R2I - FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Imagine this.... its sunday afternoon..... u have just come back after having a sumptuous meal at a restaurant..... the kids have fallen asleep in the car on the way back..... you have just had a meetha pan...... you are staying in a service appt and it is all cleaned up by the time you are back.... the a/c is at full blast..... it is very quiet, clean and laidback .... perfect time for some cuddling or kicking back and penning some thoughts. However it takes two to tango. So here comes a blog post -
It is hard to imagine that it has been over a month since we moved to India. Life has been very hectic inspite of me being at home full-time. Here are some of the likes, dislikes and generic observations.
LIKES
- I have this sense of belonging here which was not there in US and I like it. it is apun ka india and I feel I always can do simple things that I feel like doing. Like going for a walk in morning or evening and always finding myself surrounded by a whole eco system (people, vehicles, animals, birds, garbage, shops, etc). In US it was just main aur meri tanhai. 
- Weather. Never thought I would put it in the LIKES category. Bangalore weather is great. Period. Locals say that it is possible to experience all 3 seasons (summer, winter and rainy season) in a single day. It feels great to be able to go out for a walk at night (and not worry about it being too cold or wet as in seattle) albeit for now the walks are restricted to going out with N in a stroller for putting him to sleep.
- People. People here are very curteous and simple. I haven't met a rude person so far. Also due to the sheer amount of people you encounter every day, you don't have to put on a forced smile every time you pass a person. 
- Family. currently my parents are with us and they have been of great help. couldn't have imagined what we could have done without them. The kids are getting to spend real quality time with them. my parents are free to do things on their own without relying on us for everything. they independently go out, do groceries, entertain kids outside in their own ways, go to temple everyday, etc. at the same time i feel that they don't have to always stay here for a long time as they can come and go more often. so they would get to have their life as well as enjoy more frequent time with us. similarly we are not  constrained to be their sole entertainment providers when they visit us and we get to see them more often.
- Food. Eating out is cheaper and we can generally expect tastier food. Also there are more veggie choices when we go out for grocery shopping. In US, esp in winter, it used to get tiring to do grocery shopping and then eating the same set of 3-4 veggies.
- Exposure to indian mythology (I am not convinced I can put culture instead of mythology). M is learning stories about Krishna, Hanuman, Ghatochkach mostly via cartoons. He is totally into going to temple with his aaji everyday. At some level it feels good and I think it would be easier for us to inculcate things like respect for elders, keeping a promise, guru shyshya parampara, etc since there are many handy mythology stories. 
- Non-stop cricketing action on TV and local grounds. Great to see the passion this sport evokes among people.
- Don't have to wait for days/weeks to get a doc appt. Just show up, wait for a while and get seen. On the flip side, even if you have an appt, you still have to wait past your appt time.

DISLIKES
- Infrastructure. There are days when we yearn for good basic infrastructure - roads, parks, utilities, etc. I cannot take N in a stroller and go for a walk on the roads since there are too many potholes on the pavement (if there is any). So you are stuck with either carrying him or traveling by car. Bangalore is a city of parks and so there are many parks to take the kids to. However, the facilities are basic and competition intense. 
- Inefficiency. It is everywhere and seems like here to stay. In our service appt, there are over 30 such appts. They only have 2 washers and 1 dryer to meet the laundry needs of all the appts. The washers and dryer are of smaller size than the ones we use for our personal laundry. This includes doing the sheets, towels, etc in addition to the personal laundry of the people staying here. every time it is a battle to get laundry done - sometimes the clothes come back not fully dry (or rather wet) and they stink since they have been kept that way in the washer for a while, sometimes they are still dirty, sometimes they need to to sent outside since the dryer is under repair, etc. The people responsible for laundry are very honest and work very hard to meet the incessant demands. However they are just not equipped to do their job and life goes on this way. This is just one example and I can go on and on here. I will give just one more example. When we had to open a citibank account, we had 3 people show up to talk about it. They accord gold status on anyone willing to put more than 3 lacs rupees and give special treatment. However the whole process of opening a citi gold account took about 2 weeks with 3-4 personal visits by multiple people to our place. At the end of it we were irritated by the length of process and the number of times we had to be home to meet these folks. Citibank people did not think twice about having to come to our place after a long work day to collect one document when they could have been diligent and given us the entire document list that they would have needed. Also in almost all cases only 1 person per visit would have been sufficient.
- Lack of kid related activities. Many days, we have a whole day free with car and driver available and 2 hyper active kids at home. The whole situation begs for taking them outside . But where? Other than parks and malls there are no other places. Going to mall means spending at least Rs 500 - 1000 to keep the kids entertained. So that is not a viable everyday option. We are still exploring here.
- Work culture. I haven't dealt with this since I am at home. Arti tells me a bunch of stories to make me cringe. Even in multi nationals, work culture is not professional. Managers don't think twice about berating employees publicly and in a loud voice (praise is mostly reserved for private interactions), employees don't have much loyalty to the company, HR has no clue what they are doing, there isn't any thought process given to team values, team bonding, employee satisfaction and retention, etc. No wonder people switch jobs so often and are so stressed out.
- dust and pollution. Cannot escape it. Period. The effects are on health, clothes, appliance wear and tear, appearances of people, houses, buildings, etc.
- Treatment of and by worker class. There is a very conscious effort to segregate the worker class from the rich people. This is visible in small details like them having to use service elevator in a luxury high rise, pathetic condition of servants quarter within a appt, having a middleman (like a contractor) to deal with the laborers, etc. It just didn't seem right. However, I soon found that the behavior of the worker class also warrants this behavior to some extent. They cannot be trusted at all - to do what they are supposed to do without being shouted at, to NOT do what they are not supposed to do (like steal) and one has to be at them all the time to get the work done in a timeframe that is close to what they promised in the 1st place. As an example, there have been so many things missing from work (at Arti's workplace) that they have sacked the janitor company. Things that go missing range from IPhones (like Arti experienced), laptops to pens, cereal boxes, etc. Now that the janitorial service has been fired (they have another 15 days till termination), everything goes. Even small items like noodles packets are being stolen from office. Another example is that in the appt that we are going to rent, wardrobes are currently being put up. There are 2 workers doing the work and 2 contractors shouting at them to get the work done. Apparently without the shouting, nothing gets accomplished. I am not sure how much gets accomplished with the shouting as well since we have seen minimal progress over the last 2 weeks.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS
- Not to sound offensive to Kannadigas, but I haven't seen too many attractive locals (applies to both men and women) here. 
- An average indian spends a lot of time in front of TV. Also the decibel level of the TV is higher than it is strictly needed.
- Cleanliness awareness and enforcement is appalling. Navmi and Dushera are big in Bangalore. On Navmi, every tom, dick and harry, after doing pooja, throw and break open a pumpkin like fruit. So far so good. However no one bothers to do anything with the broken fruits (other than put gulaal in it). So on navmi, we see hundreds of broken fruits with seeds  and red gulaal spilled out and lying on the roads. This is even in front of posh malls. Two days later, they are still on roads and don't look and smell so fresh.
- When I go to drop off/pick up M from his school, I see people sleeping in parks, under trees, etc. It does not matter if there is commotion around them, if the sun is beating down harshly on them. Even with such high stress levels among people, there are some who have the time and inclination to pursue such activities.
- There are a lot of old growth trees in central bangalore. These trees are huge (really huge) and must be many years old. I hope they stay that way and don't get chopped down for a mall or high-rise.