Monday
I thought I'd write a diary for the first week and then take individual experiences and incidents and get along with my blog. After all who wants to red a daily runt?;) So today is the last day. We landed late night last Monday. And today we finish a week.
Morning was pretty routine. We didn't get coupons for milk on Sunday so we went for yet another early morning walk (:D) to get some milk. After that we got ready and ate Chocos (:D :D :D) and left for work. Incidentally since we got married, this was the first normal day for us. Each going our way for work and coming back home in the evening. So we got off. Today is going to be a busy day. Our appliances were going to get delivered in the evening and so I thought it would be a busy day. If only I knew!
We took an auto outside the apartment complex (its like a mini city) and headed to work. Subhash gave me a list of things to do when people called because he was leaving the phone with me today, since I was going to go home early for the appliance delivery.
Now I have to mention my commute :D 10 minutes flat! 4 KMS. Thank God we moved closer to Cisco. Else those 1-1.5 hr commutes although exactly were not killing me, they were beginning to get weary;) We walked till the front of the apartment (maybe 0.5 KMS?) and then I got off at the entrance to the IT park where Cisco is and walked to the building. I was sweating so much by the time I got in that the AC felt good. And I wanted to drink cold water!! Yay!!! I am back to my old self. I used to love drinking cold stuff till I went to the US and anything that was not boiling hot used to make me shiver. Damn those winters and those cold nights! So long as you don't think I am insane you are free to assume that I came back for this heat :D
After I got to work, I got a call from the broadband guy saying they can install it today itself! Wow! I had heard that the turn-around times are around a week. This guy not only promised it to us in three days, he beat his own estimate and said he was going to give it to us the very next day?! I must be dreaming!! I told him I was at work and cannot come over immediately. I asked him to send the technicians over at 4PM.
I got to work. Then I got a bunch of calls thanks to keeping Subhash's phone with me. Then I got one call from some technician at LG saying he was going to come over in half an hour to install the washing machine. I was shocked. This cannot be. They said they were going to deliver at 6PM. How can things be faster than promised? I told him that I was at work and they were originally supposed to come at 6PM and he said he was around this area and that later he wouldn't be able to come all this way. So I had no option but to leave immediately. Thanks to my 4KM commute now, I was home in 15 mins.
I have to snippet a conversation with the auto driver. I was thinking I'd have to walk all the way to the gate of the campus to find an auto, but i found a guy right there. I said my thanks to god and asked him if he would go. He asked for 60 and this is how the conversation went
Auto: 60
Me: Yaake kod beku 60? 4KMS ide ashte alla?
Auto: 50
Me: Meter 30 uu aagalla.
Auto: 40 kodiri
Me: Meter yeshtagatto ashte kodtini.
Auto: Sari.
Basically means Auto guy asked for 60, thrn 50 then 40 then noticed I wouldn't pay and agreed to go by the meter. Wow! Me and my Kannada :D Its a proper mish-mash of Telugu works mixed in with some Telugu-ish accent. But hey! I am trying;)
The guy came well over 45 mins later. And he asked me to show him where he must install it. I showed it to him. Then he asked me "Ok, where is the machine". I went whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? You said you were going to come and install it. He said he was just going to do the installation for a machine that already existed. So we decided he should come back tomorrow when the machine is finally here. Same time, same place. I called the broadband guy to see if he could send the technician over now as I was home anyway and he said he couldn't. So I got back to work (no internet at home => no work done there => have to go back to work) after unpacking the last clothes suitcase (yeah that guy took so long to come!). Rs. 75 gone for this exercise in autos. Plus the auto guy on the way back was nasty. I insisted on paying by the meter so he challenged me to pay by the meter, will you pay me whatever the meter shows? I said yeah, and he was in such a rage that I was pretty sure he was going to mess with the meter. I muttered to him "Kyon, meter bhagaoge kya?". Rightly so, his meter showed that my campus was 6KMS from where we started which was a good 2 KMS over the actual distance and I had to pay him 40 which is what the meter said, and I told him I knew how he messed with it. But what cannot be cured has got to be endured.
Since too may things happened today, I shall write another post on the second half of the day. I got back to work and went to lunch with a big group of women (girls) and generally got to know some more people. They looked like a fun group. Hopefully I won't stick out ;)
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Breezy nights
W have huge French Windows in all the rooms in this apartment? And the owner very thoughtfully got Mosquito nets made for all those doors. So we are actually sleeping with the doors open :D And I simply love it. That night breeze plus the sound of that fan. Reminds me of my window-side sleeping arrangement back in our Tarnaka apartment which I missed so sorely the last 7 years.
R2I diaries - Day 6
Sunday
Our first proper day in the new home. Woke up early (see how this is also becoming routine;) ). We decided to check out what we needed to do for newspaper deliver, milk, groceries etc. We went to the front of the apartment complex (this whole complex has some dozen buildings, and they are spaciously laid out, not cramped into a small area, and that floored both of us) and asked the security guy. He said there was a grocery store in Building#n and the milk store was in Building #m. While we were walking to the security, we noticed the newspaper-wallah in Building#n so we ordered delivery with him already.
