Nate Linkon: Gettin around

London Apartment

2007-02-08T04:42:00.000-08:00

I had a few minutes and wanted to post some pictures of my apartment in London to those of you who still read the blog. The place is in Wandsworth, which is in South London near the border of Zone 1 and 2. Maybe not as close to work as I'd like it to be but it's important to me that I'm in a good apartment in a nice area. After all, these will be my first steps into the real world. While India has been quite real, maybe too real, I've been living in an apartment supplied by my employer and I don't pay any bills. I didn't have a choice of neighborhoods and I live with the people I work with, so in a lot of ways this has simply been an extension of college. For the first time in my life, the money I make in my job will pay for my basic human needs. I'll pay rent, buy groceries, pay back loans (hopefully) and be able to save money on a scale that is significant to my future financial wellbeing.

I'll keep everyone more updated as my move gets closer (Feb 21st), but in the meantime you can check out my apartment.

Yep, that's the Thames you can see from my balcony

In other news, I talked to Paul Vockler today. This guy was the Chairman of the Federal Reserve during the Carter and Reagan administrations from '77 till '89 and was succeeded by Greenspan. Probably the most important person I've ever met in my life. I was supposed to meet the Prime Minister of Italy on Sunday, but unfortunately I'll be in Delhi for gigs.

Home for the holidays

2006-12-18T04:53:00.000-08:00

As much fun as Christmas was in Bangalore last year, I've decided to head home this year for the holidays. It’s about time I get an opportunity to relax, and enjoy the 3 B's.

Beef
Beer
Bowl Games

Tomorrow morning, at 6:45 AM I will get BACK on British Airlines Flight 118 to London (for the second time in a week) and then another 8.5 hours to Chicago, where I will be meeting my parents for a dinner at Ruth's Chris...man, a steak in simmering butter accompanied by a glass of good red wine sounds nothing short of a dream come true.

On Wednesday (20th), I head back to Chicago to meet with a few of my best friends from college who I haven't seen in almost a year. This is sure to be a tame evening.

On Thursday (21st), I head to the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field to see the Packers take on the Vikings with my dad and uncle, two men who clearly understand the necessity to stay warm in low temperatures through the imbibing of alcohol. Hey, it may sound like a throw-away game, but both of these teams at 6 - 8 are technically still in the race for the playoffs. I'll get to tailgate with my longtime roommate Jim, just like old times. However, this will be quite a longtime of old times. He wants to begin tailgating 4 hours before the game. Of course, we're spending the night.

Friday (22nd), nothing planned but a day of healing. Then again it's Friday. This is a GTD (game time decision).

That's really all I got right now, but it's a damn good start to what will be an awesome few weeks. Seeing as there will be a healthy amount of partying, I've gone ahead and purchased myself an insurance policy for the time I'm home. This is obviously a good decision for many reasons, but I figure with my planned schedule of activities that includes a hotel room in Chicago on New Years, getting 18 days of $50,000 coverage for 1200 rupees ($25ish) is a bargain I can't afford to pass up.

Lots of 14 hour days

2006-12-07T09:15:00.000-08:00

Again, it's been a while, but I haven't had as much time to much of anything besides play rock 'n roll and get ready to move to London. I know, rough life, eh?

So the last month has been exhilarating, and exhausting. My days have gone something like this:

5:30 AM - Alarm goes off
6:00 AM - Bruce picks me up for Thermal and a Quarter (TAAQ) rehearsal
6:30 till 9:00 AM - TAAQ rehearsal
10:00 AM - Arrive at work
Between 8:00 - 9:00 PM - Head home
10:00 PM - Get home from work, crash

This has been the schedule for many of my days over the last few weeks.

I usually don't work as much as I have been, but out of the three members of my team, including myself, two of them were out of office for about three weeks. So I was doing my job, as well as doing large parts of their jobs, while rehearsing and traveling on weekends to gigs.

This last weekend I was in Delhi, where we had 2 gigs. The first was for an AIDS benefit put together by the EU and the Thomson Foundation. Eight bands in India wrote original songs for a compilation album, and the top three bands played live for the awards ceremony. So I left on a Wednesday evening, played on Thursday night and then Friday night we had a proper gig with the same two bands we played with for the benefit. (go to the website do download the tune, Keep the Promise) The three bands, Soulmate, Skinny Alley (who I played with about 10 months ago) and TAAQ played at Lodi Gardens in New Delhi. What an amazing gig! The lead guitar players of the three bands are literally the GODS of guitar around these parts. Here are some pics, really only of TAAQ, because that's all I could get my hands on.

The band, minus Rajeev behind the skins. (Bruce, me, Tony, Rzhude)

Tony and I. I love Tony.

It was pretty cold, about 45 degrees F. That's our keyboard player, Chandy, on the left side.

This is Rajeev, my boy. I may be the youngest in the band, but this guy acts more like a 21 year old than anyone. Damn good drummer, as well. Can you believe he started playing the drums when he started playing with TAAQ 10 years ago?!
Intense.

Rzhude (pronounced Rudy). A frickin hilarious guy. We have a lot of fun on road.
I look like someone out of Huey Lewis and the News.

The next night, Saturday, we had the TAAQ 10th Anniversary party. This included a press conference, sponsorship by Wrangler who fitted us in our apparel for the night, and sponsorship by Seagram's who sponsored the booze. We played for about 90 minutes, and then partied with the friends and family we invited. I have yet to get any pictures of that but I'll post them when they come along.

Seeing as I've been having so much fun, I'll be postponing my transfer to London till the middle of February. If I keep having this much fun, we'll see if I ever leave.

I have 4 gigs this weekend, and then I leave for London on Monday for about 5 days. When I get back, I'll head to Chennai for a recording session, and then I leave on Tuesday morning for the US. I will need the R&R!

It's been a while

2006-11-08T05:16:00.000-08:00

I realize that it has been more than a month since I've written, and now that I have some time after work I thought I'd write a brief synopsis of the last 5 weeks. For the sake of clarity and convenience, I've divided this entry into sections.

Wow, can you tell I've been working too much?

1. Thermal and a Quarter

So I've been playing with a rock band in India called Thermal and a Quarter, and it's been awesome! Just last weekend, I had a wireless setup for our show at St. John's Medical College that allowed me to wander all over the huge stage that featured a fashion-show-like ramp that went over the crowd. Despite the pouring rain throughout the show, more than 400 people stuck around to catch the show. I don't think they were disappointed. It was the 10-year anniversary for the band, having played their first gig at the same college fest 10 years ago. I think the best moment of the gig was during our spot-on cover of Pink Floyd's "Shine on You Crazy Diamond," where during the sax solo I walked out on the ramp over the crowd (it had stopped raining towards the end of the show) only to feel the hysterical crowd surrounding me. They were reaching towards my feet and I was a little concerned one of them was going to grab me and not let go. Total adrenaline. Crazy, eh? I don't have any pictures (yet) but I do have this review of the gig that was in the metro section of today's Hindu, which is one of the biggest daily newspapers in India.
There will be a video soon, but in the meantime check out this video from a gig several weeks ago in Chennai (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2sNJrr8sr4)

2. Traveling

Since the last time I wrote, I had a biz trip to NYC and London. Conveniently, I scheduled my flights such that I got into NYC on Friday night with no work to do till Monday morning. That left plenty of time for major league debauchery with Jake, Zach Mo, and some total throw backs from high school, Brad Twohig and Rob Phillips. The crazy part about the latter two is that I've been good friends with both of them for 6+ years, but they went to different high schools and never knew each other till they moved to NYC a few months ago. They met through a mutual friend and now live together, which made it easy for me to knock down two birds with one stop... that included 5 bottles of wine and a completely unnecessary bottle of champagne around 11:30 PM. I renewed my visa in NYC, had a few meetings (all over lunch/dinner), and caught the Medeski, Martin and Wood Halloween show on Tuesday night. Awesome! Then I was in London for about 36 hours for a day of strategy meetings. I would have stayed longer, but I had to get back for the aforementioned gig. Here's a picture of me, Jake and Winnie. My worlds were totally colliding.

3. Future Plans

So I think I finally have it figured out, but it's not what I had originally thought it would be. It turns out I'm not coming back to the US after all. I'm moving London. According to my current schedule, I will be in London in January. Permanently. I'll be working for IndiaIT there helping to build what is currently a skeleton crew marketing team. I'll be back in Bangalore from time to time, so hopefully the gigging can continue.

That's about it. The past 5 weeks wrapped up in a nice little blog post. I think part of my reluctance to start posting again was knowing that I'd have to somehow summarize the last month, but that wasn't bad at all. I should be getting some more pictures soon, so I'll post them. The next month or so should be crazy, including several gigs outside of Bangalore and a week in London to scout apartments and have more strategy meets. Time will fly but I'll do my best to keep everyone posted.

Taj Mahal Pics

2006-09-26T04:41:00.000-07:00

I wasn't sure if I was going to see the Taj Mahal before I left India, and to tell you the truth, I was never that broken up about it. There are so many places on my list that I need to see before I leave India in the next 3 - 6 months, I just didn't see Agra (where the Taj is) making it. After all, I've seen maybe a thousand pictures.

Missing it would have been a mistake. It's not one of the 7 Wonders of the World for nothing. Here is a photo tour of my trip to Agra:

The entrance to the Taj Mahal compound, where it costs a foreigner 750 rupees (about $18) and a native Indian 20 rupees (45 cents)

This is the main entrance to the gardens

The Taj Mahal from the main entrance in the last picture

From the steps inside the gardens

Some guy blocking my view of the Taj.

One of the two identical mosques on either side of the Taj Mahal

A river runs behind it

All of the Islamic script is inlaid marble. Sounds boring, but really pretty cool when you actually see it.

From the front of the Taj Mahal towards the entrance to the gardens.

My whole reason for being in Delhi was to play with a rock band, and I'm waiting to get those pics. I'll post those this week before I head to Delhi and then to Chennai to play a couple more shows.

Taj Mahal

2006-09-22T00:09:00.000-07:00

So I haven't posted in a while, but there really hasn't been anything to post. Just business as usual.
I'm headed to Delhi today with a rock band, Thermal and a Quarter, to play at the Indian Institute of Technology - Delhi for a student festival and we'll be stopping at the Taj Mahal while we're in Delhi, so hopefully I'll have something damn interesting to post when I return on Tuesday.

Northwestern University: 1 - 0

2006-09-01T03:43:00.000-07:00

In an extremely emotional football game that I could only read about, Northwestern beat Miami (OH) 21 - 3 in the Pat Fitzgerald's first game as head coach. Fitzgerald is the youngest coach in Division 1 football. In an odd twist of fate, Miami (OH) is where Walker played and coached before coming to Northwestern where he was the first coach to take Northwestern bowling 3 times.

Man, do I miss being able to watch these games...

Thailand: A photo retrospective

2006-08-28T23:13:00.000-07:00

OK, so I think I finally have all of my Thailand pictures uploaded. I'll save you the boring narratives about the incredible people I met or the amazing places I saw and do my best to explain the trip with pictures and captions. Also, I'm burned out at work and words are just not coming to me like they usually do.

Keep in mind I was on my own for much of this trip, so I'm not in many of the shots.

The skytrain in Bangkok, incredibly efficient and cheap

"Snakes on a Plane" in Thai

I took the skytrain to a ferry that took me down the river where you see several paragons like this one. I have to say, getting around Bangkok is extremely easy.

Outside the Temple of the Reclining Buddha

The reclining Buddha

Putting coins in the prayer jars

I loved these guys. They stand about 9 feet tall and there are two of them outside of almost every doorway in these temples.

Muay Thai boxing!

This is some crazy dance routine they do right before they fight. I splurged for ringside seats and it might have been the best decision of the trip.

I watched this stuff for about 3.5 hours and could have stayed all night

You probably can't tell, but these kids are about 15

Outside the Royal Palace

Inside the Royal Palace

These are incredibly detailed paintings that go all the way around the palace

This guy's job was to touch them up. There are a team of artists who work on these paintings year-round.

Main processional grounds inside the palace

Outside the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. Probably the coolest of the temples I saw but nobody is allowed to take pictures inside.

You know how awkward it is to take a picture of yourself when your by yourself and people are watching?

Street market in Chinatown. Basically a huge pile of antiquated electronics

This guy had a great selection. And for your info, the tape cassette is Peter Frampton's "I'm In You"

This guy was trying to tell me that not only was this phone new, it worked

If you want a store with a good selection of cell phone covers and nothing else, this place is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. MILLIONS OF CELL PHONE COVERS

There was a ton of great jazz in Bangkok! This was one night at Brown Sugar, a jazz club I went to three nights in a row. I became pretty good friends with these guys and even played a little on that Thai guy's horn. That cat actually didn't speak English, yet we both knew how to play the sax so without talking we handed the horn back and forth and showed eachother what we knew. Pretty cool experience.

One night, after bouncing to about 5 bars, I was on my way to the hostel when I heard singing and guitars coming from the Mexican restaurant next door. For some strange reason, at 3:00 AM, I decided to check it out and stumbled into a family birthday party. These guys were hilarious! Nobody really spoke much English, but we drank till 4:00 AM while singing Thai songs. One of the better memories of the trip.

Me with the fam.

This guy was pretty funny. I was pretty drunk.

The next morning I was clearly hungover. I sat in the park to read and this guy insisted on teaching me Thai. He also knew all 50 US states and capitals.

_______________________________________________

Then I went to meet Winnie at Ko Panang, an island off the southern coast, for the Full Moon party and to do some chillaxin after being on my feet for the first 4 days with very little sleep.

After taking a 15 hour bus ride, we were piled aboard a ferry that took us 3.5 hours to Ko Panang. This was the back end of the boat.

Ever seen "The Beach"? You could totally live in seclusion on one of these hundreds of tiny little islands for years before someone found you.

The only way to get to the beach where I was staying was to take a water taxi. That's right, this beach was so secluded no roads to it exist. This is also the beach where 8,000 drunk Europeans gathered on August 9th for the Full Moon party. Unfortunately there are no pictures from this because I did not even want to risk bringing my camera.

Leaving Haad Rin beach to go to Haad Tien where I was staying

Haad Tien beach

My resort at Haad Tien

Shot of Haad Tien from the cliff

About a 5 minute walk from our resort was this awesome restaurant on the rocks that looked over the next beach over. We sat here quite a bit.

So that's the trip. Thailand, much like Sri Lanka, is definitely a place I'll go back to. Bangkok is one of the cooler cities in Asia.

Alright, back to work. Later guys.

Another one bites the dust

2006-08-16T08:03:00.000-07:00

When I first arrived in India there were 7 of us (Matt, Scott, Pete, Laura, Winnie, Nevena, Juan). The nature of our assignment here is temporary, so nobody is expected to take the plunge for longer than a few years. Inevitably, there will be people who leave for various reasons. Some may quit, some may transfer elsewhere with IndiaIT. Since I've been here, I've seen a few leave and it's never a good thing, especially as the group of Americans grows smaller. Not to say I don't have Indian friends, but it's nice having someone to talk to about US sports, going to college in the US and basically reminiscing about home. Actually, it's not nice. It's essential to maintain sanity. I like to maintain a balance, and that balance is slipping away. Also, coming to India in such a small group we’ve all grown pretty close and when we lose one of the family it most definitely changes the dynamic of the situation.

Early readers may remember Matt, my good buddy who helped me acclimate to India from the point of view of a frat guy for whom reality in India hit hard. He left back in December due to extenuating circumstances and the fact that he had fundamental differences with India’s culture, and this place hasn’t been the same since.

Me, Classic Matt

Then Nevena left. While I didn’t hang with Nevena much, she was always a fun person to be around and I knew her boyfriend, Prakash, very well. She left in June, and even Nevena leaving was a change.

Winnie, Nevena, Laura at Tony's wedding

Now, all of a sudden, we’re dropping like flies! Winnie, one of my best friends and travel buddies, left for the US last night. India, especially working in India, can be a trying experience at times and some of us deal with it differently than others. For Winnie, she had had enough and wanted to go back. God knows I’ve had times where I felt the same, but really I don’t have the rocks to move back to the US yet. It’s a pretty scary change of lifestyle that may or may not go well. While I have absolutely no doubt that Winnie will be fine, she will also be sorely missed.

Hahaha

Pete, another great friend as well as flatmate, will be leaving me in the beginning of September to work for IndiaIT in the US. Pete has been very successful in his job here and his boss wants him back ASAP. The funny thing is that Pete doesn’t want to go, he’d rather live here. Not to say that wanting to stay here is crazy, plenty of people have stayed when given the option, but to be offered a job where you’d make actual salary in United States Dollars is an exciting thought.

Festive Pete, Myself

So this is a tribute to those that are no longer here. There are many expats who have come through town that I’ve become good friends with, but that’s the nature of the international revolving door that is Bangalore. It makes me wonder, when will I hit the point where I need a change of scenery? I used to think that I’d wake up one morning and say, “OK, that’s it! I’m outa here. Peace!” But it’s definitely not that way. The frustration ebbs and flows, but will stay on an upward or downward trend for periods of a few months. Sometimes I think I could stay here for another year or more, other times I think I need to get out by January. While I’m leaning towards being home in January (March at the latest), only time will tell.

Thailand was incredible!

2006-08-14T01:13:00.000-07:00

See subject.

Just got back to the office so not much time to muse, but I'll post tons of pics in the next day or so.

Good to be back.

Anyone have tips for my vacation in Thailand?

2006-07-25T01:41:00.000-07:00

It would appear that the Indian government has rescinded its blogging prohibition. Apparently the alleged bombers of the Mumbai train systems were using blogs to communicate. This begs the question: If the terrorists are communicating in a public forum such as blogs, how did the Indian government let something like this happen without warning? Clearly the attack happened with or without the aid of blogs, so why end blogging in India? Oh, well. A nonissue at this point.

____________________________

Sometimes you need a vacation. I need one because it has been about 5 months since I last missed a day at work, and I have rarely left work before 6:30 PM in the last 3 months. So I just purchased tickets to Thailand and I will be there from August 3rd till August 11th.

