Hello Mr. Vijay Sir *Salute*

Since I’ve been in India, I’ve had several friends send me e-mails/messages with basically the same thought…I think Arun summed it up perfectly.

“Somehow, I picture you looking like a bollywood villain, driving up in a shiny car with dark glasses on, strutting into your office while your driver chases after you. How accurate is that?”

I’m still adjusting to the fact that I work for my uncle. People treat me differently since he’s the CEO and they obviously can’t be too mean to his nephew. I’d say 3/4 of the workforce knows who I am while the other 1/4 has no clue. It’s amazing how my new found clout works. I’m working with a consulting firm and we needed to interview several people around the company. Nikhil goes upstairs to grab someone, the guy said he’d be down in 5 mins. 20 mins later…we were still waiting. So Nikhil pleads that I go upstairs. I walk upstairs and tell the guy I’m working with Nikhil on this project. He goes “oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize you were here” hangs up the phone, kicks a guy out of his office and walks to the conference room with me.

Another day, I was in the head office and needed a photocopy…I walk over to the copier and lift up the lid. Then a guy in finance swats my hand away and yells for an office boy. The poor kid runs over, takes the memo and scans it for me. The finance guy goes “Sir, you don’t need to do this kind of work”

If they only knew that in my old job, I WAS the office boy. I used to get the mail and also brewed the coffee. Talk about a promotion.

Of course, there is an obvious downside to all of this. A lot of the junior people don't really talk to me. When I walk into the coffee room, the crowd goes silent and people pretend to be working. Also, people at work go out for drinks, but clearly no one is inviting the CEO's nephew.

It's fairly easy to stay humble, especially since my uncle is incredibly grounded. Also, I know I'll go back to being a no one once I move to China. However, I'd by lying if I said I don't get irritated when the office boy serves coffee and he doesn't serve me first.

On another note, Hyderabad has been the target of a terrorist attacks over the last several years. Although the situation has calmed down, just about every major public attraction/site/shop has a security checkpoint. Now, I have no problem with security checkpoints if they’re effective but that’s not the case here. Most places only have a metal detector and a security guard because their insurance requires it. At our office building, they check every car for bombs. However, they just run a mirror down one side of the undercarriage because they’re too lazy to walk all the war around the car. When I’m with Harsha, they ask him to stop but he just keeps on driving by…they can’t say anything.

Also instead of buying metal detector wands, guards do a physical pat down. No other way of putting it than saying the guards are very ‘intrusive’ I swear, I think I’ve seen a few of them smile while patting people down. They don’t bother to always pat down girls because the male guards feel uncomfortable touching them. So to recap…our security measures don’t check half the population and rarely, if ever, check cars for bombs.

Despite being a democracy, India has a lot of restrictions. One of the most annoying things at the cinema, aside from the obligatory intermission (do we really need intermission during a 90 min American movie?) is that India has a censor board. I would love to sit down with the censor board because their logic makes no sense to me at times. During The Hangover, the board cut out the Heather Graham breastfeeding scene, fair enough. However, the board cut out several scenes in King Kong…no idea why.

Now that I live here, my ads are different since it’s driven by region. Regardless of what site I’m at, even if its hiphopdx.com, I get ads for the same thing…matrimonial services. Here is one of my favorites, I personally like the tagline.



On a side note, Saturday is Independence Day. Unlike America, it’s a dry day here.