Dating in India

For those of you wondering why I'm not dating any locals in India, this will give you an idea of part of the reason. It's a funny article written from the guy's perspective about dating a Sikh Indian girl, and it also gives interesting insight into life in India. I live in the Punjab which is mostly Sikh. Thanks to Kevin for posting it on the trainee blog.

Ahh... the things you have to worry about in India: the sequel.

My colleague passed on the following amusing message to me, which she received in response to her complaint that there was no running water in her house:

Just a quick update, I had a call from [name omitted] and apparently monkeys were on the roof of sector [omitted] yesterday. They damaged the tank and also stole the water level controller and as a result the tank on the roof did not fill up from the ground tank that is connected to the city water supply. They are making all of the necessary repairs, but are also installing some further locks so that the monkeys, should they return, will not be able to access the tanks.

"Further locks" ?! Does that mean the monkeys picked the existing locks?

Happy Holi!

I arrived in Delhi last night and am staying over at my good friends, Steff and Kath's place. Tonight, I'll be catching the midnight flight to Singapore for a little vacation (and yes I double and triple checked the date this time).

I decided to take advantage of my time in Delhi today to stock up on some food supplies to take back to Chandigarh. My goal was to buy some bacon and some cheddar cheese, which are rare commodities in the sleepy city of Chandi. So, I walked from Club Canada to the compound gate and asked the guard to call me a taxi. He dutifully did so and recited the taxi license plate number to me so that I could verify that it was the same car he had called.

I got into the little black mini-van taxi and greeted the turbanned driver with a 'Saas ri kaal'. As per normal, I had to ask him to uncover the meter so that I could see that it was showing a reasonable amount and that he actually had it running.

During the drive to the Lodi Market, I noticed a man with a pink face riding a motorcycle, which didn't quite register because crazy sights in India are a common occurrence, then I noticed a pedestrian with a purple face and shirt... then it dawned on me. "Oh no!" I thought. "Today is the start of Holi!" As Saroj had explained to me a few days earlier, on Holi you can't get angry if complete strangers runs up to you and smear coloured wet powder on your face, pour a bucket of it down your pants, or squirt coloured water at you with a watergun! So, if you don't want to get dyed, then you hide at home. The official holiday at work isn't until tomorrow, so I had forgotten that it is actually a two-day event. As I looked down at my white jacket and cream linen pants, I contemplated asking the taxi driver to turn around. Instead, I decided that when the driver asked me if he could wait for me to finish my errands so that he could take me back to the embassy, this time, I would wisely agree, in order to minimise the chances of being Holi'd.

Luckily, my errands were completed without incident. Don't get me wrong, I think that Holi is a fantastic idea and just perfect for colourful India, but I'm not sure I'm ready to walk through the streets of Singapore with purple skin! Maybe next year...

More Hockey

Rob, the LA Kings Junior Team coach who played on our Canadian hockey team up in Leh, has written an article about his trip and it is now posted on the LA Kings website. Just click on Local Hockey in the upper right corner, then click on 03 in the purple at the lower right hand corner of the top box. From there, you can click to see the article, entitled Local Hockey Spotlight, which will appear at the bottom right of the page. (Sorry it's so complicated. I'd link you directly to the page, but it's not set up to allow that.) The article includes a short video as well.

Ahh... the things you have to worry about in India.

The total of my electricity bill was three times the total of my last bill. I was informed today by my office that they are sending someone over to the house to check it out as they suspect that someone is siphoning off my electricity. This is a very common occurrence in a country where most people do not pay for their electricity as can be deduced from the tangle of electricity wires seen almost everywhere.

Ahh.. the things you have to worry about in India that would never occur to you in Canada.

Pimpin' Oscar

Though I missed out on my biennial ritual of watching the Olympics, I didn't miss watching the Oscars this year. And I have to say that watching the delayed broadcast here was a LOT easier than taping it in Canada and then watching it later... as in nobody spoiled the results for me here!

Thanks to Jean, we managed to watch a few of the Oscar picks from the small DVD collection that she had brought back from her recent trip to Malaysia. Brokeback Mountain, Walk the Line, and Good Night and Good luck were the three that we saw. Armed with that limited knowledge and whatever hype we had heard through the grapevine, we carefully chose our Oscar picks and had our voting sheets laid out in front of us. So last night, Jean, Nacho, Jamie and I settled in my TV room with some dinner in front of us to watch the beloved Oscars.

We watched the show while volunteering the usual catty remarks about everything from the dresses worn and the quality of the acceptance speeches. As usual, Jack Nicholson had a magnetic presence in the front row of the audience. Anyone count how many times the camera showed him sitting there all cool in his sunglasses? It must have been at least 30... and he wasn't even nominated for anything.

The biggest surprise for me was which song won - It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp from the movie Hustle & Flow. I can't believe that a rap song with the word 'pimp' in it won! Go Academy!

As for who won our little awards prediction contest, that was me! I got 10 categories right, but mostly in the obscure categories like live action short, animated short, foreign film, etc. Not bad considering I guessed those categories purely based on the titles of the films (like how "Tsotsi" sounded the most foreign in the foreign film category).

I look forward to watching more of the Oscar picks over the next few weeks. I just saw Memoirs of a Geisha tonight at the one cinema that shows films in English - Fun Republic.