I have never been to Thailand, and I'm just now starting to do research. To tell you the truth, I saw a great fare and, realizing I desperately need to get out of Bangalore, bought the ticket understanding I had no idea what I was doing, I can't wait! Where's the excitement in taking a trip with an itinerary?

Currently I will be spending the first 2.5 days in Bangkok by myself, not something I've done before. I'm not at all worried about being on my own, in fact it will be an awesome time to relax and explore. I'm planning on arriving with only a list of must-see places and will likely spend most of my time getting lost in the city and finding my way back to the hostel.

The last 5 days of my Thailand vacation will be spent in the beaches south of Bangkok with Winnie, but my itinerary is pretty wide open and I'll be planning most of my domestic travel on the fly. This is where I thought I'd see if anyone has suggestions.

Has anyone been to Thailand and have places/activities they would recommend?

So let me know if you have any thoughts. I have quite a bit to do in the next week, including attending the opening of NASDAQ from Mysore, India. Also, 130 Americans just arrived to work for IndiaIT, so that's been exciting although I have yet to meet them.

More to come.

This might be the last post I make...

2006-07-17T21:34:00.000-07:00

It would appear that the Indian government, in all their glorious wisdom, has decided to have several websites blocked in India, including all Blogspot sites. Here is a link to the boingboing article: Indian government blocking all Blogspot blogs.

I'll tell you, though. I can't imagine what would prompt the Indian government to do this, but hopefully it's all just a rumor.

Let's hope this won't be the end of the blog.

Terrorism in India

2006-07-12T04:57:00.000-07:00

I'm sure all of you heard about the bombings in Mumbai (Bombay) yesterday. If you haven't heard, you should stop reading my blog and start reading some real news. In any case, 7 rail cars were bombed yesterday on the West Mumbai suburban train system. At last count, the death toll is at 185 and over 700 people were injured. This is clearly a cowardly and despicable act of terrorism that was meant to yield maximum fear in hearts of Mumbakairs. Coordinating seven bombs, anonymously (of course), in a crowded (crowded is an understatement) train during rushhour with no warning... I'd say it's a credit to the people of Mumbai that the city is back to business as usual less than 24 hours later.

Also, for those of you who don't know the geography of Indian cities off the top of your head, Mumbai is about a 2 hour flight northwest of Bangalore. Mumbai has a history of such bombings, and they are usually caused by religious extremism between the Muslims and the Hindus. Some have suggested that it is Al Qaeda, others claim it to be organized crime. Most are pointing to Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, an Islamic terrorist group.

It's really hard to imagine what this bombing meant unless you have seen the Mumbai train system. Imagine the Chicago El during rush hour. Then add another 30-50 people to each car, so that it is so packed people have to hang out the door by holding on to the side of the train. Now keep in mind that it's monsoon season, so it's been raining for the past 3 weeks straight. It took the police an upwards of 1.5 hours to reach the scene, and this is caused by a combination of the torrential rains and the millions of people who crowded the streets because they could not use the trains to commute home from work. This means that thousands of gawkers crowd the scene before any emergency personnel arrive. Quite the mess.

Call me crazy, but this could have been MUCH worse. In fact, it's nothing short of a miracle that it wasn't. Think about it: There are easily 100+ people in tight quarters on each train car and 7 cars contained bombs. To think that only 185 died... Still a tragedy, but hopefully this will prompt more stringent security precautions in the future before something more major occurs. Crazy world we live in.

On a brighter note, today is my one year anniversary living in India! Man, it definitely went by fast.

Expect to see me back in the US for good sometime between January and March of 2007. Peace, ya'll.

Back to 160 and 4th of July

2006-07-05T07:13:00.000-07:00

Most of you are probably aware of the issues that foreigners have in India when it comes to the food. Despite some issues in the first few months I've transitioned fairly well. In other words, my stomache is made of frickin steel.

However, I weighed myself about 3 months ago and was alarmed to find out that I had lost about 15 lbs since moving to India. Scary.

So I got back on a workout routine and started eating better and I'm happy to announce that I'm back at 160 lbs!

Yes, I'm aware that nobody cares.
____________________________________

Celebrating the 4th of July in India is definitely interesting, and getting your hands on fireworks is extremely easy. Nothing else too exciting or different from a US 4th. We had a BBQ on my buddy's roof, drank beer, listened to music, celebrating freedom... The only difference was listening to these Goldman Sachs fools discuss the socioeconomics of sub-Saharan Africa for a few hours. And we watched football. None of this is normal American behavior, which is nice sometimes.

That's another thing. I've purged "soccer" from my vocab. Why do the US and Australia, feel like they can call football by another name when we're not even good at it? Pretty arrogant, eh? Well when I hang out with so many non-Americans, imagine what they think when I call the game soccer.

"Man, Americans are such pricks."

I don't need to meet new people and start off in the hole because I'm American.

I constantly find myself defending the US anyway, especially around freedom-hating Europeans who feel like they have to hold me individually responsible for the foreign policy of the United States.

And while we're on the subject, I was upset before one of the US matches that many Americans in the room did not know the words to the National Anthem!!!

Anyway, the most important part about July 4th is that it's my mother's birthday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!!!

Feel free to leave birthday comments for my mother. She's incredible. And she loves freedom.

R.I.P. Randy Walker

2006-06-30T02:04:00.000-07:00

It’s a sad day for my beloved alma mater.

I just found out that Randy Walker, Head Coach of the famed Northwestern Football Team (passed away this afternoon (evening in Evanston). Walker came to NU in 1999 from Miami of Ohio and just had his contract extended till 2011. Some of my best moments in college were at NU games. In fact, I'll never forget upsetting Michigan State my freshman year to go 4-0 and climb as high as #14 in the nation. That was my first collegiate football game as a student and it was an incredible feeling to know that I’d made the best decision of my life coming to Northwestern. My parents, who are Mich State alums, were at the game and we had bet a steak dinner at Pete Millers (very nice, very $$$). I also remember incredible NU games where we upset Wisconsin (ranked #14 at the time) my junior year and Ohio State my senior year when we rushed the field and tried, without success, to tear down the goalposts. I traveled to Detroit for the Motor City Bowl in 2003 and went to the Big House for the Michigan game in Ann Arbor my senior year. Last year Walker led the team to the Sun Bowl, where we lost to UCLA. Randy Walker did incredible things with our beleaguered football team, and the Northwestern community will miss him dearly.

At a school where die-hard sports fans are few and far between, I definitely considered myself one of them. When most of the student population was too hungover or studious to wake up at 8:00 AM to tailgate for an 11:00 AM game, I was always in someone's lawn, standing in the rain eating undercooked eggs, drinking keg beer and painting my face with a huge purple "N." I went to Northwestern games (football and basketball) early in the season before any students had arrived. While others wasted their time studying, I was indulging in the true American college experience and Randy Walker was a big part of that. He also lived right on campus and I would see him walking his dog in the area around my fraternity house.

Randy Walker was the first Wildcats coach to guide the team to four seasons with at least six wins since C.M. Hollister in 1899-1902. For a team, and school, that has a reputation for sucking a lot, Walker led Northwestern to a share of the Big Ten title in 2000, and then took us to 2 more bowl games, somewhat changing the perception of the Northwestern “Mildcats.”

Man, those were good times. Thanks, Randy.

Randy Walker (1952 - 2006)

Reactions to voicemail entry

2006-06-25T23:25:00.000-07:00

So there were some reactions/criticizms after my last entry about the lack of vociemail in India:

"Nate, so you're telling me that the CEO of IndiaIT doesn't have voicemail?!"

No, that's exactly true. First off, I have never called the CEO's cell phone directly so I can't say whether he has voicemail on his cell phone or not, but I'm gonna find out. He does, however, have a personal assistant who takes messages for him. If you were to call the number on his business card, you would get his secratary, Malliga, who would take a message and relay it to the Big Man. There are probably 15 people in the entire company of 55,000 who have personal secretaries (1 in every 3,700 or so), so they reap the benefits of voicemail without technically having the service. Everyone else is out of luck.

"Nate, my name is Scott and I live and work with you in India and I think that the lack of voicemail is partially made up for with SMSing and the practice of calling those from whom you've missed calls."

While Scott has a point, I don't believe that these alternate methods of leaving message are sufficient. First off, if you are a busy manager towards the top of a pyramid that is the horendous bureacracy of a big business, it is very difficult to call back every person who tried to call you when you were busy. If I were that person, I might operate in a few ways. I might think that if it the message is really that important, they will call back and find me when I'm available to talk. Also, not all phone calls require two-way communication. Let me put it this way, if I'm calling someone to remind them to do something, as I do several hours of each day, a voicemail would suffice. A return call is not necessarily required, so from an efficiency standpoint, the lack of voicemail adds a layer of communication which can mean an additional day or two to create action from communication. Creating action is, after all, the goal of business communication.

Despite my criticisms, I will say this: the mobile connectivity abilities in India are FAR more reliable than that of the US. I think about 75% of Northwestern University buildings do not get service indoors, yet in India, where practically every other facet of infrastructure is at least 30 years behind, I have never had a domestic call cut out. I have had a few international calls cut, but I've noticed that those are mostly to the US, where I can attribute the call failure to outdated telecommunications technology still being used.

It's not that India would not benefit from voicemail, or that the technology isn't available. The reason for the absense is, as one reader justly pointed out, the lack of demand for the function within India. It's that simple. No barrier exists, but neither does the desire. Hopefully MNC's in India, as well as blogs, will spark the revolution.

"At the beep, please hang up and call again in half an hour"

2006-06-21T04:51:00.000-07:00

I think if you asked any of my friends they would say I'm a fairly positive person. I think I do a better job than most at not to let the trials and tribulations of life, even in India, get me down. But I'm only human, and every human being needs to vent from time to time. Brace yourself.

I don't think I've uttered a pessimistic word against India or IndiaIT in the (almost) 12 months I've been living and working in Bangalore. Well, folks, this unbelievable streak of optimism ends today with my first (public) gripe: the absurd lack of voicemail in India.

Upon receiving my Indian cell phone, I immediately recognized this odd absence as a deficiency of the professional culture within India. And for whatever reason, that notion was dismissed just as quickly as one of the first instinctual qualities to leave my being as I was assimilated into Bangalore. The effects of a no-voicemail culture are many, but I’ll be brief.

When working in the United States, it is proper office etiquette to at least put your cell phone on silent, especially when a meeting. Not allowing your phone to ring, and thus disturb others, is done as a courtesy to those attending the meeting. Now imagine this situation sans voicemail: your phone rings and your concern is no longer on a ringing phone that would annoy your colleagues, your primary concern is now the NECESSITY to answer the phone. Without voicemail, there is almost no way someone can leave you a message when you are unavailable to talk. Some people send SMS following a missed call, but most often not. As you can imagine, it is quite often when I need to focus my undivided attention on one task, so always being available on my phone is difficult.

Scenario: So you’ve been introduced as an entry level peon into a society and work culture that lacks voicemail. Your phone rings and you are in an important meeting with the head of your department, what do you do? While turning your phone on silent does not immediately interrupt the meeting at the moment a call reaches your cell phone, what do you do if it is one that you need to answer? You will have to leave the room to take it, which clearly takes the group’s attention off the matter at hand. You exit the meeting with the understanding that if you don’t pick up immediately, the person getting in touch with you can’t leave voicemail.

This becomes a downward spiral of communication breakdown when you think about it. When you take voicemail away from an individual, that person becomes instantly more difficult to get in touch with. So when you get that call during a meeting, your immediate thought is, “If I don’t pick this up, and it’s someone I need to get in touch with, it will take me days to get back in touch with them BECAUSE THEY DO NOT HAVE VOICEMAIL!!!!”

Sorry…

You’re now left with a very difficult decision, because you will have to choose which is more important, the meeting or the call. Anyone working person understands how various tasks on your plate at any given time are not always so neatly prioritized in such a way that would easily solve your dilemma. Let’s face it, in the spirit of covering your ass, the interruption to the meeting will always come secondary to doing your job efficiently. A meeting requires everyone’s presence. As a result, the odds of those attending the meeting still being in the room when you finish your call are significantly higher than the chances of the person calling you being available when you finish your meeting. You can see how this would be frustrating.

Summary –

This is what I like to call “Nate’s No-Voicemail Cycle of Anger and Frustration”:

1. No voicemail means people are extremely difficult to get in touch with

2. Because people are difficult to get in touch with, the calls they make to you are more valuable

3. Because these calls are more valuable, you can not afford to let them go

4 (a). Because you can not let the call go, you must answer your phone in the most inopportune circumstances (this has been known to yield corrosive effects to one’s sanity)

4 (b). If you do let the call go, thinking you will call them back at YOUR convenience, there is little chance you will catch them at THEIR convenience, and without voicemail…(see #1)

(NOTE: Please, send your Pulitzer Prize nominations through the appropriate channels. Sending me an e-mail or posting a comment will not suffice.)

How does the phenomenon of voicemail fail to spread in a multinational corporation (MNC), especially one as respected as IndiaIT that has a global workforce with offices in North America as well as India? I wish I could tell you, but my hypothesis is this: it would be a huge frickin’ hassle.

A scientific survey was given to the native Indians that located near my desk, and the results are as follows: At most, 3 or 4 people out of 1,000 have voicemail. At MOST.

When you take into account that millions of people who have cell phones in India, which is easily more than the entire population of the U.S., you’d have better luck convincing the country that baseball is superior to cricket. (This is actually a fairly accurate analogy, as baseball is truly superior to cricket in almost every way, yet many in India choose the less logical path). I only hope that as more MNC’s invest money and resources in India, such as IBM which as recently committed to triple its Indian investment to $6 billion, the Western work culture will change the communication abilities of this country.

I’ve 100% convinced that if the professionals in India adopt what is an extremely efficient, not to mention global, practice, the productivity of this country could jump by 10 to 15%. See, who needs the likes of McKinsey and Bain when I’m around?

In the middle of writing this entry (right before this paragraph), I went to the gym, which gave me plenty of mull over this quandary of communication. I soon came to the realization that the absence of voicemail has a drastic ripple-effect on practically all facets of life. For instance, the majority of people who go to the gym, at least at IndiaIT, bring their phones with them! They routinely answer their phones while running, lifting and stairmastering, which requires them to stop their physical activity. So now these faithful employees are taking time out of their workout, time they’ve set aside to escape the world (especially their jobs) and are forced to answer their phones. Granted, many talk to friends while at the gym, but would they do this if they had voicemail, or would they wait to get their friend’s message following their workout? In any case, most of the phone conversations I hear have to do with server requests, software development, J2EE and many other things I know very little about. A really interesting study could be done by one of the many Fulbright scholars I meet who travel through India doing research on societal phenomena such as this. Too bad they’re too busy researching topics such as the hair of Indian people. Seriously, c’mon.

Also, while I was at the gym I received two missed calls. Now the standard procedure is to call back and say, “Hello, this is Nate. I just received a missed call from this number?” and then, assuming they recognize you, you’re all set. Unfortunately, I received a call from a Prague hotel and there’s no possible way for me to track down which guest at the hotel called me. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the receptionist. All I can hope is that it wasn’t important, and if it was they’ll e-mail me. Frustrating nonetheless.

On a more positive note, I’m going to TGIF tomorrow for 2-for-1 drinks and to watch the USA World Cup Match! Hopefully nobody calls during the game, because I can’t let it go to voicemail.

Nate Update

2006-06-05T06:33:00.000-07:00

I know I haven't posted in a while, and I have a few mintues before I have to jet for my ride home before the conference calls start so here's an update from Nate.

New appliances

I realized my life has reached an ultimate low when the most exciting event in the last four weeks has been the arrival of my new appliances. This includes a new clothes washer, new fridge, new kitchenware (yup, i just used the word kitchenware) and most exciting of all....A CLOTHES DRIER!!! You have no idea what a luxury that is in India. Driers require more energy than almost any other durable good, and power comes at a premium in India. Now if the landlord will only hook up the damn thing, I'll be in heaven.

Gig with Skinny Alley

My buddy Arool called me on Saturday saying I had to come meet his guitar teacher and his band. The band is called Skinny Alley and they're a rock band from Calcutta. Apparently they're a big deal. They have an album released on Virgin Records and have been together for the last 25 years or so. Skinny Alley was hired out by a rich couple to play at their wedding, which was at the Leela Palace. Not too shabby.

Then Arool said I should bring my horn and jam with them during their sound check. Well I played about 7 minutes and they asked me to stick around and play for the gig. I mean, what do they care? It's a wedding! I've played my fair share of weddings and believe me, you do it to pay the bills, not to rock out. This wedding, however, was something different. Most South Indian wedding won't have alcohol present. Let's just say this wedding was different. Very different. At least that's what the guy who passed out on the dancefloor half way through Elton John's "Crocodile Rock" would so.

So while this band has a significant following, at least by my standards, they were instructed to play classic rock. We played Beatles stuff, we played Moody Blues, Steely Dan and everything from "Johnny Be Good" to "Country Roads." They had a sax mic so I was able to move around a lot on stage and ended up having one of my best nights in Bangalore.

Open bar. Jamming on some classic rock. Awesome.

Meeting David Binney

For those of you who don't know, David Binney is a bad ass sax player from New York City who may very well be one of the top 3 or 4 alto saxophone players alive. He's been around for quite a while and has several albums. Some of the stuff I really know him from is his band Lost Tribe, which was a project he did in the '80s that I'm a big fan of. He played at Opus (the bar I usually play at) as well as Take 5, the only "jazz club" in Bangalore. Both shows were great, but the second show was with Prassana, an incredible guitar player from India who now teaches at the Berkley School of Music. I got to hang out with him for a while at the bar which was nuts, especially cuz it happened in India! Apparently he's dating an Indian girl and she finally convinced him to come to India to meet her parents. Little did he know he would get roped into several gigs and recording sessions. Not much of a vacation, eh? He left a few days ago to slum it in NYC with his Tuesday night gigs at the 55 Bar, the same place I saw Wayne Krantz play when I was in the 'States a few months ago. He actually got a text message from Wayne, as well as Antonio Sanchez, while I was with him at the bar.

