Do the Needful

The phrase “Do the needful” means to do what is necessary as in “When driving to work and animals are encountered, do the needful so as to avoid them”. Although I have not heard anybody vocalize that expression, I see it from time to time in written documents. I just think it’s a neat phrase!

As previously mentioned, there are animals on the road that I travel every day. It is so routine with me that I don’t even consider it a hazard or annoyance anymore. Cows or other animals are on the roads; deal with it! One day while riding home from the office, there were several buses stopped in the middle of road picking up passengers. As our driver approached these buses, he decided to pass them up on the inside lane. Imagine our surprise as we approached the front of the first bus when two cows stepped out in front our vehicle. As our driver quickly halted our car, he “tapped” the tail end of one of the cows. It was bumped aside but evidently was not seriously hurt since it just walked away. Our vehicle was not damaged either. I now know why our vehicle has a cattle guard on the front. That was scary incident. Good thing I was not sitting in the front seat.

Another time while driving in downtown Chennai on the way back top to the hotel, our driver had to make a quick stop because of traffic that had also quickly stopped. His stop was not quick enough and he hit a motorcycle. The driver had a rider and both of them looked annoyingly at the fact that they had been hit, but the bike remained upright nonetheless. As they sat there looking at the bike and the car, it almost became apparent that the bike and SUV were lodged together. The rider finally kicked the bike off of the car and they sped away. Later, I had the opportunity to stick my head out the window and look at the front of the vehicle where we had hit the bike. The fender was pulled out, and there were multiple scratches and gashes on the front of the SUV. But there was no stopping either vehicle, and no police reports, and no nothing. Amazing!

The last episode exemplifies to me the Indian spirit of doing what it takes regardless of the adversity. As we were traveling on the road with a healthy speed for once, we had to slow down suddenly because the traffic ahead did the same. The vehicle next to us veered to his right to avoid hitting the car in front of him. When he did that, he cut off a motorcycle rider who then tried to get out of the car's way. He ended up skidding along the concrete median before actually crashing into it, and falling off his bike. I saw the accident and of course I was concerned for the motorcycle driver. As we continued our journey, I asked the others in the car who were locals if we should stop and render aid. Their answer? Nope! The driver will get up, dust himself off, get back on his bike, and continue on his journey if he is not seriously hurt. So there you have it. Indians do not let adversity slow them down. They get back in the saddle and get on with their business. I have seen that time and again during this month, and this event exemplifies it the best!

Do the needful, indeed!

Soon and Very Soon

Bombings and terrorists continue to be in the back of my mind but there is not much I can do about the situation. I will remain as cautious and vigilant as I can be, but I’ve got to continue to do the work I was sent here to get done. In my off hours, I remain at the hotel because we have been advised to not venture out from the hotel all week. Although we did not get out of the hotel during the week anyway, the advisory has made us all feel restricted. We remain in good spirits but we are anxious to get home as our time for departure is approaching. We leave on Friday evening close to midnight for our 32 hour journey that ends when we touch down in San Antonio at close to 9pm on Saturday (International Date Line is crossed).

One of things I’ve learned is to have a very healthy respect for the Indian people. They are a hard-working group. The country has many poor people who work very hard to make a living. The prime example of this is the road that I take to work every day. The main road is a three-lane highway in each direction. Between the two lanes, workers are building a concrete barrier (median) separating the two flows of traffic. In the United States, this would be a process dominated by machinery. The median “blocks” would be made in a machine somewhere and brought to the destination by trucks. From there, machinery would be used to lift the blocks one at a time, and place them in the exact locations where they would be fastened to the ground and each other no doubt using another machine. This is contrast to India methods. Rather than machines, work here is dominated by human labor. The median here is being built essentially by hand. Wooden forms are built in the shape of the median. Concrete is poured in the forms. The exposed top of the forms is scraped with another board to give a semblance of a flat top of the block. Canvas coverings are placed over the forms until the concrete dries. When the required amount of time has passed for the concrete to dry, the canvas is removed and some chiseling takes place to smooth the concrete. One section at a time of about 25 yards is done each day. Many people work on each section to get it done as fast as possible. This is done by the workers even as traffic speeds all around them. There are no barricades or warnings that work is in progress. The workers are essentially working on the inside lanes of each direction of traffic. Drivers just have to be observant about the hazards of people working and material in the road. So basically each section of the median is hand-built. That’s a lot of effort. Workers don’t complain; they work long hours each day and get the job done. When one section is done, they move on to the next section.

