Today and yesterday the people around us have been celebrating Ayudha Puja.  For us, it looked like this:

People decorate their cars and tools, smear them with sandal wood paste and rejoice.

Also, there were lots upon lots of firecrackers going off on the main street, which alerted us (hanging out in the hammocks) to check out the convoy passing our home street a block away. So out we went to see what was going on and saw these trucks:

There were people shouting slogans on the trucks, and apparently they were happy to see us there  judging by the hollering, waving of hands and smiling faces.   There was one guy who looked like he’s in charge, at least he was ushering the dancers and drummers on if they tried to stay to impress the gawking foreigners as you can see from this video. And here’s the guy with my sweetie:

In other news, we seem to have a resident falcon, who tends to perch on the palm trees on our home street. Its screech is beginning to sound familiar, as it’s telling off the rooks trying to get its food. (I’m not sure if it’s the same falcon all the time, they all look alike and there are lots of them, but I like to think it’s the same individual.) I will do my best to get some footage of the big bird.

Tags: culture, holiday, natural beauty, people in india, religion

Check this out. The only modifications are a few changed nouns, otherwise the whole sentence is in its original form:

As discussed for the below said mail, changes in the project as per Pertti requirement the quotation PDF file been attached requesting to view and approve and please provide the billing address to do the needful.”

Oh, how I miss Finnish rally champion English sometimes.

Tags: language, people in india, ways of working

I had an interesting discussion with the Team Leader on Thursday.  It was supposed to be a review of what has been done in the past three months (has it already been 12 weeks?), but it turned out to be something completely different.

First of all, there wasn’t much to review. All the hussle in the beginning of the assignment plus a six-week sick leave left me with about two weeks to work on something useful to do, which obviously gives me almost zero performance. Tough luck, shit happens and so on. Being young and naive, I of course assumed that project management knows what is happening and has alreay had a couple of weeks to react to this situation with sick leaves and all.

Well, no.

The TL, in all his wisdom, had decided not to inform our project manager about my six weeks of absence. He thought it made him look bad if he had to bring such negative news to anyone, so instead he decided to try to pressure me to take corrective actions. Mistake number one.

I’ve never worked with anyone so passive-aggressive in my life, and this person is no less than my manager. He “tabled” (his way of saying “bring up”) my absences, my performance figures, my future plans (wedding in Finland, honeymoon trip) and tried to make me feel guilty for being unable to work. He never said it directly, but he wanted me to cancel my honeymoon plans in order to catch up with things. Mistake number two.

It’s hard to express the body language and tone of voice he used, but these should give an idea:

“I want you to see where I’m coming from, and you have been absent a lot. Now this honeymoon leave…” (silently waits for an answer)

and

“I went on a honeymoon on the second anniversary so I knew my wife better when it happened.”

Needless to say, I wasn’t going to budge. Had he taken proper action (informed the project manager, searched for substitutes and so on) and given me a direct proposal for a schedule, I could have considered giving in a bit. Right now he is shooting himself in the leg by trying to make me guilty and pressuring me without actually saying it. He is also damaging the whole company by giving false information about the situation, but that’s nothing I should care about.

Immediately after the meeting I called up the project manager and gave him an update on what the situation really is. He thought it was best to find someone else to do the job (since I now lack some required knowledge) and promised to find a solution. I clearly have to call him more often to keep things running.

All in all: the TL fucked up, tried to make me feel guilty about being ill and passive-aggressively pressurised me to save his ass. Which I didn’t and won’t do.

On the other hand, we have a week-long reservation to Komandoo.

Tags: colleagues from India, culture, holiday, oh bugger, people in india, practical stuff, time, ways of working, what is different, why I wanted a change, work

Being out of office has left me with plenty of time to do stuff, and it has gotten to the point where I am having problems with too much time to spare. The whole thing is even worse considering that reading and long sessions on the computer are off the menu, leaving me few options that my eyes can handle. That’s why I’ve been playing Rock Band, building Legos, listening to podcasts and riding the bike a lot. An eye patch allows me to work on the computer for some time, but it’s still a strain and I would rather not do it a lot. Unfortunately the lack of entertainment keeps me coming back to the desk to read some blogs or whatever.

I like to say that there are no boring environments, only boring people, but this time it’s shooting back at me.

Or maybe it’s just lack of company and good conversation that makes me feel this way.  No matter how I try to be open, positive and all that, I just don’t find myself on the same wavelength with the locals. I especially have to supress my twisted sense of humour to avoid trouble – people have gotten fired and mobbed for a lot less than what I usually like to say and do in the free world.