It never ceases to amaze me who finds their way through my little Indian town.

More to come....

Local reactions to lanky white guy in India

2006-05-22T02:30:00.000-07:00

So after being criticized for my lack of cultural content I asked for suggestions as to what you wanted to hear about. I mean, yeah, I could write about what I think is interesting but then you'd have to hear me grumble about the SOB at Dominoes who doesn't understand English when I order pizza and forgets to include extra cheese sauce. Believe me, it's really quite frustrating.

I digress.

To my complete surprise, someone actually sent me a request! I'll admit I wasn't too hopeful when I opened up the floor for suggestions. I was sure this would be the end of the blog. I once made the mistake of taking requests while playing with a band in Bangalore and I had about 20 people ask me to play "Summer of '69." This time I was pleasantly surprised to find someone interested in the interesting cultural aspects of living in India, not the parts of living in India that have been borrowed from the West.

So Cassidy asked about the reactions I see from less-educated, average Indians when they observe my invasion of their country. Basically, what impact do I see resulting from my long-term presence in India?

Let me first explain a little about my experience with India before coming to India: I went to the consulate in Chicago to get my employment visa in June of last year. I was told it would be a one-day process and I'd be in and out in a few hours. Well after sitting there for close to 4 hours I inquired on the status of my application. They then ushered me into the Consular General's office where he told me that he would not be issuing me a visa. When I asked why:

"We have a policy against issuing employment visas to foreigners when we believe that an equally or more qualified Indian could fill the position."

Whoa, so you're saying that I don't have a job anymore? Isn't it IndiaIT's job to make sure I'm equally or more qualified? Of course it would make more economic sense for them to hire a native. But they didn't.

So what does this tell me? That I'm not welcome in India? That people will hate me for stealing a job away from an Indian person? This is all a bit unsettling when you think you're about to move to a country where all one-billion of the citizens hate your guts. This is obviously not the truth, but as nervous (read: petrified) as I was about leaving the US, this complication didn't exactly ease my nerves. I was clearly anxious to see the reaction to my presence.

When I first moved into Adarsh Gardens, the locals in the neighborhood really had no clue what to make of me. The hell was I doing in Jayanagar (the area in which I live)? Was it safe to allow their children near me? I swear, I saw many a reaction that simply conveyed, "There goes the neighborhood." I found a similar reaction, at least initially, when I started work at IndiaIT, but at least many of the 15,000 people who work on my campus have seen Americans/Europeans around campus before, mainly in the form of clients, international interns and visiting employees from abroad. People were definitely shocked that we were permanent and some still do not believe it.

"What?! You're gonna be here for HOW long?! Why would you do that?"

Here's an embarrassing story: I was sitting in a press conference that I had helped with for our annual earnings release. It was a big deal. In the last year we had reached over $2 billion in annual revenues and over 50,000 employees with 30% growth.... Our CFO was asked a question about global hiring initiatives and how IndiaIT hoped to diversify their work force. Well our very wise CFO, whom I have worked with several times and he knows my name, looks up at me as he begins to answer the question with a look on his face that said "Kid, I'm gonna make you a star!" He then proudly announced as he gestured towards where I sat (to a group of small time media, including CNN, MSNBC, AP) "We even have one of our international interns here with us today!" He was so excited to share the spotlight. I was so excited to punch him. Really hard. Right in the face. Luckily for my career I was able to show some restraint. Our CEO elbowed him in the ribs and whispered something in his ear that made him look up at me and mouth "I'm SOO sorry!" The damage had been done. Shit happens.

Point is that people are still surprised to find out that I'm a permanent employee, which can be frustrating. I think it's because nobody expects an American to live here for such a long time. This might seem trivial to you, but imagine working for a company where the only logical explanation for your existence was that you are an intern. Quite the uphill battle.

I still get stared at. A lot, but not as much as Winnie or Laura, who get harassed on a regular basis. We get charged more for simple things, such as rickshaw/cab rides. I'm also pretty sure that the guy that I buy mangoes from on the street charges me more than locals, but I don't complain because I get 8 mangoes for approximately $2. I spose that’s the trickle-down effect everyone seems to believe exists, but I’ll tell you one thing: the people in the bottom 20% of this country, in my humble observations, benefit almost nothing from the IT boom in India. Not like someone living in a shanty town can go into software design, but this is a conversation for another entry.

Well-educated people (college educated) are surprised to see me living in India semi-permanently, but they have a good idea of my story without even asking me. They obviously know I work for an MNC, which answers many questions. Children run up to me and say "Uncle! Uncle! Pen? Pen?" For whatever reason, these kids really get a kick out of receiving a pen from a foreigner. I couldn't tell you why, it's not like they can't get pens for a rupee or two. Other less-educated people will usually stare for a while, and occasionally one of the brave ones will approach me and ask "From which country?"

This puts me in an interesting dilemma. If I proudly say "the United States," it conjures up images of a very rich, very disliked George Bush. (Keep in mind this is the most pro-American country outside of the US.) What happens then? They know I have money. Some people think this is a stereotype, but even the poorest 20-year old backpacker has 10 times more money in his pocket than many of these people have in a month. Now if they hate the US, they might try to rip me off. Who knows, they might mug me, although that is EXTREMELY unlikely. They also might love me and treat me well. Just depends.

Now what if I say Canada? What does that mean to your average Indian? Let me rephrase: What does that mean to the average person from the US?! Absolutely nothing. Nobody knows if I'm especially rich. Nobody assumes that I'm from a hostile nation. I think you see where I'm going with this. They might not treat me wonderfully, but they won't treat me any worse than they would another white person. And there's really not much I can do about being white. I've tried.

One thing I will say is that the vast majority of the people in India take great care to ensure that I enjoy myself while in their country. People generally want to make sure I'm comfortable and that the food isn't too spicy. It's clear that these folks want me to leave India with a good impression of their country. That's one way I can really feel the excitement surrounding India. Although I haven't spoken to many of the uneducated locals (I don't speak Kannada, the local language), I get the distinct impression that even the portion of the population low on the socioeconomic spectrum who are largely unaffected by the economic growth in India understand how India is more prominent on the global stage. How do they know? They see more foreigners wandering the streets than they ever have before. That excitement is translated to visitors through the genuine enthusiasm shown by everyone from friends at work to the guys that clean my apartment and make sure that everything is to my liking.

I can honestly say that the American presence we provide has had an effect on the social environment around here. I don't get stared at in my neighborhood nearly as much as I used to. Most recently, the rude guy who runs the corner store next to my apartment actually smiled at me when I purchased curd the other day. The other employees on campus don't seem disturbed by my presence. And I think this has a larger impact than we might be willing to realize. They probably tell their friends that they live and work with Americans, and that the Americans are not as evil as the news makes them look. It sounds ridiculous to make that claim, that I'm affecting how an entire culture views people from the US, but you gotta start somewhere. Baby steps. The 130 Americans that come to work in India for 6 months will be the next step.

Cassidy asked another very important question: When do you come back permanently?

Well this depends on what you mean by "back?" When will I be back in the US? It's hard to say. When will I be back in the First World? Probably another 9 months, give or take. There are many opportunities to work for IndiaIT in the United States, probably California, but what fun would that be? Actually, it would probably be awesome. After all, that's the only region of the United States in which I have not lived. I have tons of friends in LA and tons of family in the San Francisco area. On the other hand, I had a conversation with a colleague yesterday that would lead me to believe that there could be opportunities in the UK. If was a betting man, I would bet that I'd be back in the US in about 8 or 9 months, but quite a bit could happen between now and then.

Like the CFO of IndiaIT says to me every time I see him, "Nathan, we'll get you to stick around longer once we find you a nice Indian girl!"

My experience thus far would suggest that this is impossible, but you never know.

Keep the suggestions coming if you got 'em.

My inexcusable lack of cross-cultural insight

2006-05-14T21:07:00.003-07:00

It has recently come to my attention that my blog does not provide my readers with enough cross-cultural content. Apparently I've been hogging the spotlight and have not devoted ample space to "information on Indian life." Typical Nate, right? I assumed you wanted to hear more about my resume. I stand corrected.

My hope has always been to write about my experiences (when they are merited) and those who read my entries would be able to gain insight to my life, the life of an expat in Bangalore. However, I can only accurately represent my life, which is quite unique because there aren't many people my age working here permanently, or at least for longer than a few months. I was part of a pilot program that brought 7 Americans to Bangalore to work for IndiaIT, the first of its kind to my knowledge. The success of this program was encouraging enough to cause IndiaIT to hire 130 American college graduates who will be living/working in India for 6 months beginning in August. It would appear that the life I lead will become more commonplace in the future, so I will concede that this blog could potentially serve a greater purpose than simply posting pictures of drunk expats and my weekend trip to Ooty.

I do realize that I have the opportunity to provide insight to those who wish to learn more about the Indian subcontinent and lifestyle. If nothing else, I hope that I can encourage more people to work abroad, especially in India where I feel many of the problems faced in this country can be solved with the help of foreign direct investment. So I'll answer the rather pointed questions that have recently come across about life in India:

Q: Is it exactly the same as in the US?
A: No.

Q: Is it non-existent?
A: No, life in India exists.

Q: Is it impossible to explain verbally?
A: No, it is quite possible to communicate my experiences verbally.

I know, this information can be a little unsettling! All kidding aside, the person who asked these questions raises a valid concern and maybe I should be more responsible to those who would like to use my blog as a source of information. So in the spirit of making this more of a conversation than a lecture, I propose this:

Send me the questions or topics of interest that you would like me to expound upon. I could always feed you useless information, but I think it would be more interesting to get cues from those who would read. Also, after living here a while I'm sure I glaze over some interesting aspects of life that you may want to hear about.

After all, I feel that stories about monkeys (which are certainly aces in my book as well, Dan) get less interesting over time. Most recently a clan of wild monkeys broke into Laura's kitchen (Scott left the window open) and ravaged her newly replenished food supply (they ate the almonds brought by Laura's mom). I have recently armed myself with an airsoft gun and sit on Laura's balcony picking off the enchroaching monkeys out of trees. I've learned one thing through this adventure: I need to get a bigger, more powerful gun.

See! I have yet to receive a question and I've already given you valuable information about what it's like to live in India. That's just a taste of what's to come!

But if you don't send me questions, I'm going to assume you want more monkey stories and pictures of drunk expats. Believe me, there's no shortage of either.

Levitating and editorial freedom

2006-05-12T03:41:00.000-07:00

In the last 3 months or so I've fallen under the spell of the most unlikely of obsessions: YOGA.

Now I know that India is having a profound effect on me when I enjoy stretching for 45 minutes three times a week. I always considered myself a pretty masculine guy in practice. I mean, come on. I struggle with emotional depth, I take sports more seriously than 9 out 10 doctors recommend, I feel the need to have red meat with every meal (very difficult in India), and I generally criticize anything or anybody different than myself. Basically, I was in a fraternity in college that has caused irreparable damage. It was in this mindset that I initially approached yoga. Many of my friends were taking yoga classes and I had a great time making fun of them for wasting their time doing splits and humming in unison.

This was all until I went to 2 classes. Now I’m addicted.

Winnie used to say that she’s hesitant to leave India because she would miss our incredible yoga instructor. She’s right. I’ll send pictures next week, but our instructor’s name is Rudraswamy. And he is actually Yoda. “New position today we will do!” “Hurting?”

Yoda. Yoga. Yoda. Yoga. Coincidence?

He’s this insanely flexible, 5 ft nothing guy who can probably levitate and shoot fireballs out of his arse, but I wouldn’t know. I’m not that advanced yet.

There are few other activities where you can see a measureable difference between EVERY SINGLE CLASS. Each class I’m able to do something I was not able to do 3 days earlier. It’s really that feeling of accomplishment that keeps me going. I can’t wait for the next class because I can’t wait to see what progress I have made.

And for all those people who say that stretching for 45 minutes a day is “lame” or “gay”
have not tried it. I am routinely pretty sweaty and exhausted after 45 minutes and after a really intense class I’ll be hurtin’ the next morning.

So now, as I think about when and how I’ll move back to the United States (or wherever) I think about where I will find an instructor as good as Rudra.

You don’t believe me, just wait for the pictures I’m gonna take of our class over the weekend and post them on Monday. _______________________________________________________________________

On a separate note, I was on NBC Nightly News being interviewed for the same old story. Crazy American living and working in India. Here’s the link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12745020/

I have a few things to say. First off, I get a lot of flack for “talking about nothing but my resume” in these interviews. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m not as one-dimensional as these articles might lead you to believe. During these interviews I usually answer questions for about 15 minutes and then they cut those 15 minutes down to somewhere between 5 and 10 seconds.

Now these journalists have a reconceived story in mind. They’ve traveled all the way to India to find information that supports their hypothesis. With 15 minutes of footage, you could probably find a 3-second soundbite that makes it sound like I deny the existence of the Holocaust. That’s the beauty of the media. They can say whatever they want if they find some fool to back it up for them. I am that fool.

I may be interested in where my career is going, and that played a large part in my decision to move to Bangalore, but the personal growth benefits of living here have also been amazing. It’s just that nobody wants to read about how I’ve blossomed into a better human being, even if that’s the case. My ability to deal with shaky/sketchy situations is vastly improved, because, I deal with situations like this fairly often, especially when I first got here and I was more uncertain about the situation. Simply living outside of the United States for an extended period of time gives you a worldly perspective, especially when it comes to how the world views the United States. I can feel myself slipping deeper into cliché so I’ll stop while I’m ahead.

I urge anyone with the chance to live and work abroad to take that opportunity, no matter what your reasons are. Just be careful how you deal with media, because you can create an image for yourself that you did not intend. Because at the end of the day, your image is in the hands of the journalist.

Pics to come in the next post.

India is funny

2006-04-12T04:19:00.000-07:00

So recently I've found a lot of pretty hilarious India-humor. I heard from a friend that the last Simpsons episode featured Mr. Burns outsourcing his plant to India and Homer moves to Bangalore, titled "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore."

They must've come to India to do research, cuz this is so accurate it's scary

How I feel everyday in India

Here is a hilarious article on Slate entitled "Trying Really Hard to Like India" that's intensely funny, at least for me. One of my favorite passages:

But other pitches were not as well-crafted. For instance, there was this guy who smiled weakly and asked us, with a halfhearted shrug, "Monkey dance?" Our eyes followed the leash in his hand, which led to the neck of a monkey. The most jaded, world-weary monkey I've ever seen. The Lou Reed of monkeys. He looked like he was about to sit down, pull out his works, and shoot a big syringe full of heroin into his paw. Needless to say, we declined the monkey dance—which I'm guessing would have been some sort of sad, simian death-jig.

Here's the full article

Here's an Onion article about India that was posted in the last few days:

Air India Now Offers Business Caste Seating

When did India become the butt of so many jokes? And why did it take this long? This place is funny, and not enough people realize that. When it comes to India, everyone talks about the gravity of the situation when really they should be looking for how we can use these scenarios to laugh at a culture very different from our own.

Nothing new in life. More updates coming soon.

Pictures of my apartment, the Jethro Tull concert

2006-04-03T02:59:00.000-07:00

I realize that I have not been updating this blog very much lately, but there's a perfectly reasonable explanation: life has been boring. I've mostly been working since I've been back from the US. Even if I could talk about the details of work on this blog I probably wouldn't because I've been little more than an excel/PowerPoint monkey. And even on the weekends I've been earning some extra money doing voiceovers.

A couple pretty cool things have happened in the last week or two.

First off, it looks like Scott and I may be getting an intern to help us with a project similar to a venture capital initiative at Infosys. Not only might we be getting an intern, but the only applicants we've seen that we're interviewing are MBA students from Duke/Cornell/Harvard. I don't know how this person will feel working with two 23 year olds fairly fresh out of college, but hopefully they'll take it well. We have our first interview with a girl from Johnson School (Cornell), so I'll let you guys know what happens.

This article came out from the Associated Press about Americans moving to India for work opportunities. This is the most exposure I've gotten, and that's pretty crazy considering I never as much as spoke to the journalist on the phone. I've spent hours, days with journalists, even traveled with them, and they don't even quote you. Here's the article as it was picked up by the San Jose Mercury News.

I appreciate them mentioning my digestive issues while in India.

And here are some random pictures over the last few months.

Here are finally some pictures of my apartment and the view from my balcony as well as Winnie's:

View from my balcony on the 7th floor (8th floor in the US)

My living room (doors from right to left: my room, Pete's room, my bathroom, kitchen)

View of living room from couch

First thing you see when you walk in my door

View from Winnie's balcony

The Jethro Tull concert that was like 4 months ago:

Ian Anderson was on fire at this show!

Interesting stuff to come.

Back from the US, back to blogging

2006-03-12T21:22:00.000-08:00

Alright, so this is my first post in about a month because of my trip to the United States, which was AWESOME!!! I figure that most people who read my blog knew I was in the US and hopefully I was able to see you. I'm actually proud to say that the list of people that I wanted to see but couldn't is much shorter than I thought it would be, so if you're reading this and were in either NYC or Chicago in the last few weeks I probably chilled with you, probably had a beer, probably had 6...

It is actually great to be back. I think there was a moment when I was in New York City with Jake Nissly and a bunch of crazy music fools from Northwestern, enjoying myself too much at a club where Fred's rock band was playing, when I said to myself "Nate, they're gonna have to drag you kicking and screaming back to India..." Luckily that wasn't the case. It was tough the night before I left because the trip went so quickly but I forgot how much I do enjoy my life here in Bangalore. We went to brunch at the Leela Palace yesterday and that was just incredible! I just got back from the US and I thought the food at this buffet was off the hook!

So most people don't read this to hear about what I do in the US, so I'll keep the details to a minimum, but here's a Top 10 list for my trip back to the US.

10. Speckled Hen Beer in NYC with Nissly and Connor Hannick at 2:00 AM

Maybe my favorite beer of the trip. Good times late night after seeing some incredible music in the city.

9. Seeing Symetric Freddy's band, Ionia, play at Guesthouse in NYC

They actually were pretty good. I was worried that Fred had fallen in with a bad crowd of Emo fans, but the band had a great sound. I think Fred gets laid a lot more than he was previously used to as a result, so good for him.