Another observation I’ve made is the animals in the road. I mentioned earlier that dogs, cows, goats, and oxen are in the road every day. That’s a fact. What I misinterpreted was the fact that this is not an occurrence on all Indian roads. In the more downtown areas of Chennai, there is much traffic of all kinds of vehicles but there are very few animals other than dogs in the roads. In fact, you don’t see more animals in the road in downtown Chennai than you would see on any American road. My hotel and work buildings however are very far to the south of the city. The area was farmland until very recently. Then many major Information Technology companies moved in to build massive buildings to house many thousands of IT workers. At the same time, roads were being built to support the flow of traffic. The animals had always been able to go anywhere they wanted but now that freedom interferes with traffic. Nobody seems to mind this though. Since cows are sacred and since traffic continues to move along, the cows or other animals are left alone to sit or walk in herds along the main road. And that’s what I see every day. Our driver is careful to avoid hitting animals (except one – more on that in a future blog entry), and our drive to work is a non-event each day.

India is a country of over a billion people. Chennai is a city of over seven million. What I’ve been told is that the city is not any bigger in area than San Antonio. Imagine San Antonio with seven times as many people as it currently has in the same space, without any major routes through the city (410, 1604, Wurzbach Parkway, etc.), with people walking on the shoulders of the roadways because the sidewalks are very narrow if they even exist, and with all types of vehicles weaving around each other. It’s like when a concert or sporting event finishes and everybody is trying to get out of the parking lot. Vehicles are generally going in the same direction, sometimes vehicles get out of line and try to go a different direction or cut in line, and pedestrians are walking through traffic trying to get to their vehicles or to buses. That’s the Chennai I see everyday on all the roads I travel. As you can imagine, traffic does not always move very fast. Even though there are pedestrians in the road, the traffic is generally moving slowly enough that the drivers have a chance to move out the way of pedestrians (not the other way around!). At traffic lights, motorcycles squeeze through spaces between cars to try to move as close to the front of the pack as possible, and small cars do the same thing. This type of traffic would not work in the United States, but then we are not in the United States. Although traffic flow is not to our liking, we don’t have to drive here. To those who live and drive here, it is a normal way of operating and it works very well. There are very few accidents because of the constant attentiveness of the driver. Cell phones are outlawed while driving. Of course, this law is not always adhered to but the for the most part, drivers are much better here than in the United States out of sheer necessity.

New targets?

Today we received advice that we should stay in our hotel another day rather than get out into the city or elsewhere. There were no more bombings, but we received the disconcerting news that a man had been apprehended with trigger mechanisms that were bound for Chennai. This evening after work, we stayed at the hotel for dinner and socializing.

One rumor is now circulating that targets in Bangalore and Ahmedabad were related to the IT industries in those cities. We are located in a section of Chennai where there is a heavy concentration of IT companies comprising many thousands of people. Since the other cities experienced the bombings at bus stops and other areas with high concentrations of people, driving past these areas on the way to work is especially unnerving. There are several sections of the road where there is heavy congestion and traffic slows to a crawl or stops altogether. These areas would be easy targets in my estimation.

Another rumor is that Chennai is the next target, and Kolkatta (previously Calcutta) is next. This spells out the anagram BACK (Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Kolkatta). I am not sure of the significance of that word.

At work, we are relatively safe. The campus of the host company has many security guards patrolling. This occurred even before the bombings occurred. Driving into the campus, our SUV is always stopped. A security guard opens the back hatch and looks inside. Another guard has a mirror positioned on a flat board with wheels used to check the undercarriage of the vehicle. The same process happens on our way out. The host company provided the first guidance that we should stay in our hotel on Sunday. We received that word Saturday night. It shows me that they are staying aware of happenings in the city and elsewhere because of their focus on security.