We went to this store next. I wrote a post last year when I was in India about how enterprising our folks are. And was I happy to see this store. They rented an apartment in the ground floor (its been so long since I saw ground floor+ first floor etc as opposed to level 1 level 2 etc;) ) and setup shop there. Some 3-4 guys were moving around handing supplies billing, weighing etc. We went in and were surprised to no end. Everything you can imagine was crammed into that 400 sq foot living area/dining area of this apartment converted to a shop. We picked up some basic supplies like "Kelloggs Chocos" (Did I mention this was my favorite cereal brand before I left for the US? Was I disappointed to not find the exact same thing there or what?!), some bright bulbs (we hate yellow coloured lights) etc. These guys said that if we called them and told them what we need, they would deliver it to our apartment (happy happy happy :D :D)
We then went to the Milk Shop. I saw Nandini and I was happy. I love "Nandini Tuppa". I used to hog on it when I was a kid being pampered by all my aunts;) I badly wanted to drink flavoured milk (a ritual that my friend K and I used to regularly perform every evening in Hyd's summers coming back from college) so we got the Kesar flavoured one in a tin. We bought a packet of milk. The guy told us about the coupon system for milk. Just buy a booklet of coupons, hang a bag outside your door with coupons in it (as per how much you need) and lo and behold! in the morning the coupons are gone and the milk appears ;) Convenient? You bet! I remember painfully carrying those gallon cans of milk upstairs whenever I did groceries. Sigh!
I thoroughly enjoyed our little round-trip walk (little less than 1 KM) to the front of the apartments and back (ours is the last but one block). People were jogging/walking/taking kids for a stroll. In general chatting away when someone familiar came by. Boy! Did I not come back for these sights and sounds. Yes! I did!!
We came back and got back to unpacking. Subhash did the majority of it while I did some minor parts. We made Pongal and ate. We remembered we forgot to buy pickle while we were downstairs at the shop. So we called him and he brought us a Priya pickle jar and we paid him and that was it!! Didn't have to take out the car to go anywhere to buy it. Better still, didn't have to compromise and eat this stuff without any pickle! :D :D
We had to go to SSK's place for lunch. The Airtel guy was going to come over to pick up the application forms for Broadband at home. Not sure what we owe no-thanks to but he came at 1.30 PM instead of his promised 10.30 AM ;) And this caused a push out in all our plans. We were late in going to SSK's place for lunch. We had to take home a gas cylinder from their place (Subhash had this connection before he left for the US and he left it with them. When we met on Saturday, they mentioned they had it and that we should take it as they had one too many cylinders now;) And we were happy, because that one LPG gas cylinder seemed a problematic thing and a thing of distant future, but now we could have one!! And an almost full one at that! :) ) So we went to their place had lunch and I endlessly admired SSK's wife V's painting talents. She had some of them framed and they were amazing!! Wow! People have so much talent, I feel so deprived of any talent whatsoever.
We had to go to Metro to buy some things. This is a membership thingy like Costco and you buy in bulk. Membership is not easy to get and V had somehow managed one. So we went. And shopped for some things. Again cringed about how expensive it was and got ready to pay. But this guy only took cash. Alternate was pay with Citibank cards and pay 1.5% surcharge. We cringed and agreed. V was going to swipe her card since we didn't have one. Only to find that all his gateways were jammed and their calls wouldn't go through. We were kangaal, didn't have any cash. After innumberable attempts finally our payment went through but SSK and V's didn't. They had cash so they paid for theirs and we finally got out. A good half an hour spent just to pay for the things. Reminded me of those long lines in Walmart. Except for that here we didn't wait in the line, we waited at the counter ;)
V was going to pick up something close to Y's place and so we went along and then dropped by Y's place. We were actually going to take the cylinder and the stuff from METRO and head back home in an auto but we didn't find any so SSK had to drop us home yet again, so we thought might as well tag along with them wherever they went ;) So we also went to Y's place, I updated S on the happenings between yesterday and today and then the boys went off in their typical style to "The Lake" while we girls discussed interesting things;) Reminded me of the gang back in the Bay Area. Boys off to Starbucks or some place while girls stayed home and talked on endlessly about all kinds of things. We used to call ours the "PJ Party" and the boys felt threatened by this cult and so they used to go off to do their own thing and called it the "Lungi party". Boys, I tell you! ;)
SSK and V dropped us home after that good time in Y's place and I made dinner (Plain dal+Pickle(remember the one that was delivered?)). Simple dinner but all the same. We used our new cylinder and hence that nice Faber 4-burner stove in the kitchen this time instead of my single Primus Cabson one:D
I was thinking about writing this last night/today and it seemed so long ago. I could have bet it was a week ago or at least 4 days ago. But it only happened less than 2 days ago. And I am amazed at how slowly time moves. Our days are just filled with so many things that something that happened early morning yesterday seems like ages ago when you think of it tonight! Wow!
Our first proper day in the new home. Woke up early (see how this is also becoming routine;) ). We decided to check out what we needed to do for newspaper deliver, milk, groceries etc. We went to the front of the apartment complex (this whole complex has some dozen buildings, and they are spaciously laid out, not cramped into a small area, and that floored both of us) and asked the security guy. He said there was a grocery store in Building#n and the milk store was in Building #m. While we were walking to the security, we noticed the newspaper-wallah in Building#n so we ordered delivery with him already.