8. Getting smashed with Bruss the night I got back into Evanston

Barring myself, never before have I seen a man defile himself like Bruss did this night. Don't get me wrong, we were all toasted but Bruss was the star of the show. I think he kissed me and told me he loved me 20 times in the closing hours of the night. And I gotta say, I liked it. I think he put it the right way. Chris said that people were excited to have me back and thought it would be an intense week of partying, but it wasn't anything like that at all. It was just like I had never left.

7. Hanging out with Noelle in Chicago

I had an incredible time hanging out with Noelle for a few brief hours in Chicago. I saw her apartment, which is awesome, and we went to a local bar to get dinner and watch the Mich State game. Good conversation, good drink. I miss that girl. And she doesn't even read my blog.

6. Concerts

Two concerts that I will NEVER forget. First, Wayne Krantz Trio at the 55 Club in NYC with Jake. Best 1.5 hours of music ever, by FAR. His trio features Krantz (guitar), Keith Karlock (Sting's drummer) and Paul Jackson (played in a little band called the Head Hunters with Herbie Hancock). There are no words to describe. Second, the secret Prince concert with Patty Dropps. We waited for 2.5 hours in 20 degree weather for a concert that didn't start till almost 1:30 AM (ended at 3:45 AM) but every minute was worthit. Heck I could have been out there for 2 more hours and it still would have been a defining moment of my life. 30 ft away from Prince. All I gotta say.

5. American TV

I watched copious amounts of sports while I was back. Never before did I realize the beauty and perfection that is ESPN. The .com version is great, but nothing beats SportsCenter. Also, the Colbert Report on Comedy Central just blew my mind. Changed my whole perspective on shit. Just hilarious.

4. Driving

Driving is fun, even if it's through a blizzard on the highway heading to Illinois. Jamming out to tunes with friends while traveling on well-paved roads is way underrated. I should have done that more in high school... actually, I did quite a bit of that in high school.

3. Grandparents

My awesome grandparents came to hang out for the weekend and it was a ton of fun. Really nice sushi dinners at night, playing cards during the day, cocktail hour starting at 4:00 PM... all the things that make my extended family as fantastic as they are. I don't care what anyone says, nobody works hard and parties harder than the Linkons. Respek.

2. My little bro Adam

For one of the first times in my life (or more appropriately, his life) I had a great time just chillin with my little bro Adam. He's a freshman at Universiry of Minnesota and has really made a great life for himself. He seems to have a great girlfriend and does some sweet stuff, like coreographing fight scenes for student films. That's pretty awesome. And he's not partying his way through school like I did. He'll remember much more.

1. Parents

My parents rock. Always have, always will. I only wish I could have spent more time with them. This is what makes them so awesome: they help me pay for a ticket home knowing damn well that I'm gonna be pulled in a thousand directions by friends and they will probably get the shit end of the stick. And they did. We had some great times hanging out, looking at pictures of India, eating good food, drinking good wine, and just talking about life.

___________________________________________________________

Don't worry, Mom. I'll be back in the United States for good before anyone knows I've been gone.

Good stuff, guys. I'm sure I could have made a list of 20, but with your busy schedules you can't possibly read all of them. Great vacation, but glad to be back at work and with my friends here. The best part of a vacation can be coming home.

Peace, ya'll.

Valentines Day date with Good Morning America

2006-02-14T04:54:00.000-08:00

I totally forgot about Valentines Day. Not that it's been a particularly meaningful holiday for me in my lifetime, but still kinda sad. I do, however, have a date this evening: Camera crew and anchor person from Good Morning America.

They are here doing a 5-part series on India and they spent the day here at IndiaIT looking at the campus and interviewing a few employees, including myself and Pete. It looks like this series will air starting on March 1st, which means I'll actually be in the US when this airs. Good Morning America for sure!

The GMA producer, Mary, said she'd like to see us out on the town doing what we do. I called a bar that we frequent and set it up with the manager so we'll be going out for dinner, drinks, all on IndiaIT's dollar, which is a rarity! The interview went pretty well. A few awkward questions here and there.

Anchor Dude: So Nate, how's the love life in Bangalore?

Nate: What an awkward question! Actually, it's nonexistant.

Anchor Dude: What about you Pete? It's Valentines Day!

Pete: Yeah, I'm inviting a girl out to dinner tonight.

(Nate looks like huge tool with no game)

Whatever, this is what I expected, right? Either way, the interview went well. I think I said too much, which is typical Nate, especially when a camera is on me, but all together a successful day. It'll be interesting to see what it looks like in a few weeks. They probably caught 2 hours of tape which they have to cut down to 5 or 6 minutes.

On another note, the Fortune article about IndiaIT comes out in 2 weeks. The reporter, Julie Schlosser, has told us that it has gone to print. She also mentioned that the photographs taken were incredible, which I can take partial credit for. I did, after all, hang out with the photographer while she took the pictures. Maybe my mere presence was inspiring!!! Probably not, though. I DID sneak her onto the roof while security guards yelled at me in a language I don't understand. Not understanding Hindi can actually be an advantage cuz you can't argue with someone that you can't speak with.

Alright, busy week ahead as I prepare to fly back to the states on Sunday. Especially cuz I have to fly to Hyderabad (another city in India) for a corporate gig. It's the first time I'm being flown anywhere AND being paid to play my sax, which is nice. So my travel schedule is now:

Saturday morning - Leave from Bangalore to Hyderabad
Sunday afternoon - Leave from Hyderabad to Bombay
Sunday night - Leave from Bombay to New York City
Tuesday - Arrive in NYC
Friday - Leave for Chicago

Crazy week ahead but the thought of coming to the States keeps me going.

The countdown has begun!

2006-02-10T01:38:00.000-08:00

So I land stateside in just a little more than a week from today! And I've got to tell you, I never thought I'd be nervous to come back to the United States, but that's really the best way I can describe how I'm feeling.

It's not like I think I'll get hurt, or that things won't be as great with my friends, or even that I'll want to stay in the US (I think). It's more an anxiety about how I'm gonna react to being around so many Americans....in American bars...in an American city...in AMERICA!!! Even through the pictures I post it's really impossible to get an idea of what it's like to live here until you come see for yourself. Will I know how to interact with caucasian, American 20-somethings? I can't be sure that this whole experience hasn't rendered me completely antisocial outside of my comfort zone where I see the same 4 people every waking moment of my life (Scott, Winnie, Laura, Pete). That's a competely literal statement.

I can picture myself sitting on the plane as we land in JFK in NYC and I'll be losing my mind about how I'll catch a cab and not a rickshaw. How F'ed up is it that I'd be more comfortable with a rickshaw than I would a normal car? Using American currency is going to be strange. Eating American food is gonna be awesome! Seeing American friends/family is going to be incredible!!!

It's gonna be an interesting first 24-48 hours as I:

A) Readjust to being around aggresive, dominant white people

B) Being in the freezing cold (the coldest it's been in the last 8 months is probably around 60 F)

C) Being in the 'States, where everything is crazy expensive

D) Adjust to the minimal chaos]

E) Drink Miller products

Should be an interesting experience!

Nothing else exciting going on here. I'm just finishing up work I need to complete before I head home. Drop me a line and let me know where you'll be when I'm back in the states and hopefully we can find a chance to catch up. Later, folks!

Working in Mumbai, vacation to Ooty, COMING BACK TO THE US!!!

2006-01-31T04:14:00.000-08:00

First off, let me formally announce my first trip back to the US after disappearing into the dark continent:

New York City: Feb 21 - 24

Chicago/Milwaukee: Feb 24 - March 8 (Maybe a trip to LA somewhere in there)

Anyway...What's going on? Sorry about the lack of posts this month, I've been traveling a lot and to tell you the truth, other than work I haven't been doing too much.

Work Stuff in Bombay:

So I was in Mumbai (Bombay) for about 5 days running some media relations and a press conference for the Wharton Alumni Forum. IndiaIT has a partnership with Wharton and they give a few awards away each year, nothing too groundbreaking. It was great for me, however, because I was able to meet some incredible members of the business community, not just in Asia but also in the US, as well as many Wharton alumni, students and faculty...including Dean Patrick Harker. Yeah, Dean of the Wharton School. He told me I should go there. We'll see what happens. I also hung out a lot with Esther Dyson, Director of CNET and one of the leading authorities on emerging technology around the world (she was on the jury for the award). Here are a few more pics of business stylin' Nate.

Stresin' Nate

My first press conference

From L-R: Srini (head of IndiaIT Marketing and my boss); Dr. Harbir Singh, Director of the Mack Center for Technological Innovation at Wharton School; NRN Murthy, Chairman of IndiaIT; Patrick Harker, Dean of Wharton School; Esther Dyson, Director of CNET; CEO of Ohmy News (Korea); CEO of Cyworld (Korea); Kiran Mazumbdar- Shaw, CEO of Biocon and richest woman in India

There were only supposed to be 5 people at the table, but Dean Harker and Dr. Singh asked to be involved 5 minutes before the conference started. Can't really say no to these people.

Press mobbing my spokespeople.

Esther Dyson speaking with the Chairman of IndiaIT in front of cameras(also my boss)

Vacation in Ooty:

We got a few days off last week so Winnie, Peter and I went on a weekend hike to Ooty, which is in the Nilgiri Mountains in South India. We drove about 6 hours to get there in an air conditioned bus and then spent a few nights at Jungle Retreat where they had GREAT food, good drink and a beautiful view of the mountains and an unbeatable sky at night. Reminded me a lot of Colorado in the summer.

On the way to our hotel in the back of George's jeep

This was view from our rooms...very Brokeback Mountain

Starting our long hike

The peak of the first, out of two, mountains

Crazy view

Tea plantations at the end of our trek

Me, George (safari driver), Sidhan (our guide for the trek), Pete

Winnie was also on the trip, as a photographer. Thanks, Winnie for giving Pete and I a hand.

It should be noted that we saw a family of elephants as well as some deer hanging out with monkeys, but maybe the monkeys were just there to watch the deer... who were screwing in the jungle!!! One of the funnier things I've seen, but, alas, no picture to prove the event took place.

You know this is the first time I've been up to date on my blog? Talk to you guys soon and get in touch with me if you're gonna be around when I'm back 'Stateside.

It’s been a while, but here's my New Year's in India

2006-01-10T09:58:00.000-08:00

The last few weeks have been absolutely nuts. I don’t think I’ve slept in my bed for more than two nights in a row in quite a while. My schedule over the last few weeks has been as follows:

December 29^th – January 3^rd in Goa – Celebrating the new year by chillin on the beach, ringing in the new year

January 5^th – January 8^th in Bombay – I was there for the Wharton Alumni Forum, where I was running an event for IndiaIT but also had plenty of time to network

Dealing with the media after running my first press conference (older guy next to me is the Chairman of IndiaIT)

January 9^th - ??? in Mysore - Traveling with a photographer from Fortune magazine who is taking pictures for a feature on IndiaIT that will appear in the next month or so. This journalist, by the way, was posted in Iraq for a while and was kidnapped by insurgents. (that entry comes later. It's just too much to talk about today.)

IndiaIT campus in Mysore, India...pretty incredible place, the Epcot Globe like thing is a multiplex theater, there's a bowling alley in the building to the right. The photographer had a lot to take pictures of.

I’m totally burnt out and my writing may be a bit sloppy and unimaginative, so I’m gonna focus more on pictures to tell the story. For the sake of time and energy, I’ll divide up the last few weeks into blog entries bout the cities I’ve seen and the experiences I’ve had. And with no further ado, here was my time in Goa:

Goa is a different kind of vacation. It’s not a place where you make reservations at a nice hotel or travel around in a nice rented car. Goa is a place where you find a cheap guest house upon arrival and rent a moped as your mode of transportation. After all, the roads are barely wide enough to fit two cars, so you’re often better off with the moped anyway. And most importantly, you under no circumstances come to Goa with an itinerary. You just have to arrive and fly by the seat of your pants to have a good time. You’ll drive yourself nuts doing it any other way.

Our really crappy room where 11 people slept for 3 nights

Our balcony view of a decrepit building that was never finished

We arrived on the 29^th and then had to travel the hour and a half to Anjuna Beach, where we were staying with some friends. That night we just decided to find a party, but instead we found a lounge by the beach where we had a few beers, looked at the stars and played with the various wildlife that came our way.

First night in Goa

Couple hours later

One of the more beautiful things I’ve ever seen in my life is the Goan sunset. Imagine sitting on a beach where there is nothing but a few shacks build of sticks, rope and a reed roof with a cold drink and fresh fish, so fresh that it was caught a few hours before, on the beach where you sit. I could really only say, “My life is absolutely ridiculous!” I find myself saying that quite a bit, but you have to understand that it’s not always a good thing like it was this day.

Pretty nice

Sticking a chillum in my ear

Laura and I out at a rave/bar like thing where some guy on acid danced in front of a speaker stack for 3 hours...making the exact same movement

New Year’s eve was maybe the most memorable of my life. We heard of some really intense parties happening elsewhere in Goa, but we decided to stay on the beach where we had been all day and making our own party with some friends of ours from Bangalore who also happened to be in town. I ended up having an incredible time with about 12 of my friends around a small fire on the beach.

Most of the crew

Yeah, Goa is cool...

January 1st, 2006 approx 1:00 PM

We spent the night of the first looking for a rave that we never found. By the time we realized we didn’t find it it was about 2:00 AM and there was no possible way to get back to our guest house. There was no other option than to stay at our African beach shack run by a bunch of guys from Sudan and drink cheap beer till about 9:00 AM when we finally caught a cab home. Needless to say we slept till about 6:00 PM.

Sunset at the beginning of our endless evening

Neverending evening at the African beach shack around 5:00 AM

So Goa was an incredible time and I’ll go there with anyone who will visit me here in India. Just ask Aaron, who is traveling India for the next few months and decided to drop in for New Year’s. It was one of the best weeks I’ve had here in India, and that’s saying quite a bit. Man, my life is completely ridiculous!!!

Christmas/Hannukah, gig pictures from Xmas Eve, etc.

2005-12-27T20:42:00.000-08:00

What's up everyone? Nothing too crazy going on here, just thought I'd post some pictures and stuff.

Aaron, my friend Lindsay's boyfriend, is here in Bangalore staying with me for a while. He's traveling around India for 180 days exploring the subcontinent. It's really quite amazing that he's making this trip by himself! At least when I got here I had other Americans around to help me through, he's really just learned everything on the fly. Goes to show that it's possible for an American to survive around here. In the last week I've heard of 2 MORE friends from home that will happen to be in my area. Man, I never thought I'd see any friends while in India, but it would seem that there are too many coming through Bangalore to possibly spend time with each of them, especially with my travel schedule in the next few weeks. (Goa 19th-3rd; Bombay 5th - 9th).

Christmas was great, just a little different than I'm used to. I played a gig with a jazz band on Christmas Eve, which was a lot of fun. The crowd was really into it even though the music wasn't THAT great, but what can you expect from a bunch of guys playing for free who haven't rehearsed. We just played covers everyone in the band knew. My picture finally made it to Page 3, the social scene feature in the Bangalore Times. I'll scan the article and put it up if I can.

This trumpet player was really awesome! Even though he belonged in a mariachi band...

Carlton, the singer, would start singing a different song without warning

I thought this was a very "introspective musician" picture

Christmas day was pretty relaxed. We spent the majority of the day chilling around and then made potatoe latkes and apple sauce for dinner. Mom would've been proud.

I leave for Goa on Thursday to spend New Years there, and MAN am I pumped! Work has been so freaking stressful over the last week or so that I just need to lay on the beach during the day and party more than is healthy at night. Can't wait to post the pictures for everyone.

In other news, the beloved Matt Newcomb has moved back to the United States for good. No longer will he and I be able to revel in our weekend escapades. It's pretty sad, but we were able to throw him a pretty kickin goodbye party. Laura's parents had reserved two rooms in the Leela Palace but their flight from London was cancelled, so we took over the rooms and spent the night downstairs in the nightclub, Athena. here are some pictures:

Matt disappearing from our lives, the look on Scott's face tells the whole story

Partying in Athena

Emotional/Drunk last night with Matt...and the person touching me
Contemplating Matt's absence on the Leela balcony while awaiting room service

Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukah! Happy New Years!

You can call us Aaron Burr from the way we're droppin Hamiltons...

2005-12-22T00:08:00.000-08:00

This is the funniest thing I've ever seen. I've probably watched this video a thousands times today and I can't seem to stop...

Now quiet in the theater or it's gonna get tragic, cuz we're about to be taken to a dreamworld of magic!!!

My budding IndiRock career in Bangalore

2005-12-21T01:18:00.000-08:00

Nate has camera

First off, after more than 4 months of frustration I finally recieved the package that had my digital camera. I'll be able to post some pictures of my apartment, office and stuff like that once I get the chance. Things have been pretty crazy lately...

I’ve mentioned before in my blog that Bangalore has had a ban on live music in bars/clubs that has crippled my ability to perform live, which is probably the single most gratifying experience I’ve ever had. Until very recently, this has definitely been the single largest missing piece to my life in

India

…until now!

A few weeks ago I was jamming with my usual group. Mediocre, but excited to play, the group really had very little potential to do anything more than play in Ani’s attic. Maybe with a lot of work we could perform somewhere, but I was mostly playing to somewhat keep up my chops. Listen, I’ve come to grips with the fact that I’m going to be a less talented musician when I get back to the US, but that doesn’t mean that I’m gonna give it up.

We had a new drummer for this session, a guy named George who was actually really good. I was really impressed with his ability to change styles and insert ideas into the music, something a lot of drummers can’t do. After we were done playing we went out for a few beers. I got to talking with George and he invited me to jam with his other band, Lounge Pirhana. I agreed and we played that very next Sunday.

Lounge Pirhana

I don’t know if I’ve been away from the US for too long, but this was really one of the better jams I’d had in a while. We played hard for more than two hours, so you can imagine my lip was killin me by the end. It was good, though, cuz George called me the next day and asked me to come play on a few tunes at their gig at Opus (Opus is the bar where I sing karaoke sometimes). They have a pretty nice stage and a decent set-up for a live band, so I was excited.