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Bombings

There were bombings in Bangalore on Friday. At least one person was killed. On Saturday, there were bombings in Ahmedabad. Many people were killed. Both of these cities are considered Information Technology centers in India. Chennai is another IT hub in India, and even though IT was not considered the target, our host company has advised members of our group not to leave our hotel today. We are complying.

The Indian newspapers that we have access to are very sensationalistic. Today's headline in the Sunday Times was "B'lore, Ahmedabad. Who's next?". Nothing like calming the masses... The papers show pictures of dead people laying in the rubble. This is not something you would see in an American newspaper.

The hotel staff also asked that we do not venture out of the hotel today. They assured us though that this is a highly unusual situation, and they do not expect anything bad to happen in Chennai. But they asked us to be cautious. They asked us to to be patient for a day or two and then they expect everything to be back to normal. I heard that there are police checkpoints all around our area since this part of the city has a high concentration of IT companies, and that it is taking more time to get anyplace because the police are checking everybody. Our group has already made plans to leave a little earlier tomorrow morning to get to work on time.

It is somewhat surreal to be in a foreign country with terrorist attacks occurring even though they are hundreds of kilometers away. We see and hear news reports on TV, we see and read newspaper stories about the attacks, and we discuss among ourselves about the tragedies. Yet, we are very insulated from the events. We are staying at a plush hotel, we eat at the hotel's restaurants, and everything seems to be just like any other day. It like the events are so far away, and they don't concern us. Since we don't leave the hotel, we don't even see the police which would alert us that something is very different. Tomorrow when we leave the hotel to go to work, we may have more of an awareness of the gravity of the situation. Today, we sit by the pool, work out at the gym, watch TV, eat, and anything else to pass the time.

Shopping, Jewelry, and Clothes

In past posts, I have mentioned that shopping was one of the main diversions of my coworkers, and I was along for the ride without enthusiasm. As I have tagged along on these shopping excusions though, I have come to notice some of the fine wares available for sale. As we go into stores, I see all kinds of things that I think would be great to own although I can't always justify the purchase without having a location in mind of where to showcase the item. I don't think Kim would appreciate a statue of Shiva in our living room. Shiva is one of many gods and godesses of the Hindu culture. I'm not sure what she is the godess of, but her depiction is an elephant-looking head with a multi-armed women's body in a lotus position.

There are also many examples of elephants for sale in all shapes and sizes. There are stone elephants, marble elephants, wooden elephants, ceramic elephants, and cement elephants. There are elephant paintings. There are elephants by themselves, or elephants in herds. There are statues of elephants pulling logs. There are statues of elephants carrying people. I've even seen a statue of several elephants stacked on top of one another. What is perplexing is that I have not seen one live elephant since I've been here. They must be in another part of the country. If they were going to build statues of the local animals, there would be all sorts of icons devoted to cows, dogs, goats, and oxen. But I haven't seen any likenesses of those animals.

There are many places to buy jewelry here. The primary items are made of gold or silver. There are earings, bangles, bracelets, necklaces, and rings (finger and toe). There are all kinds of precious stone jewelry and costume jewelry. I am not an expert in jewelry prices but my co-workers seem to like the deals they are finding. I am told that a toe ring and not a finger ring in the Hindu faith identifies a married woman. Women here do not typically have many piercings in their ears. Their usual jewelry item consists of up to 12 bangles on one arm at a time.

Many of the people I see on the streets wear sandals, flip flops, or go barefoot. Even in the office environment, women predominately wear sandals. In fact, I cannot remember anything but sandals on women. Most professional men wear dress shoes, but it not unusual to see men in dress slacks wearing sandals. Jeans in the office is very rare for men except on Fridays, and even then, it is not that common. It is very rare for women in the office to wear anything but saris. I have not seen any women in the office wearing suits or dresses.

