I just got back from accompanying a pale and sickly friend of mine here in India while he was getting an UltraSound at a small lab. The waiting area was packed out with people, and, as expected, everyone there seemed perfectly “o.k.” with their surroundings. To my eyes, it looked like overcrowding, lack of order, and violations of all kinds of health standards....

In the movie, Avatar, Jake had to make some serious adjustments in order to connect with the 10-foot tall Na’vi of Pandora. The fact that he was able to LOOK like the Na’vi was certainly an advantage, but it did little to cover for his near complete ignorance regarding Na’vi culture and values. He was an outsider needing to become an insider, and it...

Local Arrogance & Bigotry. Arrogant? Yeah, we know what that means, and we react pretty strongly when such a label is stuck on us! Boiled down, I suppose we could say that arrogance is unduly inflating the importance of someone or their ideas. Bigoted? O.K., that one takes a bit more thought, and means that we form opinions and conclusions without just cause. We...

Deep feelings of inadequacy, misunderstanding and loneliness are an inevitable part of an expat’s journey toward becoming connected in their new world. Niamh, a new friend of mine, tells us about a “little misunderstanding” – the kind we’re all bound to run into – that pretty much ripped her heart out, and sent her retreating from the enthusiastic hope of...

Last night I was invited to have dinner in the home of some good friends. We enjoyed Mughlai Kababs first. Wow! Those were tasty, especially with the chutney my host had made to go along! Then we moved on to the main meal: rice, daal, chapatti, raita and biriyani. So delicious! (My wife is out of town, so I’m doubly grateful). When I had eaten my fill, the host...

O.K., I’ve been driving my motorcycle in India for 6 months now, and it’s time for a preliminary analysis. I live in a small city of about 1,000,000 people (here, we would say 10 lakhs people; it makes it sound even smaller), and we only have a few “main arteries” meant to handle the bulk of the traffic. It keeps a LOT of vehicles and pedestrians in VERY...

What does a bribe look like? Is such a thing culturally defined? If you’re reading these posts, you might be waiting for the rest of the story in the installation of my broadband connection by BSNL. As promised, this little project is indeed providing more learning opportunities (more than I wanted, for sure!!), and I wanted to treat you to an inside peek into one...