So I played a few tunes with the band and it was one of the most refreshing artistic releases of my life. After more than 5 months of playing either in a tiny room with 2 or 3 people or in my apartment with my iPod I was finally able to perform. I wouldn’t say that I played so well, but it felt good. I officially have the bug again and I’ve been itching to play ever since.

I was given the opportunity the next week. I jammed with a few friends in a band called, this is no joke, Maximum Pudding. After being in a band called Captain Teabag, nothing really phases me, so this was fine. We played at a huge battle of the bands where more than 50 bands competed.

Now Maximum Pudding has never really rehearsed. We jammed once for like 45 minutes, so our only option was to make something up on stage. I used to do this with Captain Teabag, but those were some of the best musicians I’ve ever heard, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.

We were given 20 minutes on stage, so you could play for 20 minutes, or you could play for 15 and talk for 5….oooorrr you could waste the first 8 minutes fixing the crappy keyboard, make up a mediocre song for 8 minutes and leave the stage with 4 minutes remaining cuz there’s just nothing else you can do on the same F major riff. It was definitely one of the most embarrassing moments of my musical career.

Well much to my surprise, Maximum Pudding was given a “Special Mention” on the final night. Only the top 5 bands played in the finals, but we were apparently somewhere in the top 8….out of 54 bands!!! I can’t really explain how this happened, but my phone has been blowing up with requests to play with bands ever since. I don’t even have time to play all the gigs I’m being offered. I had to ditch a gig at Opus just last night because I wanted to go out to dinner with Laura’s parents and say goodbye to Matt, who has left for the US…for good. (Which is a whole other story in itself. It’s strange to see one of the group leave already, but after almost 10 months in India he’s headed back to Detroit.)

Nate is happy

So things have really turned around on the music front, and I’ll keep everyone updated on my budding music career in Bangalore!

The Onion, basketball success and Bill Gates

2005-12-07T00:18:00.000-08:00

I've been a fan of The Onion for several years now and it never amazes me that they are able to maintain the level of hilarity. To be honest, when The Onion from Madison, Wisconsin to New York City I thought that it would lose some of its independent bite, and although I think that might be partially true, I still find myself laughing about at least one article a week. It really shows how much humor you can find in current events. When you think about it, The Onion is really a print version of The Daily Show, and both are definitely two of my favorite news media.

In any case, I was searching for funny articles on TheOnion.com and I found this one about India.

I especially like the "Manhattan-or-maybe-London Project"...

India's Top Physicists Develop Plan To Get The Hell Out Of India

Also, I forgot to mention in my last post that the IndiaIT basketball company won the 2005 Genie Inter-Corporate Basketball Tournament! Exciting, eh? I gotta tell ya, it's nice playing basketball in India. In the US I'm nothing special, but here I can really run the court. It's very nice feeling like you're way more talented than you are. Isn't that really what we all want? To feel like better people than we actually are?

On a work-related note, Bill Gates is currently visiting India and tonight on New Delhi Television (a very big network in India) they will be televising a discussion between the chairman of IndiaIT and Bill Gates that is happening in Delhi. You can't imagine how big it is when Bill Gates comes to India. So much of this nation is focused on information technology, you can understand how Bill Gates is seen as a somewhat of a deity. We're using this event as a marketing tool, and a media event is happening today at the Taj Palace in Delhi where Gates will be taking part in interviews as well as this discussion on Indian entrepreneurs. Well I wrote the questions for the Q&A section of the program. If I can find a video clip or a transcript I'll be sure to post it.

Later.

Nate in the news!!!!

2005-12-05T02:18:00.000-08:00

A month or two ago we had a journalist and photographer from the San Jose Mercury News visit Bangalore to do a story on the Indian tech boom as well as Americans and Indians working abroad. It was a very interesting week. We basically lived with these journalists (John and Meri) as they shadowed us on our commute, during our lunch hours at work and at our apartment to see everything from vegging out to playing poker.

In any case, the first of the articles talking about the Americans in Bangalore just came out in the Mercury News. I believe there will be more coverage in the coming week or two, so I'll be sure to post anything that I find to the blog for all of you to enjoy.

Here's the article:

In the front row of the global economy, Young Americans seek career jolt, cachet in India

John and Meri have also created a multimedia presentation featuring many of the pictures that were taken here. Many of these pictures come from a night of poker around Scott and Juan's apartment as well as several pictures of my American crew waiting for the bus and crossing the street.

DISCLAIMER: This presentation makes us sound whiny and miserable here in Bangalore. Let me assure you that this is not the case. The pictures often look very depressing and make us seem very isolated when in reality that is completly false. The voiceovers are done by Juan and Laura, and although they are truthful, they are juxtaposed to pictures that bring the quotes out of context. Don't worry, we're not living in the concentration camp that this video depicts.

AFTER THE INTRO, CLICK ON THE "AMERICANS FIND A NEW CACHET" PORTION

An American in Bangalore - Multimedia Presentation

It's all pretty cool. I helped put a lot of this together for the journalists as part of my role in Media Relations. Talk to you guys soon!

Thanksgiving, weather, basketball and homesickness. Not necessarily in that order.

2005-11-24T22:19:00.000-08:00

Another lazy Friday at the office. It’s awesome how nothing really ever gets done on Fridays around here. As for me, I’ll definitely be leaving the office around 2:30. I have to head to the customs office to try and pick up a package from my parents that they mailed to me almost three months ago!!! Yeah, this is the one that contains the digital camera that I’ve so desperately needed over the last four months! It’ll be nice to post pictures of the important stuff, like my apartment and the complex, my neighborhood, the monkey that breaks into Winnie’s kitchen to steal food, that kind of stuff.

Happy Thanksgiving! It was a bit of a depressing Thanksgiving. You really take family holidays for granted until you’re in Asia with only a few Americans who can really appreciate the importance of the day. Nonetheless, we found a way to make do. We made reservations at this restaurant called “The Only Place.” The place may have a strange name but it was literally the only place where we could find serving turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, pumpkin pie…they really had a very traditional Thanksgiving dinner. The food actually wasn’t too bad, but it wasn’t even the food that I missed the most. Thanksgiving is really about so much more than the extravagant dinner. It’s about sitting with your dad and football all day while your mother makes some ridiculous meal. In my house, the food was an all-day thing. There was an incredible breakfast when you woke up at 10:30 to catch the 11:05 kickoff, food and drink during both games, and then more family, dinner and drinking till the tryptophan kicks in and everyone passes out. This Thanksgiving was unique, but great because it made me really understand what I had to be thankful for. *tear*

So this weekend I will be playing in the Genie Inter-Corporate Basketball Tournament representing IndiaIT against teams from some of the other businesses in the area. Also in the league are teams from Goldman Sachs, Accenture, Siemens, General Electric, Robert Bosch and HSBC just to name a few. Really gives you an idea of the companies that have set up huge operations here in Bangalore. It should be fun. I’ve been shooting better than I have in recent memory, so I’m really looking forward to getting on the court and letting my competitive attitude rage! Matt and I are both on the team and will surely dominate. I’ll let you know what happens.

I’ve been a bit homesick lately. You’d think that it had a lot to do with Thanksgiving, or maybe the NFL season that I’ve been missing. Well, you’d be about 20% correct. But to tell you the truth, what’s really been making me miss the States has been the weather in Bangalore. It’s been cold (around 60) and slightly rainy for the past few days. You’d be surprised how well your body can recognize a familiar climate, but I’ve had this really eerie feeling that I’m actually in Chicago. My body is really quite confused, which has made me think of fall at Northwestern and how much fun everything would be. This weather is the weather that I’d walk to football games in, weather I’d walk to class in (albeit a rare occurrence), the weather I’d walk to Beta/Jake’s house in, the weather that I’d lug my saxophone in. I could go on, but you get the point.

Don’t get me wrong, I really love my time here in Bangalore and I know that it’s benefiting me in ways no other experience could. This has been the best decision of my life. But I still can’t wait to visit friends in the US and look forward to the time when I’ll be living close to my US friends on a permanent basis.

Alright, enough whining from me. Gotta go back to work, at least till 2:30.

Just hit a major low-point...

2005-11-23T00:26:00.000-08:00

So I'm sitting here at work listening to some music from my laptop. Randomly, Miles Davis' All Blues comes on. I turned up the volume just a little bit, trying not to bother the people working around me.

Apparently I did bother someone because Neeraj, one of the guys who sits near me, came over to my computer to listen and learn. If I can make some of these Indians appreciate good music, the time I spend in India will have all been worthit. This in mind, my heart sunk when Neeraj asked this question:

"Ohhhhhhh.... Sounds good..... Nate, why are you listening to bagpipes?" (much funnier when said in an Indian accent)

I guess it shouldn't suprise me that people in India have no appreciation for America's only original artform.

Oh well, I didn't come here for the music.

Looks like we’re moving out

2005-11-21T21:54:00.000-08:00

Quick side note: the King of Sweden, the Prince of Panama and the President of Indonesia were all visiting my campus today. Apparently this is the busy travel season for B-level dignitaries that nobody knew existed. There’s a King of Sweden? WTF?! And why is he visiting IT campuses in India?

Aaanyway...

So it would appear that many of the Americans living in Adarsh Gardens (the apartment complex where we are all put up) may finally be getting “kicked out.” Actually, we’re not getting kicked out as much as we’ve implicitly received several notices that we are no longer welcome there anymore. Our expulsion can easily be understood when the cultural differences are examined.

First of all, we are technically not allowed to have any alcohol in our apartments. Huge cultural difference #1!!!! In the US we have been completely socialized to expect the presence of alcohol at almost any gathering. A significant portion of the Indian population does not drink at all, and they expect not to be bothered by those who may decide to have a few chardonnays now and then. This would seem to be a completely reasonable request. However, here is the problem: The bars in Bangalore close around 11:30 PM. Of course this is clearly too early to end the party when it’s a Friday night and you’ve just finished a stressful week at work. The way we curtail the trend towards lameness is by having little post-party get-togethers at Adarsh Gardens. This requires a little booze. You can imagine where this is going… We come back around midnight, put on a little light music and enjoy each other’s company for a few more hours. Next thing you know, the superintendent is called in to quell the riot.

IndiaIT (what I can the company I work for) owns approximately 60 units in Adarsh Gardens. We are the only “permanent” residents; the other units are used to house employees who are only in town for a few weeks on a project. The original residents of the apartment complex would like nothing better than for IndiaIT to abandon these units, allowing them to be filled with Indian families who enjoy similar cultural values rather than the foreign business professionals that occupy a unit for only two. I can imagine it’s unsettling to have strange foreigners walking around your apartment complex amongst your small children. So they clearly want us gone ASAP.

There are other glaring differences between the Indian and American value system. The basic unit of Indian culture is the family, and this is really difficult for someone from the US to fully understand. Many of the families we live with have a few children, most of which are under the age of 12. You would think this would render the complex completely childproof and silent after dark. Not true, many Indian residents have rowdy get-togethers where music is played very loudly late into the night. Why are they allowed to be rowdy until the wee hours of the morning? Apparently it’s the presence of alcohol we bring that makes the difference. Then I ask, what difference does that make? The only way you could tell the difference between a non-alcoholic party and a fun party is by actually being present inside. The noise of the music, whether it is Bollywood or Black Eyed Peas, will sound the same from either type of party. I might even say that our music is played at a lesser volume. The conversation of the crown, whether in Hindi or slurred English, sounds the same emanating from either party. It is only the Americans, however, who receive complaints.

Here’s another significant cultural divide: In India, men are NEVER allowed in a female’s apartment. It’s just not done! In fact, it is common to see apartment complexes in India that only house women, just another way to maintain the status quo. So when two single women are living on their own and have male visitors on a consistent basis, only one conclusion can be made: the women operate a successful brothel. Apparently brothels are frowned upon in India, and Winnie and Laura’s apartment has caused several residents to complain about our lifestyle, especially when Scott and I spend so much time there. So this co-ed mingling that may seem completely normal for someone schooled in the US (unless, of course, you went to Notre Dame) is seen as living in sin here in India. Apparently it’s also an Indian value not avoid raising your children in the presence of sin. Man, the times, they are a changin’...

So with my circumstance (nowhere to hang out on weekends) and the situation of the residents (despising the presence of prostitutes) it’s safe to say that the residents will file a complaint any time they hear fun occurring after 11:00 PM. Bummer for us.

So who’s at fault here?

Nobody. The Americans hired to work here in Bangalore were assured that our living situation in India would be comparable to what we could expect in the US. This means that the men can hang out with the opposite sex, alcohol can be legally consumed, and we are given the same courtesy as any Indian family living in the complex. However, this does not seem to be the case. Yes, there is a double standard for Indians having parties and Americans having parties, but it’s merely a result of two completely opposite groups of people being forced to coexist in the same complex. Neither behavior is inappropriate.

The best decision would be to simply move to a place where we can enjoy our lifestyle of choice. Listen, it’s not like we’re crazy alcoholics who have sexy parties seven nights a week. We’re relatively calm, relatively intelligent Americans who went to some of the best schools in the US. We were all successful, so we obviously know how to handle ourselves and balance work and play. But when you get down to it, we’re all around 22 years of age. We’ve just graduated from American universities and we’re not quite ready to let go of that lifestyle, and that’s OK! It would just be a mutually beneficial arrangement for the residents and us to find a place that is conducive to our style of living.

Any parent of a teenager can tell you, those of us in the 17 – 24 age group are going to find a way to “have fun” (however you interpret this) no matter what rules are imposed. We might as well do this in a place where young, conservative families are not present. Let’s just say that we’d like to live a PG-13 existence where our neighbors are really not comfortable with anything close to PG. We’d like to fit in a curse word here and there, but our neighbors reject mildly suggestive dialogue.

Now how do we go about finding an apartment in India? I’ll keep you updated.

Heaven on Earth

2005-11-13T02:01:00.000-08:00

Where does true paradise exist? I suppose the answers would be infinite, as no two people could possibly have the same setting in mind. You ask: Why on earth would Nate pose such a deep, nebulous question to the simple readers of his blog who, on average, lack the mental capacity required to effectively screw in a lightbulb? The reason I bring this up is simple: I have recently discovered my own paradise. This place is Sri Lanka.

For the nearly four months that I’ve known Winnie AsianName she has spoken at great length about this magical place called Sri Lanka. Her description seemed impossible. Picturesque beaches, beautiful people, rainforest covered mountains, fulfilling relief efforts, insane party scene, peace and harmony amongst the gracious people who deal with the aftermath of the tsunami on a daily basis… how could all these things exist in the same place? I don’t know, but Winnie has never been more right in her entire life.

For the last week, I have been lounging on the beaches of Unawatuna Bay, rebuilding the schools of Boossa, hiking the palm-covered mountains of Kandy and relaxing in villages found deep in the rainforest. This was most definitely one of, if not the, greatest vacation of my life. I will do my best to recount the experience that brought me close to quitting my job and becoming a beach bum for the remainder of my existence.

Words just can't describe...

Part I: Arrival and the beaches of Unawatuna

Winnie, Juan and I arrived in Colombo around 11:00 PM on Friday the 28^th. We grabbed a taxi and drove the 40 minutes to our hotel near the beach where we checked in and immediately ventured into the city to find a cozy watering hole where we could kick off our vacation. We eventually found our way to a bar called R&B. (I have no idea what that stands for.) This turned into a normal evening out with the crew: drinking too much, dancing more than I should be allowed to dance, hitting on people I had no business hitting on, finding my way home. Definitely nothing new to my loyal readers.

The next day we found a bus to take us to Galle, which is a city along the southern cost of Sri Lanka. This bus ride was really an eye-opener. The entire drive was along the coastline where you saw the remains of countless houses, businesses, hotels, fishing shacks, etc. For the most part, all that remained were concrete foundations that you wouldn’t recognize unless you were aware of the devastation caused by the tsunami.

We arrived in Galle and grabbed a Tuk Tuk (a Sri Lankan rickshaw) that took us to our hotel near the beach called Thambupanni. Our room was amazing! It required a Swiss Family Robinson-style climb to our front door found in the tree tops, but the hike was well worth it. We met up with a few of the friends Winnie knew from her days of tsunami relief work and had a grand old time. That night, we met the bartender/waiter/manager/DJ/hippie of the Lucky Tuna, Rikas, who quickly became our best friend. We would spend the next 3 or 4 days on the beach at his restaurant eating, drinking, relaxing on the beach and playing with his dogs Pinkie and Saddam. Only pictures can accurately describe this experience. This is the best I can do:

I managed to make a few friends

This was my scenery for an entire week

Hiking behind our hotel arond Unawatuna beach

My days consisted of waking up around 11:00 AM, heading to the beach for breakfast, laying on the beach reading a book, swimming in the ocean, climbing rocks to the Buddhist temples, hanging out with Rikas, basking in the glory of this tropical paradise.

We heard some incredible stories from the tsunami. Like how Rikas was on the beach when the tsunami hit. He was beaten by the ocean but was able to maintain the state of mind to find a way to swim to find air. Once he had taken hold of the roof of a house, and was able to pull three struggling tourists dangling from a tree to safety. So he saved three lives, no big deal to him.

Or about Sunil, whose bar and restaurant was destroyed by the tsunami. Juan and I were lucky enough to stumble upon his restaurant the first day it was open since it was demolished. He gave us our first beer for free. When I refused to take the beer for free (a big beer in Sri Lanka is about $1) he explained that it was a day to celebrate and remember his mother and son who perished in the tsunami. Sunil might have been the happiest guy I met on the trip, yet possibly the one who lost the most in the last year.

Simply incredible stories.

I also spent time while on vacation helping to get a school back on its feet. We spent hours painting classroom furniture and rebuilding a wall almost destroyed by the waters. There were about 200 children around at the time and they couldn’t have been happier to have us around. What a rewarding experience that really made drinking that night all the more rewarding.

