bit strange. A Merc stopped in front of a mall, “madam” got out immediately from the back seat from one side of the car, and then waited in the sweltering heat. The driver then applied the parking brakes etc, unbuckled himself, got out of the front seat, and opened the rear door for the “Sahab” to get out. What struck me as weird were two things. First, why would a perfectly fit person wait for a minute or two in car (while his wife is waiting outside in the heat) for the driver to open the door instead of opening it himself? I mean it’s one thing to not carry heavy stuff or to not chop vegetables (saves time and effort), but it's totally a different thing to not open a freakin' car door. Come on!

Second thing that was odd was that the driver opened the “Sahab” door, not the “Madam” door. This is something I have seen on numerous occasions. In the US, it’s the women who get preferential treatment – people will open the doors for you, waiters will ask the women for their order first, etc. It’s the opposite in India – there seems to be a fair bit of sexism, even in a city like Delhi. Not that I am complaining :)

• Sheet sizes and the square root of 2

This one is more of a nerdy piece of fact. Regular paper size in India (and most of the world) is A4. In the US, it’s a “letter” size. To satisfy my curiosity on these differences (and to take a break from client development), I did a bit of research into the topic. On the surface, the US letter, with a size of 8.5” x 11” sounds sensible (round numbers), as compared to the bizarre 210mm x 297mm (8.3” x 11.7”) dimensions of an A4 sheet. But delve a bit deeper and you’ll uncover some practical logic behind the “A” series. So here it goes:

The largest size in the A series is an A0 with the dimensions of 841mm x 1189mm. Why the bizarre size? Well, if you multiply the two, you get the area of the sheet as one sq. meter, which is not a coincidence. Then why not 1000 mm x 1000 mm, why choose these seemingly bizarre dimensions? There’s a reason for that - if you take the ratio of 1189 by 841 you get 1.414, which is the square root of 2. This is a special ratio – what it implies is that if you fold the sheet in half parallel to the shorter side (so that the new dimensions are 1189/2 = 594 x 841), your resulting sheet still has the same aspect ratio of 1.414 (=841/594). This size, by the way, is size A1. Repeat the process a couple more times, and you now have a size A4 sheet. So you can get all the A sized sheets just by folding an A0, and all these resulting sheets will have the same aspect ratio. Implication - if you are enlarging or reducing material, the result doesn’t come out to be stretched or squished. Pretty logical, eh? I guess I am now a convert to A4!

That’s it for now. There’s more coming up in the “tomato-tamatar” series soon – it’s going to be about handshakes, about eating out, and about passing up on things. Stay tuned. And yes, cast your vote on this blog entry below.

- D

And the deed is done

Yes, the deed (i.e. the move) is done! We were reunited with all of our belongings a few weeks back (April 10th or so). Needless to say, we were very excited as can be seen below

(Neha is totally overjoyed to see her beloved dresser. For reasons best known to her, she's completely in love with this dresser that we bought for $40 in DC. Maybe its because this was probably the first piece of furniture we bought as a couple. Or maybe the love comes out of all that we had to go through to get it - Pentagon security, a military hummer with an LMG (Light Machine Gun) aimed at us, drive escorted by a cop convoy...)

Our good luck seemed to continue. The delivery supervisor had told us that they would get to our apartment between 8:30 and 9:00. We had laughed off at it ("who gets up at 9 in India!!"). Surprise, surprise - our intercom buzzed at 8:45 - "Sahab, samaan delivery vaaley aayein hain". Wow! Really, am I in India?

The guys started delivering the stuff....and soon enuff there were walls of boxes all around:

They were done by about 4. We were overjoyed to find out that there was no major damage - all the glass & china kitchenware, our glass hutch and cupboard with glass doors, all the electronics - everything came completely intact. It was as if someone hit control-x in Chicago, and control-v in Gurgaon. The dresser mirror didn't survive the journey though...but that was it. Kudos to Suddath/Sentry (http://www.suddath.com/) - our movers - on a job very well done. Highly recommended.

As we started unpacking, we came across some really interesting things that the movers had packed. We told them to pack everything, and they followed the directions completely. What came out of the boxes(besides other things):

• 2 rolls of Toilet Paper
• 4 bottles of ice mountain water - 2 of which were empty!
• Appliance manuals that belonged to our landlords

 (Back to square one! Some India made snacks complete the journey from India to the US and back)

 As the unpacking progressed, we realized that we had too much of wrapping / packing paper everywhere. So I started doing what smart people do to grapes to create alcohol, as seen here:

Only difference between the above and my paper crushing experience is that I look slightly different (equally attractive nonetheless), and that this was done in HA (Haryana) instead of CA (California):

(Me, stuffing packing paper back into empty boxes. Useless rule of thumb - about 3-4 boxes of paper can be packed into an empty box. Maybe more if you aren't as fit as I am, and tend to be on the heavier side :) )

So that's all about the move!

Other News Part 1 - the Axis bank account got opened in 5 business days. I am not going to hold it against the bank that I was told 2-3 business days. This was leaps and bounds better than Shitty-bank. I guess no more business to Shitty-bank.

Other News Part 2 - I've been reading a bit about Web Analytics. To put the theory into practice, I am starting to collect some feedback on my blog posts. From now on, each post will have a poll at the bottom to get your reaction in one click. Options are: Blah/Boring, Mild, or Interesting. Please let me know what you think of the blog posts (and be honest - you won't offend me!).
- D

Close Call

Got up this morning and checked the news. Turns out that the container depot (ICD) that we had visited two days back, and where our stuff was stored for a few days, caught fire yesterday.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Crores-go-up-in-flames-at-depot/articleshow/5783112.cms

It took about 12 hours for the firefighters to control the blaze. Thankfully there were no personal injuries, but the loss to property is sizeable - unofficial estimates for the total loss are around INR 500 crores (USD 110 MM). This happened hardly a day after our stuff had moved out of that warehouse! Close call...I guess a thank you trip to the nearest Mandir is on the charts now.

- D