Our group is making plans for last minute shopping since the upcoming weekend is our last in India. I have already purchased many items that I need to find homes for. But I now like to buy stuff. It's fun! Maybe I'll find something else that I cannot live without. I hope I will not exceed my luggage weight limit.

Seashore St Anthony Shrine Catholic Church

Sunday, I went to Mass on Seashore St Anthony Shrine Catholic Church. It is a beautiful church in the southeastern part of Chennai. It is much closer to the hotel than St Thomas Basilica.

The church doors and windows were wide open on the day I went to let in what little breeze there was. It was a very hot day even at 9am. As I looked inside I was struck by the cross at the front of the church. It is surrounded by blue neon light that doesn't look as cheesy as it sounds. There was stained glass windows on either side and above the cross. There were some renovation being done to the interior of the building, but it was still had an impressive appearance to me. I appreciate traditional looking churches and this one fit the bill. It has wooden pews with wooden kneelers. The kneelers have no padding on them. The building is generally rectangular in shape with a columns of pews on either side of the church. At the front of the church, there are extensions on either side of the altar that have seats available for parishiners. At the Mass I attended, the choir started the off with "Though The Mountains May Fall" which is a very common Christian song. And as I mentioned before, it was hot. Like the other church, this one had ceiling fans. Unlike the other church, not all of the ceiling fans were working. I felt sweat dripping down my body as I sit in my seat. The wood of the pews was uncomfortable to the touch because it was sticky from the humidity. I noticed that the priest and the altar boys were all barefoot. Several of the members of the congregation also were barefoot.

But all the normal events of the Catholic Mass were done as I expected them. Even Indians practice the Mass the same as we do in the United States. They are just a little more casual about it.

One of the draws of this church is that it has a pedestal outside the building that is about 100 feet tall. On top of the pedestal is a huge monstrance. This is said to be the highest monstrance in the world. It is gold (or gold-plated) and is visible for many miles around.

Haircut

It had been several weeks since my last haircut so I decided that today was the day that I was going to take care of it.

One of my co-workers who is here on an extended stay (six months) mentioned a place he goes to for haircuts. He and I went this morning to a business named Headmasters because he needed a haircut also. As we arrived at the "salon", we were greeted by a security guard who opened the doors of the car so we could get out. We were then met by a group of what turned out to be barbers who walked us to the door of the "salon" and asked us to come in. As we entered, two of the barbers took charge and took us to our chairs. My barber put a drape around my neck that covered ny body to keep the hair from falling on me. He asked me what I wanted and I explained that I wanted a clipper cut haircut. I asked for a 3-guard and after looking at my hair, he suggested a 2-guard. We went with a 2-guard because I wasn't sure of the guards he used and I wasn't sure if that would be short enough. I figured that regardless of the outcome, if I didn't like it, my hair would grow back. So far, this was very similar to a haircut I could receive in San Antonio.

The barber attached the guard and proceeded to run the shaver on my head. I saw a lot of hair drop on my drape. Looking at the mirror in front of me, I could tell that a 2-guard was very short. He then trimmed around my ears with scissors. He then trimmed the hair around the back of my head with scissors. So far, so good.

Then he brought out the straight razor. I started to get a little nervous. He used the straight razor to trim hair off of my neck, around my ears, and my side burns. Part of the reason I was nervous was because I had not experienced a barber using a straight razor on me before. Then I realized that I did not see anywhere a solution to sterilize the razor, or shaver, or scissors, or combs like I would see in a San Antonio establishment. I then began to wonder if I was cut if that would be detrimental to my health. Anyway, I got lucky and did not get nicked.

Then, the barber returned to his scissors to trim my eyebrows and nose hair. After that he gave me a quick scalp massage. Awesome! I wonder how much it would cost to receive a scalp massage in San Antonio.

The it came time to pay. The bill turned out to be 250 rupees. This is about $6. I gave the barber a 50 rupee tip, a little over a dollar, and that was that. I may get another haircut before I leave India so that I am aerodynamic and streamlined for the trip home. The picture above shows my haircut but I don't know if you can tell how really short it is.