Winnie, myself and Juan after a day of relief work

Part II: Kandy and rainforest

After a few days on the beach we decided to see the rest of Sri Lanka. So we hopped on a train headed to Kandy. We spent 7 hours on the train, but the ride flew by as I sat by the window, listened to my iPod and watched the coastline go by as the sea breeze hit my face.

One of the incredible views out the window of my train

Kandy reminded me of Colorado in the summer, if Colorado had palm trees and huge Buddhist temples nestled in the mountains. Here we stayed in a guest house that cost us about $4 a night per person that had a great view of the scenery. We spent the first day hiking to a Buddhist temple on a neighboring peak. On the way we met a man who took us to the school where his brother teaches a few thousand students.

The Buddhist temple was definitely worth the hike…
…as was the view…

…as was the 12 year old monk I met.

We toured the Tooth Temple during the day. Legend has it that the Tooth Temple (or TT) houses one of Buddha’s teeth! Screwed up, eh? It’s also really cool and has the largest taxidermied animal on the face of the earth. That’s not an official record, but I can’t imagine there’s anything bigger. Has anyone ever taken a whale to a taxidermist? If it’s happened be sure to let me know.

That night we went to see Kandyan dancing, which was really cool. I finally saw people walking on fire!!! Awesome!

Maybe the coolest part of the trip was when Rikas took us by train to his family’s village in the rainforest. We visited the house where his family was gathering for Eid (the Muslim festival at the end of the holy month of Ramadan) and we drank, ate and chilled out with his mother, brother, sister, aunts, uncles, cousins and neighbors all day. His mother made us a friggin’ feast that was out of this world! It was a perfect example of how a family can have very little but maintain a level of happiness few Americans have ever experienced. Really makes you think.

Me, Rikas and Juan wearing a lungi

Eating the feast Rikas' mother made us
Chillin with Rikas' family in the 'forest
(Rikas was the only one who really spoke both English and Sinhala and we were still able to spend a whole day with his family)

Rikas' cousins dancing to Tamil music, and they were damn good.

Rikas' cousins

The trip ended much as it had begun: taking a bus to Colombo to catch our flight home. A very sad moment for all of us. This was definitely the first vacation where I felt like I could have stayed indefinitely.

If anyone else has taken a vacation where the partied as hard as I did, worked as hard as I did for a great cause, saw the most beautiful beach of their life, saw the most beautiful mountains of their life and received the true local experience, doesn’t even have to be in the rainforest, then please let me know.

You all must promise me one thing: go visit Sri Lanka in your lifetime. Believe me, you will not think the same way about the world again.

MORE PICTURES COMING SOON!!!

I'm a very naughty little blogger...

2005-11-09T10:29:00.000-08:00

So I haven't slept in the same bed for more than 2 or 3 nights in about 2 weeks, so internet access has been a rarity. When it has been available it has not been for more than a few minutes at a time. Such is life when you're traveling through Sri Lanka partying and doing relief work and hanging out in India with a lead journalist from Fortune. There has, however, been a significant advancement in my ability to blog.

I finally got my freaking laptop!!!

It's a damn nice one too. One of the new Toshiba laptops, which is exactly what I have been hoping for. Although I still don't have internet at my apartment, I can write my entries at home in my free time and post them when I get to work. You can be sure to expect a more regular blogger in Nate Linkon!

I'm excited to be able to stay in better touch. It just goes to show, staying in touch is never an easy thing when you're a world away, no matter how advanced the technology is. I thought blogging would be such an easy, time-effective way to communicate to friends/family. While I enjoy letting everyone know what is going on in my life here in India, there are a few things that stand in my way:

Work
Lack of time
Lack of a laptop/home internet
Way too many things going on in my life that all require more than a 5-minute explanation

For you all to get an idea of the incredible experience I am having here in Asia, I need ample time to get my thoughts together. I'll be able to accomplish this with my newly available resources.

There are several entries that I am working on that will be posted in the next week. These include, but are not limited to;

My weeklong vacation to Sri Lanka
My travels with the journalist from Fortune to Mysore
Some observations that I've made as I reach my 4 month anniversary of arriving here in India.

Here are a few pictures to tide you over till I post loads more in the next day or so:

The view from my spot on the beach in Sri Lanka

My 12-year old little monk buddy I met while hiking in Kandy

Always leave 'em wanting more! And more is coming the next day or so.

Peace it and release it, ya'll.

I'm a lazy bastardo

2005-10-21T04:33:00.000-07:00

Guys,

This week has been a bit nuts because I was pretty much out of the office on Monday, had a busy day of meetings Tuesday, wasted Wednesday away reading about sports, spent Thursday in meetings/interviews with media and senior execs (I was interviewed by New Scientist magazine!), and I've actually had a lot of work to do today. I'll try to get to a computer this weekend and update you all with my weekend trip to Bombay!!! It was definitely awesome!

By the way, I've been promised that I will recieve my laptop early next week. It's been about 2 weeks longer than they had promised earlier, but whatcha gonna do? Once I recieve my machine my blogging will increase in frequency and quality. I mean, what else can you ask for in this world?

Peace it and release it. Talk to you guys on Monday!

- Nate

The (unintentional) power of blogging

2005-10-14T01:14:00.000-07:00

I kid, I kid!!!

I kid about a lot of stuff, but one thing that you should not kid about: your job…especially not on the internet. Let this be an important lesson to be learned by anyone who decides to write a blog, such as this, in connection with a job, such as mine.

Recently, this very blog was brought to the attention of one of my superiors here at “IndiaIT.” AHA! Many of you out there may be thinking that the “leading Indian IT services company” that Nate works for has decided to change its name. While this is not true, my company will from now on be known as “IndiaIT” in the context of my blog to protect all involved parties, but most importantly myself and my fellow co-workers.

In any case, how might one of my superiors find my blog? Maybe they specifically searched for “Nate Linkon” and “IndiaIT?” No. Maybe someone looked over your shoulder while you were updating the blog? No. Maybe your blog, being so well written in style and content and thus superior to all other blogs in the universe, has gained such notoriety within the online community that it can not possibly be ignored? Certainly (and obviously) not! The only people to whom I circulated the URL were close friends and family, definitely nobody who would be making IT decisions for a Fortune 500 business. While I cannot expect for any of my postings, clearly made on a public forum, to be kept private, I also never expected it to be brought to the attention of my boss in the way it was: through one of my fellow American co-workers (who will remain anonymous)!!!

While I realize that this was not done with the intention to hurt my career, this encounter should be noted by those such as me who wish to document their unique professional experiences in an online forum such as this. BEWARE!!!!

On a separate, and also more interesting and less discouraging, it turns out that my readership has become anything but private. My coworker, we will call him/her “The Wetness,” stumbled across this page because someone else, who I have never met, has placed a link from his blog to mine, citing my experience as an example of an enlightening professional experience. While this is flattering, the author also warns that I may be using less-than-moderate language that could get me in trouble.

Rest assure, I’m not in trouble. I have received no warning. I have received no demerit, no spanking. Simply put, a blog can blur the barrier a professional would prefer to maintain between his personal thoughts/life and professional thoughts/life. This is my only point.

Failure to heed this warning could result in you being “dooced.”

Finally playing music again!

2005-10-10T01:50:00.000-07:00

So far my life here in Bangalore has been everything I thought it would be and much, much more. I enjoy my job where I'm gaining incredible experience. I enjoy my social life as my social network continues to expand beyond the "IndiaIT" crew that has quickly become my very tightly knit immediate family.

Many would say that the life I’ve created here is much like the life I led back in Evanston. I obviously miss my friends in Evanston very much.

(On a side note, I don’t think I’ve ever missed home as much as I did late Saturday night when my parents called hysterically to inform me that Northwestern upset #14 ranked Wisconsin in Evanston! I quickly called up Dan Hess, who was pleasantly drunk and on his way to continue the debaucherous partying that ensues following an upset of this magnitude. Later that night one of my best friends, Tony, threw a huge party which I’m sure was made all the more absurd with the big victory. I almost cried I wanted to be there so badly.)

I digress.

So it would seem that all is well, that I’ve been able to fulfill all of my needs. But what did I really spend the majority of my time and energy doing at Northwestern? The FUNK!!! More specifically, CAPTAIN TEABAG!!! Probably the most prolific college band to ever come onto the scene, Teabag dominated Northwestern for my last two years on campus. No other band had ever brought together the sounds and influences of Wang Chung, Mark Morrison and polka music with such incredible energy. Here’s a great article:

Battle victors: Captain Teabag wins Dillo Day student band slot

More importantly, this band was about so much more than the music, it was about the lifestyle. My senior year was defined by endless hours of rehearsal with Jake Nissly and Pat Droppleman that often led to late nights of drinking, darts, heaters, music and late night hilarity at Jake’s apartment. This was often followed up by the LONG walk back to my apartment, or more conveniently, Jakes couch. Oh, Jake’s couch. What I would give...

This is one void that will never be bridged during my time here in Bangalore. Nothing could ever replace that inconceivable chemistry that occurred when you got Nissly, Patty McD, The Truth, JJ, JepsonTurn and I in the same room with instruments and a case of beer. BEEEP!!!

The absence of that experience has been sorely missed. Ask any of my crew here in Bangalore and they will tell you that I probably talk about my band at Northwestern beyond all else. These guys practically know Jake and Pat as if they had been at NU experiencing the insanity that was my junior/senior year. I even was able to procure a few tracks from our Dillo Day performance at Northwestern, and even though they are fairly mediocre (it was, after all, Dillo Day) it brought back some fantastic memories.

This weekend finally brought me closer to filling this huge space in my soul. I was connected with a few other musicians in the area and we were to spend a few hours jamming on Saturday evening. It was so refreshing! So far, we have a guitar player, Arul, and a bassist, Anindya. I wasn’t expecting much from these guys, I mostly didn’t want to get my hopes up. I know that I’ll never have the pleasure of playing with such talent as I had with Captain Teabag, but these guys really weren’t half bad! They’re both self-taught, so they have virtually no knowledge of musical theory whatsoever, but their ears are better than most I’ve experienced. We’re currently searching for a drummer, another guitar player and hopefully a vocalist.

We played through a couple blues tunes and then tried to learn a tune that Arul wrote. Seeing has he knows very little about theory, I had to make some edits so the tune would sound ok, but we eventually arrived at a good place. It sounds like it will be more of a hard rock sound than I’ve had before, but I’ll find a place to hang for sure. Something in the neighborhood of a Spin Doctors (think Hungry Hamed’s or Big Fat Funky Booty). Crazy, eh?

I guess there is a battle of the bands in Bangalore coming up in mid November, so if we can have a 4-5 song set by then, we might as well give it a shot. Just the chance to perform live again is enough to get me there!

So that is a major development in my life. I’ve felt much better since that night. The proof: I shot approximately 85% from beyond the 3-point arc during Sunday basketball.

That’s it for now. I’ll keep you updated. Because of the holidays this week, Dasara, I will not be at work on Wednesday, Thursday and I may be flying to Bombay on Friday, but I’ll update from an internet café at some point this week.

Peace it and release it. And remember, the world is getting skeetier, skeetier and beepier….

Tony and Zeeba's Wedding

2005-10-03T03:35:00.000-07:00

Greetings, loyal readers. Both of you….Thanks, Mom and Dad, for stickin with it!

I realize I’m getting behind on my blogging. Some of my friends have blogs and they discuss real life issues that affect us each on a daily basis. For instance, my good friend Winnie has a blog (www.angelinger.com) where she answers the age old question: How do you classify interpersonal interaction in a social setting? Winnie has solved this nebulous matter with a simple 10-point scale. Absolutely brilliant…. Feel free to check it out, it's worth a laugh or two.

Anyway, you can be certain that you find no such life lessons here. Nowhere within this webpage will you ever see any soul searching. I do two things here in Bangalore. I work, which I can not talk about too much. And I go out, where fortunately people take pictures of me at my best so I can post them for the world, or just my parents, can read. This is one of those entries.

Last weekend I went to the wedding of my good friend Tony and his fiancé Zeeba. They are two of the Sunday basketball crew, and thus two of my valued non-"IndiaIT" friends. Tony is a great guy who is a partner in one of the three largest architecture firms in the country. Zeeba, as far as I know, is related to famous Indian people. Good work if you can get it. You combine these two and what you get is a huge crazy party that consumed the entire weekend, in addition to my brain cells and girlish figure. Josh and I were the only ones actually invited, but, luckily for my friends, the generous Indian culture allows for me to bring whoever I want, so they were all able to participate. I may be regretting that decision down the line.

The first night was held at the Leela Palace, that ridiculous hotel that I mention every now and then. There was incredible food, even better drink and crazy dancing with my entire social network in Bangalore. I was able to wear my Indian formal wear and make a huge fool of myself while having a blast. The night can best be explained with pictures. Here are several.

Looking seriously Indian with Laura

Look at Juan...just hilarious

Winnie, Nevena and Laura in their saris
Things are getting sloppy

HA! Let the licking commence...
Scott and I are in no pictures together, nonetheless he should be acknowledgedUm....no clue.

The second night was at the Golden Palms Spa, an incredible resort owned by Zeeba’s uncle, Faraz Khan, one of the most famous actors in India. His entire family are Bollywood legends and were in attendance at the wedding. There were also governmental dignitaries, such as the Head of the Karnatakan Cabinet as well as members of Congress. This party included a buffet roughly 50 yards long, several bars, a spectacular pool and night club which they opened up for us later in the evening. Here are some pictures that can hopefully give you an idea of what the night entailed.

Walkway to the reception through the magical forest

Fountain at the entrance to the resort

Gagan and I
Scott, myself, 4 drinks

700 people, honest. Beautiful reception

The happy newlyweds in the nightclub partyin late night
Laura and I gettin down on it
Dancefloor
Scott and the chefs
Nate needs to go home now

So that's about it for the wedding, hell of a good time. I wish I had my own camera so I could depict the events as I witnessed them, not as other people witnessed me, but that will come soon.

Take it easy. Peace it and release it.

Weekend update...for two weekends ago (a few pictures added at the bottom)

2005-09-20T04:29:00.000-07:00

So I've been busy.

Sup, ya’ll. Thought I’d let everyone know about my weekend, which was pretty strange for a weekend in Bangalore.

Friday night I went to dinner with Scotty Mac and some friends that he has connections with here in India. Really nice people and they invited us to some pre-wedding dinner they are having this weekend. Unfortunately, Scott and I have another wedding to attend on Friday and Saturday. I’ll explain a bit alter. We met up with the usual crew to a bar called NASA. You people have to see this place. All of the waiters and bartenders wear NASA uniforms, or what Indians think are NASA uniforms. You walk through a hatch into the “spaceship” that is the bar. Even the bathrooms are basically airplane restrooms, which suck! Get this, there were windows around the bar meant to create a spaceship atmosphere. What would you expect to see outside of a spaceship window? Hmmm, I don’t know….maybe….SPACE. Not in India, my friends. In India you see pictures of Michael Jackson and Twisted Sister….hhhhhwhat?!?! Needless to say, we could not stay here too long. We went out to the street where drinking laws don’t exist and we bought several bottles of Kingfisher (beer) and had a little get-together at Adarsh. Nothing too insane, just a bunch of Infoscions having a good time.

Saturday night we sat around Adarsh just chillaxin. I watched Arrested Development and Desperate Housewives and then went to Forum with Winnie. Forum is the nicer mall in Bangalore that actually rivals some of the nice malls I’ve been in around Chicago. The mission for this shopping trip was to get me a new pair of kicks for basketball. What I found will blow your mind! Check it:

That night we didn’t do much but watch movies at the apartment. Around 11:00 PM Juan showed up with some Japanese people who brought a bottle of sake that was gone in less that 5 minutes. Usual Saturday.

On Sunday Scott, Juan, Winnie and I went to FabIndia to buy our Indian formal wear for the wedding of my friend Tony. Tony, and his fiancé Zeeba, are part of the group that plays basketball on Sundays. There is a reception at the Leela (the most decadent hotel I’ve ever seen) on Friday night and then the ceremony is Saturday in the morning. That evening everyone is going to the Golden Palms spa, which is apparently owned by Zeeba’s uncle who is a famous director/producer or something. The catch is that we need to wear this Indian formal wear the whole time. This is called a kurta. What do you think? I’ll post pictures.

Later that evening the entire group of us went to the Gypsy Kings concert at the Palace Grounds in Bangalore. As you can expect, not many people in Bangalore are familiar with the Gypsy Kings, so there were MAYBE 300 people there. There were three sections. The Rs 500 section, Rs 1000 and Rs 2000. Imagine a football field separated into three sections so there were partitions at each 33 yard line. Around the field was a metal wall about 15 feet high. Separating the sections were cow fences with armed guards placed every 30 feet or so along these partitions. We had the Rs 500 tickets. Obviously. Anyway, the great part was we were able to move from the 500 section to the 2000 section because nobody was there. We got to about the 5^th row of people and had a really great time dancing to some really fantastic Spanish music.

Our crew chillin before the concert on a cool beverage. (From left: Pete, Shibani, Matt, me, Juan

The Gypsy Kings (actually just Chico and the Gypsies)

Afterwards we went to Opus, a club within walking distance of the concert grounds, for Sunday evening Karaoke!!! There’s something you have to understand about karaoke in any place but the US. People take that shit seriously! It’s clear that some of these people practice their song all week in anticipation of this intense evening. There was even some woman who is the lead singer of a popular Indian pop group. She was incredible.

And then there’s the American style of karaoke: let’s get wasted and sing tunes that we have no business attempting. So after some petrified Indian sang “American Pie,” Nate Linkon steps to bat with his three choices. It’s Not Unusual by Tom Jones, Losing My Religion by REM (not my idea, btw. I was dragged on stage by my friend Shibani) and Back in Black by AC/DC. Can you believe they didn’t have Back in Black?!?! They did have Losing My Religion and It’s Not Unusual. The crowd was clearly impressed with my vocal stylings, and who could blame them?

Here are some pictures of the evening:

Some Indian People

Crazy rapping Indian dudes

Crazy singing drunken Nate

Gettin' down with my bad self

Peace it and release it.