And I’m not even going to start about sarcasm, a form of art all India seems to be oblivious about.

Having to watch my language and behaviour this much all the time has also given me a reason to stay at home more than before. Here I can still be fully me, but without my friends it feels… futile.

Like, what’s the point of being a clown in an empty circus tent?

Tags: culture, friends and family, oh bugger, people in india, religion, time, what is different

Fuck fucking fuckety batshit-fuck fuck fucking fuck.

I’ve been ranting about my work and how things go wrong in many senses, but this is personal.

Some half-assed donkeyfucker has stolen a small rubber dinosaur my wife gave me when I left. It was innocently sitting next to my monitor when this scurvy lubber decided to snatch it.

What in the world possessed some shit-faced douchebag to steal a used kid’s toy worth two rupees? What the hell is wrong with everyone?

Well, at least the people here are extraordinarily brilliant in making the office repulsive to the maximum. As if lousy ergonomics, missing coffee rooms and dismal infrastructure weren’t enough, someone has to add injury to insult by stealing my stuff.

Fuck this job.

Tags: oh bugger, people in india, surprises, what?, why I wanted a change, work

I just got the last Abu out of the house after a full day of cleaning, packing, installation of aircons and organising schedules of ten or so people. The gentlemen from the removal company came to pack up and take away all the stuff that didn’t belong to the House (or me), and at the same time a couple of guys came to install air conditioning to the two remaining bedrooms. On top of that I received the first lot of my rental furniture, but more on those in a moment.

At first I have to say how positively surprised I was with the guys who worked here with us today. They arrived on time, listened to our instructions and did their job with astonishing quality. They even suggested calling a real electrician to check out the wirings before connecting any of the equipment, which was something really unexpected. Of course that’s the safe way of doing things, but I never expected to see that in here. Still, two thumbs up and mad props to the guys for these:

The official ladder is actually next to the guy on the right, just against the wall.

Would you climb up there on a ledge less than half a meter wide?

I also got quite a bunch of furniture today, so let there be more photographs:

Some nice paintings in there…

…some missing bottles in here…

…and a missing queen witch here. If this one doesn’t tell who’s the fairest of them all, it can’t be done.

This one is placed in the master bedroom right now, but I’ll have to see if there’s more use for it in some other place. Who knows, maybe I’ll run out of storage space (not).

And there’s more to come, but  not yet – first I need a good night’s sleep on my new king-size bed.

Tags: moving, my pimped-up interior design, people in india, photos, time, ways of working

I am waiting for my furniture lot to arrive any minute now, but there have been small problems with the directions to the house. I finally worked it out how to tell local people where I live.

The answer is obvious: I don’t try to explain anything to the person who speaks English as his/her third or fourth language, but go to the guards and let them give directions. They know the place, they know the language, and they know the culture. What good can I bring to it, knowing none of those very well?

Tags: people in india, ways of working

Oh bugger.

The goddamn shit-faced communist ass-munchers in the office have shown their gratitude for my souvenirs by eating 90 per cent of the hugely expensive 3kg chocolate box I brought with me. Without my consent, implied or otherwise.

Okay, I admit I didn’t lock it up, but still: what the fuck? What the hell is wrong with these wankers?

I swear the next box I bring with me will have liquid laxative and Viagra injected in them.

Edit: Just to emphasise, the chocolates weren’t even showing. Someone has gone through my drawers in order to find them.

Tags: oh bugger, people in india, surprises, what is different, what?

Remember when I had my stuff packed in April for shipment to India? The ones to be transported by sea?

Well, it seems like they’re already in India. I was informed that the ship arrived at Chennai last Saturday and they are being moved to a train today. If I’m lucky, I’ll get to pay the customs on Thursday and may see the actual stuff before end of this week. I did all the paperwork today with some help from the removal company, meaning that their agent tells me where to sign and fills up the forms for me afterwards. All I had to involve in was listing the values of my goods for the customs declaration.

And boy, did I get a firm reminder of where I am.

The agent was quite close to passing out when he heard how much my video projector had cost, so he made some adjustments to the figures before writing them down. It seems now that my home theater – including the projector, amp, speakers and Xbox  with its controllers and all – is now worth 300 euros in total. Add in the other dutiable stuff and the shipment is valued at around 700 euros for duty purposes.

Right.

Tags: money, moving, people in india, practical stuff, prices, time, ways of working, what is different