We went to this store next. I wrote a post last year when I was in India about how enterprising our folks are. And was I happy to see this store. They rented an apartment in the ground floor (its been so long since I saw ground floor+ first floor etc as opposed to level 1 level 2 etc;) ) and setup shop there. Some 3-4 guys were moving around handing supplies billing, weighing etc. We went in and were surprised to no end. Everything you can imagine was crammed into that 400 sq foot living area/dining area of this apartment converted to a shop. We picked up some basic supplies like "Kelloggs Chocos" (Did I mention this was my favorite cereal brand before I left for the US? Was I disappointed to not find the exact same thing there or what?!), some bright bulbs (we hate yellow coloured lights) etc. These guys said that if we called them and told them what we need, they would deliver it to our apartment (happy happy happy :D :D)
We then went to the Milk Shop. I saw Nandini and I was happy. I love "Nandini Tuppa". I used to hog on it when I was a kid being pampered by all my aunts;) I badly wanted to drink flavoured milk (a ritual that my friend K and I used to regularly perform every evening in Hyd's summers coming back from college) so we got the Kesar flavoured one in a tin. We bought a packet of milk. The guy told us about the coupon system for milk. Just buy a booklet of coupons, hang a bag outside your door with coupons in it (as per how much you need) and lo and behold! in the morning the coupons are gone and the milk appears ;) Convenient? You bet! I remember painfully carrying those gallon cans of milk upstairs whenever I did groceries. Sigh!
I thoroughly enjoyed our little round-trip walk (little less than 1 KM) to the front of the apartments and back (ours is the last but one block). People were jogging/walking/taking kids for a stroll. In general chatting away when someone familiar came by. Boy! Did I not come back for these sights and sounds. Yes! I did!!
We came back and got back to unpacking. Subhash did the majority of it while I did some minor parts. We made Pongal and ate. We remembered we forgot to buy pickle while we were downstairs at the shop. So we called him and he brought us a Priya pickle jar and we paid him and that was it!! Didn't have to take out the car to go anywhere to buy it. Better still, didn't have to compromise and eat this stuff without any pickle! :D :D
We had to go to SSK's place for lunch. The Airtel guy was going to come over to pick up the application forms for Broadband at home. Not sure what we owe no-thanks to but he came at 1.30 PM instead of his promised 10.30 AM ;) And this caused a push out in all our plans. We were late in going to SSK's place for lunch. We had to take home a gas cylinder from their place (Subhash had this connection before he left for the US and he left it with them. When we met on Saturday, they mentioned they had it and that we should take it as they had one too many cylinders now;) And we were happy, because that one LPG gas cylinder seemed a problematic thing and a thing of distant future, but now we could have one!! And an almost full one at that! :) ) So we went to their place had lunch and I endlessly admired SSK's wife V's painting talents. She had some of them framed and they were amazing!! Wow! People have so much talent, I feel so deprived of any talent whatsoever.
We had to go to Metro to buy some things. This is a membership thingy like Costco and you buy in bulk. Membership is not easy to get and V had somehow managed one. So we went. And shopped for some things. Again cringed about how expensive it was and got ready to pay. But this guy only took cash. Alternate was pay with Citibank cards and pay 1.5% surcharge. We cringed and agreed. V was going to swipe her card since we didn't have one. Only to find that all his gateways were jammed and their calls wouldn't go through. We were kangaal, didn't have any cash. After innumberable attempts finally our payment went through but SSK and V's didn't. They had cash so they paid for theirs and we finally got out. A good half an hour spent just to pay for the things. Reminded me of those long lines in Walmart. Except for that here we didn't wait in the line, we waited at the counter ;)
V was going to pick up something close to Y's place and so we went along and then dropped by Y's place. We were actually going to take the cylinder and the stuff from METRO and head back home in an auto but we didn't find any so SSK had to drop us home yet again, so we thought might as well tag along with them wherever they went ;) So we also went to Y's place, I updated S on the happenings between yesterday and today and then the boys went off in their typical style to "The Lake" while we girls discussed interesting things;) Reminded me of the gang back in the Bay Area. Boys off to Starbucks or some place while girls stayed home and talked on endlessly about all kinds of things. We used to call ours the "PJ Party" and the boys felt threatened by this cult and so they used to go off to do their own thing and called it the "Lungi party". Boys, I tell you! ;)
SSK and V dropped us home after that good time in Y's place and I made dinner (Plain dal+Pickle(remember the one that was delivered?)). Simple dinner but all the same. We used our new cylinder and hence that nice Faber 4-burner stove in the kitchen this time instead of my single Primus Cabson one:D
I was thinking about writing this last night/today and it seemed so long ago. I could have bet it was a week ago or at least 4 days ago. But it only happened less than 2 days ago. And I am amazed at how slowly time moves. Our days are just filled with so many things that something that happened early morning yesterday seems like ages ago when you think of it tonight! Wow!
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