Bangalore's suffering nightlife

2005-09-15T04:29:00.000-07:00

Anyone who knows me well can tell you that I'm a big fan of bars and clubs. As a very outgoing, social guy there is very little I enjoy more than meeting new people over a pint or two. Especially in an international city such as Bangalore, you can meet the most interesting people from all over the world. I've learned so much about countless cultures and regions of the world, an invaluable experience I would have never experienced working a normal desk job in Chicago. (Don't get me wrong, I miss Chicago with every part of my being)

I've mentioned before how the Bangalore police have been enforcing ridiculous laws that have seriously prohibited my ability to establish valuable connections that will no doubt prove to be a precious professional and social network. Here is an interesting article that explains what I’ve been talking about. This article is quite extreme, but it gets the point across.

This is why I haven’t been able to find a band to play in. They’ve started to loosen up a bit, but most places still shut down around 11:30 PM. WTF?!

I feel like Kevin Bacon in Footloose.

"Hey Hey! What's this I see? I thought this was a party. LET'S DANCE!"

Missing home...

2005-09-13T04:08:00.000-07:00

So I’ve been here for about 9 weeks now and the time has just flown by. I’m confident that the 18 months, or however long it will be, I will be here will disappear just as fast. That doesn’t, however, keep me from missing the thousands of things that make the United States of American the greatest place in the world. Let me take this opportunity to point out a few of them.

Keeping in mind the recent circumstances in the US most people would be shocked to hear me say that. While I have been shocked and supremely disappointed with the government’s relief effort in Louisiana, I actually have to agree, for the first time in my life, with what the Bush administration’s line: There will be plenty of time to assess the blame, for right now we need to focus on saving as many lives as possible while restoring any semblance of order. And I digress…

So there are many things in the US that I disagree with, but this is not the time for that. There are so many things in the United States that I couldn’t agree with more, why be so negative?

1. Major League Baseball

I have determined that cricket is boring as shit compared to baseball. In what kind of ridiculous sport can one game last 5 days and often end up in a draw?! Cricket! How fucking frustrating is that?! Can you believe that people consider these marathon games ending with practically no outcome “beautiful cricketing!”? As far as I can tell, there is very little strategy involved. To be fair, I’m still learning the game, and actually hope to play sometime soon but only as an act of desperation as I cannot even watch a game of baseball.

Not to mention that MLB has been incredible this season! So many great stories and tight races coming down to the last few weeks! The wildcard race in both the American and National leagues are great to watch. There’s basically a playoff game everyday, which makes it even more difficult, because, again, I can’t watch any of them. It looks like the Braves are going to take the NL East again, but I won’t be able to watch the playoffs…

I’m sorry….I promised I wouldn’t get emotional. Moving on…

2. American Football (National Football League and College Football)

So what if the Broncos were crushed by none other than the Dolphins? So what if I’m dead last in both fantasy leagues I’m participating in? So what if Notre Frickin’ Dame is ranked in the top 10? American football is the best sport on the globe by far! God bless any country that creates a sport that can be this intricate and strategic while also being so violent! And they play it in ANY weather barring a major natural disaster. Oh, how I miss it!

On the bright side, Northwestern is 2-0 and actually showing some signs of life. Too bad they’ll get destroyed when Big Ten play starts. Don’t get me wrong, they’ll take out a Michigan or an Iowa, but they’ll be below .500 at the end of the season. But what I wouldn’t give to watch a game slightly inebriated at Ryan Field after I set my alarm for 8:00 AM only to drink bad beer at Beta West?

Which leads me to the third best thing about the USA…

3. The American Fraternity

As disillusioned as I became towards the end of my involvement in the Greek community, I actually find myself missing much of it. For some reason I decided to stay on the frat listserve just so I can keep up with what’s going on with Beta at NU. After all, I figured it’s an easy way to stay connected to friends in the US. No longer being involved, these e-mails are incredible to read. Let me ask you this:

Where else do grown men spend 3 entire months doing little else than devising plans to pick up young boys, tempt them back to your residence with promises of woman and mind-altering substances, all in an effort to convince them to spend the next 3 years of their lives with you? One place: a fraternity.

Where else do you find men fighting endlessly over the particulars of a T-shirt design for shirts that have no significant bearing on anything whatsoever? Frats.

Where else will 30 affluent young men live in absolute squalor for 2 years only to look back on it as the best years of their lives? Frats…and maybe some parts of India.

Where else do men spend weeks collecting money from everyone they know for the sole purpose of getting little boys and girls drunk off their asses just so they’ll do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do sober? Actually, now that I think about it, this is a value that seems to transcend both culture and border.

On a side note, this leads me to an interesting observation. Bear with me for a sec.

Guess what I am describing below?

Dozens of men lined up to receive food of a questionable nature dished out of large metal vats. Groups of dudes walking the streets with open containers of alcohol they acquired from street side gatherings available every few blocks where other men hand out cheap, lukewarm beer and room temperature shots of bad whiskey and vodka. Drunken fools urinating on the most convenient building and taking advantage of poorly enforced laws regarding controlled substances. These thugs then go on a desperate journey in search of female companionship that more often than not will yield no results.

Would this be an accurate portrayal of an American Fraternity on a Friday evening or an average Indian street on a Friday evening? Could easily be either!!! Who knew?

Unfortunately, in India I cannot dedicate an entire Saturday to a sporting even that lasts a few hours. I can’t paint my face for no reason. I can’t argue with my best friends about the most strategic position for the 3^rd reserve keg. I can’t boost my ego talking to freshman guys who regard you little less than a god, but then join another house.
Here are a few more things that I miss about the United States:

Normal women
Paved roads, sans livestock
McDonalds, Wendy’s, Chipotle…even BK
American music/movies
Miller products
Seatbelts
American newspapers

That’s enough for today. Can you tell that I’ve had a little bit more free time today? It’s so nice to be done with that last project. If you want details, drop me an e-mail (nlinkon@gmail.com) or give me a call and I’ll fill you in.

Also, I have this cell phone that my company pays for, so if you want me to give you a call sometime, just drop me an e-mail and we’ll coordinate a conference call. I’m sure I can figure out a business related reason why I have to call you.

Until then, here is your moment of Zen (Winnie beating 2 Big Ten frat guys and two German dudes at beer drinking games):

Beer pong tournament!

2005-09-06T06:08:00.000-07:00

My fraternity would be so proud. My parents would not be.

Many of American crew was Greek at our respective universities, and what is the Greek experience without a few friendly games of Beirut! So myself (Beta Theta Pi, Northwestern ’05) Matthew Newcomb (Sigma Chi, University of Michigan ’05) and Winnie Hsia (Crazy Asian Sorority, New York University ’05) along with a few independents purchased copious amounts of Kingfisher beer to host a party and we invited some of our new friends, mostly interns that we hang out with quite a bit, to come to Adarsh Gardens. By the way, you should see the looks you get when you try to purchase a WHOLE CASE OF BEER! The people at the grocery store didn't even know how to ring it up. Anyway, the only thing missing was a real Beirut table, but that never stopped us at Beta, and for God’s sake…we’re in a third world country!!! Here is the pictorial narrative of the evening:

I didn't get to my own party till late cuz I had to work till 8:15, but here's my first shot of Beiruit in 2 months!!! (we lost this game to Matt and Scotty Mac)

Then a bunch of interns showed up and it got a bit roudy...

In this picture we're trying to teach people how to play flip-cup. The Europeans didn't quite understand the concept, so they were filling their beers to the top despite our pleas. Neadless to say, we only made it through one game.
Things did get a bit out of hand as Winnie and Laura demonstrate in this picture. What a couple lushes!!!

I was put in the monkey cage due to questionable behavior. I probably deserved it.

So that's the crazy night that made the superintendent complain. Apparently we broke a couple rules, such as jumping into the pool at 3:00 AM, but it was really all in good fun. Also, Indian culture really doesn't understand how the rest of the world likes to get down, so they requested that all of us be evicted. Keep in mind there was a very tiny stereo and maybe 15 people there at the peak of the party. In any case, we cleared everything up and we will continue to reside in Adarsh for the time being.

Just wanted to mention that today is my 2 month anniversary of living in India! What do you think about that?! I'm suprised I've made it this long. Seriously. But I actually enjoy the place, so whatcha gonna do.

As my current project comes to a close, I will try to keep up with my blog better. I know I've been a bit slow lately.

That's it for now. You don't have to go home but you can't stay here...

More Hampi vacation pictures and story of the crazy monkey

2005-08-30T23:06:00.000-07:00

So I got my hands on some more pictures from my vacation to Hampi that I thought were interesting enough to share. I also finally have pictures to accompany the story of our hilarious encounter with the crazy biting monkey!

Here's our Qualis breaking down in some tiny village:

Some more of the really intricate carvings at one of the temples we visited. I have so many pictures of cool shit like this. They're all awesome, but once you've seen one you've seen 'em all:

Sunflower plantation with mountains in the background:

A more accurate depiction of the roads we encountered for most of our trip:

Just a cool picture of a temple in Hampi with the landscape in the background:

I mentioned in my last entry about the Hampi vacation a bit about a hike that we took up to this temple on the top of a mountain. The climb was pretty excitining, here's a picture looking down at Winnie and Josh:

Once we were up there we hung around for awhile to enjoy the incredible view, here's a reminder (you can see our car on the road below):

We had all placed the bags we were carrying in one of the rooms in this temple while we climbed to the roof to enjoy the view. Matt put his bag on this ledge (Keep this in mind):

We found a family of monkeys that had climbed up the mountain to play with us. They were brave little monkeys and had no problem getting close to us for photo opps. Here's one of Matt and I with our favorite monkey (above Matt's shoulder):

The monkey scurried away and we went back to enjoying the view. A little while later the clouds were starting to gather and we decided it would be a good idea to get off the top of this mountain before the rains came in condsidering our trek down, so we collected our bags to head off the mountatin. We returned to where Matt had placed his bag, the one on the ledge, to find the monkey (the very one in the photo) had unzippedup Matt's bag and taken out MY wallet, as well as Matt's contact solution case. The monkey took one look at us and immediately knew he was in deep shit. We stared at eachother for a few moments before Mr. Monkey took Matt's glasses case out of the bag and backed away till he was on a higher ledge just out of our reach. Here's a picture of the monkey on the ledge with Matt's glasses:

While eyeing us down, he proceded to open the case, take out Matt's glasses, as well as a piece ofcleaning fabric, and investigated the items while Matt stood steaming at the thought of this monkey either stealing the glasses or dropping them off the ledge. The monkey eventually lost interest and dropped the glasses on the floor in front of him. Unfortunately, he took the time to grab the postcards Matt had purchased and toss them off the edge before he scampered down the mountain. He also bit through the contact solution and emptied it out.

All in all, a very hilarious situation. I'm just glad he threw Matt's postcards off the cliff rather than my wallet!

More updates to come.

Next: Pictures and stories from the crazy beer pong tournament we held at Adarsh that almost got us evicted from our housing. To hold you over till Monday, here is a picture of Petar the Macedonian Destroyer and I playing a game of Beruit. Keep in mind that I'm almost 6 ft. tall.

It’s the small things in life…

2005-08-25T05:28:00.000-07:00

So I’ve had a horrible day. Scratch that, I’ve had a horrible week. The last 9 days I’ve been at work I’ve pulled between 12- and 14-hour days. I’ll get to work at 8:45 AM, keeping in mind the hour commute on the bus beforehand, leave work at either 7:15 PM or 8:15, only to sit on the bus for at least an hour to get home. You think I’m done? No way! I microwave some leftover Chinese food, order a pizza, or eat what’s left of the dinner that Huda makes for Josh, and then take conference calls with the United States till 9:30 or 10:30. That’s a pretty friggin long day! I’ll watch some crappy reruns of the second season of Friends, read for a few minutes till I pass out around 11:30 or so. Next day: rinse and repeat. Sucks, eh?

So why the hell am I in a good mood today? After all, I’m sitting at work at 5:30, I’ve missed the early car home, I’ll have to wait till 6:15 to take get into the worst traffic in Bangalore to go meet some friends for dinner. The reason I’m so happy is that I’m in love…

In love with the Goddamn Atlanta BRAVES!!!

I’ll admit, there’s very little I miss more than American sports. The most time I waste at work is spent reading everything I can on ESPN.com. And with the exception of the Braves getting pounded by the Cubs the other night 10-1, they’ve been absolutely fantastic. They beat the Cubs last night as Jorge Sosa pitched one of his best games yet. Who knew he’d be so great for us!

Not only that, but Andruw Jones leads the majors with 40 homers, Chipper’s back and actually hitting quite well (he hit two two-run homers the other night), and they’ve consistently been able to field quality pitchers, defenseman and offense through crippling injuries to key personel. Any other team would have crumbled under such pressure. They’ve had to play all but maybe 20 games with a rookie in the starting line-up, most of the time a rookie brought up from the minors mid-season. This gives me a chance to speak briefly about the man that I would want to marry my daughter if I had one: Jeff Francoeur!!! This guy is an Atlanta native who is batting .360 with 10 homers and 30 RBI’s in 136 at-bats. Not only that, but he’s one behind the leader FOR THE SEASON in defensive assists with 9 men gunned down trying to advance on the pads (I believe). He’s only been around for less than half the season! Last night he found a way to contribute in a low-scoring game with, from what I’ve read, one of the prettiest bunts you can put down.

So the Bravos are likely heading to the post-season again! Shall I say14th straight division title?! Let me say something else, remember when everyone was talking about the NL East being the weakest division in the majors early in the season? Ahem!!! Well if I’m not mistaken, every team in the division is at least 5 games above .500 and 4 of the top 5 teams in the race for the NL wildcard hail from the East! Say WHAT?!?!

Alright, I’m done ranting for now.

However, my NFL fantasy drafts begin next week, so there will surely be more madness. I will watch 24 straight hours of ESPN when I get back to the United States in the winter. Dad, get that TiVo roarin’!

GO BRONCOS!!!!

Much belated update...

2005-08-21T22:11:00.000-07:00

So what's going on guys?

Sorry it's taken me so long to give an update, but work has been pretty rough lately. 3 or 4 12-hour days in a row kinda wears you down. I was here till almost 9:00 PM on Friday night while a bunch of my friends were out drinking, relaxing, having a nice dinner at Blu Bar! It was just killing me being at work that late on a Friday night! I'm really enjoying the work I am doing, but my project is due by the middle of this week and there's still quite a lot of work to be done. They have, however, given me a team of employees to help me. Chandan, Veena and Rahul. HA! Doesn't that RAHUL! Sorry... Anyway, they are helping me create 13 case studies and boy is their help sorely needed! I'll let you all know the progress on my work. As soon as this project is done I will begin to work on the corresponding website to the brochure I'm creating. The whole project should be done by the middle of next month at which point I will begin a new rotation with another team in Corporate Marketing.

It's been a while since I've spoken with you guys, but last weekend I went on vacation over the long weekend to Hampi. We left on Friday afternoon for Chikmanglur, where we stayed at the Taj hotel, which is set amidst the coffee plantations of India. Pretty good coffee. That was about an 8-hour drive, including the popped tire we had to deal with. So we were stalled in this little village for about 1.5 hours and I don't know if these locals had ever seen white people before! A decent crowd gathered by our broken-down Toyota Qualis to see what was going on, and when the children realized that the car was full of white people they ran away only to peek out at us from behind buildings. Crazy, eh!

We saw a few temples around Chikmanglur, which were really cool. Here are a few pictures.

We then drove another 7 hours or so to Hampi. You have to keep in mind that most of these roads are hardly roads at all, more like dirt paths. This was the bumpiest, muddiest, rockiest ride of my life! This is a fairly mild representation of what we dealt with for countless hours of the roadtrip. In reality what we dealt with was muddier with more rocks:

A picture of myself with our driver, Shakur. Pretty hilarious dude. He was so proud to be carrying around the group of us.

Hampi was awesome! The landscape is made up of huge boulders, banana plantations and ancient temples. Like nothing I had ever seen before. Absolutely beautiful!

We ate lunch at this really cool restaurant on the banks of this river called The Mango Tree. Here’s a picture:

Later that afternoon we hiked to the top of this mountain where there was a really amazing temple that offered a view that literally took my breath away. This temple is about 600 years old and the steps up the mountain were just slabs of marble strewn the whole way up the mountain. A fairly treacherous hike, but so worth it! Here’s a picture of Winnie and Laura at the top.
Another shot of the incredible view:

So all in all a great trip. I was really able to see the beautiful parts of the country that you would never guess exist from living in Bangalore. I'm gonna get my hands on other people's cameras for more pictures from the trip, so be looking out for those. There's also a very funny story about being attacked by monkeys, and I cannot possibly do it justice without the pictorial narrative.

We have another vacation coming up in the middle of October and I’m thinking about planning a trip to maybe Goa or Kerala, which are both supposed to be incredible!

Anyway, I’ve gotta get back to work, but I will definitely post a few updates this week to keep everyone up to date.

One-month anniversary

2005-08-11T22:50:00.000-07:00

I can’t believe it, but as of yesterday (Thursday) I’ve been living in Bangalore for an entire month! Easily the quickest month of my life by far. It honestly feels like I just arrived last week, but when I stop to think about it I’ve experienced so much and learned such a great deal about not only this country and its culture, but about people and life in general. I don’t want to get too philosophical on you guys, but it’s amazing just to think about all the food I’ve eaten in the last month that I probably never would have experienced had I not come here. It’s those little things that keep this whole experience interesting.

Speaking of good meals, I went out last night to a restaurant called Sunny’s. Whoa! Really incredible food!!! I felt like a baller and was trying to impress my friend so I opted for the imported bottle of wine, we had appetizers and deserts and the whole thing ran about Rs. 1800. Not bad, eh? I promise a meal at this restaurant to anyone who actually comes here to visit me. If anyone actually comes and visits me here I’ll buy them much more than this meal, but let’s just be realistic…that’s not gonna happen. A few nights ago I went to an Afghani restaurant called Samarkand. Interesting place with an authentic Afghani atmosphere, caves and all. I’m not kidding. The wait staff wore traditional Afghani garb that will be giving me nightmares for months. I didn’t think I’d like it, but I’ll surely go back there. Here are a few pictures of that night:

Prakash and Winnie

Josh, Pete and my hand, appropriatly enough holding a glass of wine.
Two new guys showed up last night. Juan from Harvard and Scott MacPherson Stapleton from Georgetown. They didn’t get in till pretty late, but we were all hanging out in Winnie’s apt anyway so we just waited up for them. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, really impressed with every single person that has come out here. By the way, here is a picture of Pete and Laura on the bus ride home after getting doused by a torrential downpour. Welcome to India!!!

