Jet Lag

My first day in India starts at around noon. I have slept about 8 hours, but do not feel like it. I exercise and get ready to go to work by 2:00 PM, which is my standard shift. My Boy Scout training has really paid off this time. I packed my carry-on bag two changes of work clothes, exercise clothes, shoes, and all medication I need for the next 30 days. So with same day laundry service I can survive the whole trip, if my luggage never shows up.

After working out, I decide to eat lunch at the hotels lunch buffet. I try an assortment of curry’s and a banana. The nurse at the county health travel clinic advised me to not eat anything that was not served piping hot and eat only fruits with a thick peal (oranges, grapefruit, mangos and bananas). Even though it has been a while since I ate, I’m not very hungry.

The office compound is about 2 or 3 miles from the hotel. We are not allowed to drive here and have contracted with the hotel to have a fleet of six or seven cars dedicated to Deloitte. The drives are on call round the clock to take us to the office and back to the hotel.

As soon as I get in the car it becomes very clear why we are not allowed to drive here. For starters the steering wheel is on the wrong side and they drive on the wrong side too. But that’s not what makes driving so flipping hosed. It’s because in Hyderabad, a city of over 4 million people (slightly bigger than LA), there are probably 20 stop lights and no freeways. I mean really, why invest in stoplights when every car and motorcycle has working horn.

The basic rules of the road are you drive like hell and if something gets in your way, you honk. Honking is not considered rude, it’s more like a communication systems that tells the driver in front of you “watch out, here I come.” If you come to an intersection you pull up and honk. Now that your intentions are clear to all other drivers and pedestrians feel free to lurch out into traffic and hope for the best. It doesn’t matter if you are going straight, or turning right or left. One good honk says it all.

Find yourself going the wrong way on a one-way road, no problem, just drive the wrong way until you can make back over on the left side, honk as needed. To make driving even more fun, there are very few sidewalks here so the road are full of people walking, riding bikes, pushing carts, cows, wild dogs, water buffalo, motor cycles, tractors, three wheeled rickshaws, and cars. Most of the roads are paved, but some are not.

After and exhilarating ride in, I get dropped off at “A Block” and where I’m asked to go through a metal detector and my bags are searched by one of the guards. Security is a big deal here. The entire compound is gated with three to four guards at each gate outside. Once, inside there are another 3 to 4 guards on the inside of each building on the ground floor. As long as you have a legible Deloitte identification badge displayed in plain sight, no problem. Each “Block” is a building with 4 or 5 floors and each floor also has one guard by the door making sure every scans their badges as they come in or go out. All of the guards are there 24/7. Thankfully, I remembered to grab my Deloitte ID as I was leaving the house or my first day would have been much different.

The rest of my first day is a complete blur. I feel like the drunken guys you always see on COPS. “Officer, I aint been drinkin' and I never said nothin’...to no-body.” I think I’m doing just fine, but nothing makes sense and I can’t remember half of what’s going on. Plus I’m not hungry and I’m always hungry. I get assigned to share an office with a friend of mine from Phoenix who keeps laughing at me. I meet a ton of people with Indian names I can’t begin to pronounce let alone remember. And why does everything smell like curry, including the mens urinals!

I try and call the phone number the goofballs at the airport gave me to check on my bags. After five tries, two with my Indian prepaid cell phone that has no minutes left on it and three tries using the desk phone that supposedly can call US and Indian phone numbers. I’m sure Swarna told me why she gave me a phone with no minutes, but I can’t remember. Frustrated I call for some back-up.

The first Indian on the scene can’t get the numbers listed on the baggage claim form to work either. So he calls in a second. No dice here either, so Indian #2 waves in Indian #3. I was introduced to these guys less than an hour ago and should know their names, but I can't remember that either!

So now I’ve got three Indians in my office trying to dial a phone number to check on my bags. Apparently Indian phone numbers are about as useful as India street addresses. Using his personal cell phone and some strange combination of the numbers listed (and not listed) he is finally able to make the connection, but no bags for me and no estimate of when they will be coming. I hang up with the distinct impression that those forms I filled out last night are exactly where they were 12 hours ago. By 10 PM by sleech is slurred, I'm starting to see things and I’m ready to go home and sleep this one off. Is that a yeti in the road?