Also a picture of me being very wet, cold and hungry. Are we having fun yet?!

Today at 2:00 we all get in our car and head to Hampi. I guess it’s about an 8 hour drive to Chikmangalur, where we’ll be staying in the Taj and then doing some sightseeing on our way to Hampi. I really have no clue what to expect, but it’ll be interesting to see more of the country. I’ll make sure Winnie takes plenty of pictures so I can post them when I get back. The government has clearly confiscated my pants, shoes and digital camera. Sonofabitch!

This is to all you nay-sayers out there

2005-08-10T02:38:00.000-07:00

I had a few minutes and thought I would write a quick entry because there are some cool things going on.

First of all, I wanted to share this article from the New York Times about working in India. The article is very interesting and really highlights the value of the position I have taken with "IndiaIT". On the down side, it seems to make my pitch a bit less timely as they've been covering the topic quite a bit lately. Anywho, this is also for all of you who couldn't believe that I would move to India after graduation. You'll be eating your words when you all work for me!

M.B.A. Students Bypassing Wall Street for a Summer in India

"The final 40, who cut a wide academic swathe from engineering schools like M.I.T. and Carnegie Mellon to business schools like Stanford, Wharton and Kellogg, have since arrived on campus for average stays of three months. The interns work in areas from marketing to technology. They live in a 500-room hotel complex on Infosys' expansive campus in the suburbs of Bangalore, exchanging coupons for meals at the food court and riding the company bus downtown to decompress at the many pubs and bars."

To think that these are the "interns" and I'm an executive. Seems a bit backwards, eh?

Be sure to check out the picture. That person sure looks familiar, doesn't he? You may not recognize him because he's not drunk with a banana leaf on his head. Don't let him fool you, though. Jason may look serious in this picture, but he's actually looking at porn on his lunch break.

So two new US hires showed up last night. They are Pete from Cornell and Laura from Georgetown. Again, I'm suprised/impressed with how intelligent and cool these recruits are. I'm glad Josh did a good job choosing my friends for the next 18 months. It's also nice to have more people to hang out with at Adarsh.

I had an interesting moment today at work. It turns out that it's not just friends/family that read my blog. Apparently there's a whole team of "IndiaIT" employees who are paid to read it! These people are the online team, and they check for new online content regarding "IndiaIT" on a daily basis. That means that every time I write an entry that includes a mention of "IndiaIT", someone accross the room from me reads it. (Hello, Sanjay!) Sanjay, the head of online, clued me in that I may want to be careful about how I bash my bosses and fellow employees in a public forum. Who knew?

Did I mention that "IndiaIT" is the greatest place in the world to work?

Weekend Update, work continues to pile on

2005-08-09T02:23:00.000-07:00

So I’ve been given a few more assignments that will surely make my life a bit more interesting over the next 3 weeks or so. In addition to the work I will be doing for CampusConnect, I have been put in charge of creating the microsite and brochure for our alliance with Oracle. Oracle, for those of you who don’t know and I certainly didn’t, is a manufacturer of software and hardware products designed for business use. "IndiaIT" has an alliance with Oracle, as they do with Microsoft, SAP, and others, to create solutions that enhance the Oracle products. For instance, "IndiaIT" will create a solution with Oracle that enhances a company’s ability to upgrade their Oracle platform more efficiently, thus minimizing downtime and whatnot. Hopefully that is clear to you, because it hardly means anything to me yet. Whew, I never thought I would ever work with anything like this.

Anyway, this brochure and microsite must be ready by the time Oracle World comes around on 17 September. This means I must have the brochure ready to print and the microsite ready to launch by the end of this month. Did I mention that we’re starting from scratch to do this and I haven’t had extensive experience with either of these media? This blog may become a place for me to vent for the next few weeks. As it is I’ve only had this assignment for a day and I am scraping time to write to you folks.

I’ve also received the green light, actually more of a yellow light, to begin pre-production on a video presentation to be delivered at recruitment information sessions in the United States about the experience of moving to Bangalore and working for "IndiaIT". I called Bruss last night to talk about what would go into such a project considering my directoral skills are minimal at best. His response when I told him of the project, “Nate, it seems that they brought you to India to promote yourself.” Surprisingly enough, these have all been my own initiatives in an effort to find work in the downtime before I was given the Oracle project. We’ll see where this goes; hopefully I haven’t overloaded myself like Winnie did. I have a conference call with the US later this week to discuss the feasibility of such a presentation. Assuming all goes well, I will begin pre-production for my first 8-10 minutes feature film in the next week or so.

That’s about it on the work end. You’ll be hearing more as I get deeper into it. I haven’t been able to read any of my books for the past few nights because I’ve been reading case studies about Oracle in an effort to make heads or tails of it. I can tell it’s coming slowly.

I didn’t get to write yesterday, so I’ll give you a rundown of the weekend.

Friday night I went to a tapas restaurant with a bunch of other coworkers. It was a great time. There was “live” music, and by “live” I mean that there were two Indian guys standing at keyboards covering Billy Joel, Michael Bolton, etc. covers. The weird thing: they were definitely lip syncing with the vocal track. They would be singing Piano Man, and then turn to talk to a guy next to them, but the vocal track didn’t skip a beat! WTF?! Who knows if they were even playing the keyboards? Is it possible they were paid just to stand there and mouth the words to all of these songs? A part of me died…We then went to Blu Bar, a really nice club at another one of the hotels in town. A good time was had by all. Here are a few pictures:

I have no idea what is going on here

Or Here

Hahaha...banana leaves

Saturday I went to Farah’s house for lunch. Man, her house is something else! Three cars in the driveway, seven or eight servants at any given time, and the whole house was marble. Just crazy! The food was also amazing. We had prawns, crabs, rice, various South Indian dishes…At one point I mentioned that I liked mangoes, and within 10 seconds there was a dish of freshly cut mango in front of me. I’ve decided that if you can be rich, living here can be quite a luxurious experience. Farah and I hung out for the better part of the day. We got coffee with her friend Kamya and then met up with Winnie and Josh. We had dinner at this standing street side restaurant. I still don’t know much about Indian food so Farah ordered for me. The guy behind the counter hands me an empty dish and then he scrapes some food out of a few different pots and tosses it on my plate. The Department of Sanitation would’ve had a fit had they seen this!

We went out to a bar where we met up with more of Farah’s friends. They were all very cool! The bar closed at 11:30, which is really starting to get annoying by the way, so we decided to go buy some beer and hang out at my apartment. I didn’t realize there were liquor stores open at midnight? Well, there aren’t. We drove to this place just outside of town and pulled to the curb near this house. A kid who was probably 14 ran to the side of the car and took our order. We asked for 8 Kingfishers and a few minutes later he brought them out in a box and put them in our car. We gave the kid Rs. 600 and drove off. Not a bad system, if you ask me. Someone could make a killing doing that in Evanston!

That’s it for now. I’ll do my best to keep you updated as the work load gets heavier and more interesting.

P.S. I’m starting to think that the digital camera my mom sent me has been confiscated (read: stolen) by the Indian police. I have yet to see it, so I’m starting to think that I won’t. Until then you have to deal with the pictures that Winnie takes, and her only pictures are of us out on a weekend night goofing off. These are more interesting anyway, right?

Work is finally picking up…

2005-08-04T03:39:00.000-07:00

So it would seem that "IndiaIT" corporate marketing department has finally realized that they have a very expensive, talented, not to mention dashingly handsome, marketing executive from the United States sitting in a cube completely underutilized. Today I decided to take a more proactive approach and went out to find work. It seems that rather than concentrate on one team, I will be jumping head-first into a few teams, at least for the time being. I will be working on projects with the CampusConnect, the university relations online portal, as well as the PR group and the Banking and Capital Markets (BCM) teams. The problem is that I am very interested in several groups. I imagine that once I begin these various projects I will decide where I want to focus and thus will begin my first solid rotation. People here are really chilled out, so I felt like I was gonna sit here forever unless I did something about it. It’s a very different, much more relaxed, environment than I’ve ever seen in the US. People are always taking breaks, showing up late, leaving early, yet they seem to get more done in an average day than most Americans. They must if the company is growing at roughly 30% annually.

I have what I think is a pretty good feature for the PR team to develop. ME! I will be developing a story about myself and my job here that I will pitch to a large US media, such as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Forbes, etc. (cross your fingers) Luckily, I have friends here who have connections to the Asian Wall Street Journal as well as the Indian correspondent for the NYT, WSJ and BusinessWeek. Here’s the gist:

The position that Winnie, Matt and I have taken here in Bangalore is an extremely new concept, especially as a first job out of college from the US. It is one thing to come to India after having some post-graduate work experience, but it is quite another to come to India a few weeks after graduating from an American university. Furthermore, there are many implicit facets of a global position such as this that will attract increasing attention from US graduates in the near future, so this story would be both timely and innovative. The fact that "IndiaIT" is one of the first outsourcing companies to take on such an initiative makes the article newsworthy on several levels. I have read articles in both The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, news outlets recognized on the senior executive level, that have specified international experience as a new requirement for C-level executives. It should be highlighted, and publicized, that "IndiaIT" is one of the first to recognize this fact and utilize it as a way to develop future leaders. I have spoken with Josh about the profiles he has done, and I do not want to overlap too much, but I think that an article such as this featuring the new US hires could add credibility and exposure to "IndiaIT" from an executive standpoint, as "IndiaIT" becomes a more internationally recognized company rather than merely an Indian outsourcing company, and on a recruiting level, as this type of article could help greatly in the international hiring efforts of the future. There is already some interest from US media, specifically The New York Times, and my experience has shown that expressed interest from media is rare and should be capitalized upon immediately before it dissipates. In the case of the NYT, their earlier profile on Josh makes my suggested article an easy follow-up, especially as Josh was the one who began the international recruitment process.

Any thought? Criticisms? Honestly, I’d love to hear them.

So that’s my brainchild of the moment. I’d love to send a New York Times feature on myself to the folks at Edelman and Cramer-Krasselt!!!

Winnie has moved out of my cube, FINALLY! (Obviously kidding. I have to be carefull because she’s a very sensitive girl.) I’m getting to know many of my coworkers and they are starting to open up to this confident, yet refreshingly humble, American chap. Everyone seems to be very cool.

The other day I had to sit through an entire day of analyst training. We sat from 9:00 to 18:30 in a conference room listening to this consultant from the Knowledge Capital Group tell us about analysts and the best way to achieve positive relationships with those analysts that can yield new business. I had done some of this work at Edelman, so much of the material was repetitive for me. Basically, it was 9 hours of restraining myself from shoving my pen through my eye. See, my life isn’t so exciting all the time.

We went out last night (Wednesday) to a bar called Cosmo Village and just kinda chilled. Josh, Winnie, Matt and I are planning a trip over the Indian Independence Day weekend, which is in two weeks. We get the 15th off, so it looks like we’re going to Hampi. I couldn’t even tell you where in India that is right now. We were deciding between a few places, and I hadn’t been to any of them, so I just let them decide. It looks like it’ll cost about $200 for the weekend including transportation and rooms at the Taj, which will probably be the nicest hotel I’ve ever stayed in. I was down with staying in a lesser hotel, but my compatriots wouldn’t hear of it. Oh well! Apparently there are some really awesome temples and whatnot. It’s exciting that I’ll finally get out of Bangalore. You get an extremely skewed view of India when you spend your time in Bangalore. Although now that I think about it, staying in the Taj doesn’t really allow me to experience the down-and-dirty side of India either, but I guess I’ll just have to make do.

I would like to take this time to recognize a very close friend of mine, Christopher Bruss. Apparently he has been feeling neglected lately, not having been mentioned in my blog. Chris, you are a self-important, conceited SOB who clearly has nothing going on in his life, leading you to concentrate on how often you are mentioned in my little online journal that nobody even reads. Just because I mention Hess a few times on his BIRTHDAY doesn’t mean that you are less important. I mean, come on, Hess can really use a boost to his ego. You would too if you were such a complete loser. I mean, COME ON!!! Would a guy in $4200 suit….nevermind.

Alright, it’s the end of the day, so I need to wrap this up and catch my ride home. I think I’m just gonna chill tonight. I slept through my alarm this morning as it is and was almost late for my 9:00 meeting.

I’m just a chilled out entertainer. Peace.

Another Indian Summer Weekend (and a picture of one of our monkeys)

2005-08-01T01:12:00.000-07:00

Greetings from my desk on a tired Monday morning. This weekend I put a significant dent in the Bangalore night life. Both Friday and Saturday were well spent as the clubs were allowed to be open as late as 1:00 AM!!! May not sound impressive to the folks in Chicago, but that’s the latest a bar has been open around here in months. It’s ok, though. It just means that we get to the bar around 8:30 or 9:00 instead of 10:00 or 11:00 and you generally get a better night’s sleep, unless you end up at an after-party in some Indian guy’s penthouse apartment till 3:00 in the morn. I’ll explain.

Friday night I went out with Winnie, Josh and a few of Josh’s friends, Armand, Roma and Liviani. Pretty fun crew. Armand is quite the guy. I’m pretty sure I’ll only be able to take him in small doses. He’s a very loud, very large Iranian guy from Berkley, California who manages a bank here in Bangalore. He turned out to be a good connection on Saturday evening. We also had the opportunity to discuss Winnie’s obsession with Indian men openly for the first time. I honestly think that is one of the reasons she took this job. Me? Not a big fan of Indian women yet. Overall, pretty ordinary night. Winnie and I ended up taking a rickshaw home with the worst driver on the face of the earth. He demanded 200 rupees when that is roughly 5 times the normal fare. Paying 2 times the normal fare after midnight is acceptable, but that was just ridiculous. We let him take us home, we paid the fair rate of about Rs 100 and bolted through the gate at Adarsh Gardens. Our security guards will never let a rickshaw driver through, so we knew we were safe. You have to be careful about these kinds of things because I have friends who have gotten knives pulled on them for arguing rick fares. I’m getting really sick of drivers trying to rip me off just because I’m white. True, the difference between getting ripped off and getting a fair price can be about 25 American cents, but it’s the principle. They will say, “You are so rich, and I am so poor. What is 25 rupees to you?” I make a concerted effort to make this place feel like home, and that’s not going to happen if I’m constantly getting ripped off like a tourist. Besides, if you admit to me that you are trying to rip me off because of my skin color, that only makes me much less likely to help you out. Just a little word of advice for any aspiring rickshaw drivers out there.

Saturday was my day as an aristocrat in Bangalore. We spent the majority of the day at Deluxe 5-Star Hotels. Winnie, her friend Maghal, and I met Josh and a few of his friends at the Hotel Oberoi for tea. I’ve said it a thousand times, but these hotels are the most ridiculous places on earth. We had tea and I had my first bite of beef in a few weeks. There are places in Bangalore where you can get beef, but it’s rare. Most of the 5-star hotels will have steaks and hamburgers, but it is difficult to get good beef in India. These are the only places that can afford to have it imported. I still ordered my burger medium, which is more well-done than I usually like. I need to buy a white linen suit and a cabana hat. Here’s a picture of the place we ate (not exactly where we ate, but till I get my camera this will have to do):

We then stopped by a bookstore on MG Road where I purchased a copy of Herb Cohen’s book “How to Negotiate Anything,” which comes highly recommended by a relative of mine who is a very successful businessman. Book stores are an experience around here. Basically just thousands of books pilled from floor to ceiling. I don’t know how they keep it organized, having no shelves and all, but I found the book I was looking for in less than 5 minutes!

Then I met Matt, Ricardo and Armand at a bowling alley near the bookstore. We bowled a game and ordered food and drink. Good time was had by all, nothing too crazy. This is where the evening gets good.

Armand knows an Indian business man who is a member at Club Athena, maybe the nicest, most exclusive club in Bangalore, which is located in the fanciest, most decadent place on the face of the earth. This place is the Leela Palace. Here is a picture:

You pay Rs 700 at the door, but they give you a personal debit card with Rs 700 credited to it. We were taken to the VIP section where we had a private bar. It’s impossible to really explain this place without pictures, which I obviously don’t have, but there are a few shots that Winnie took below. The clientele was certainly impressive by several measures. More beautiful Indian people than I had ever seen in one place before. I hung out with this French guy who ordered me champagne, talked with several Indian businessmen…everyone is very open to meeting new people because so many of them are here temporarily on business. Such incredible networking opportunities. However, these people had no interest in networking and placed much more importance on ordering drinks. My kind of crowd.

I met up with Farah, a friend from NU, and she invited a few of us to go to an afterparty that her friends were having. It was really nice to hang out with someone from school. We partied till around 4:00 in the morning when I realized that I had been out “having fun” since 7:00 PM and I was clearly passing out. Nevertheless, I lived up to my promise to have a wild night in honor of Daniel Hess’ birthday. Could he have seen me, he would have been very proud.

Still having a good time in Bangalore and it’s starting to feel more like home rather than an extended vacation in a third world nation. This coming weekend will be spent doing less partying and more exploring of India. (I know you’re getting sick of my stories about my evenings in fancy clubs. If you’ve heard one, you’ve heard em all.) I think we may travel to Mysore to visit a few temples and see the Infosys campus there which is supposed to be very impressive.

Now, the picture you’ve all been clamoring for.

Here is your moment of Zen:

Lazy Friday means I talk to you folks.

2005-07-28T23:13:00.000-07:00

Here I am wasting time at work on Friday afternoon. I guess this is what it’s like at any new job. You spend the first couple weeks reading annual reports, exploring the intranet, meeting with various group-heads, ordering business cards and a cell phone, setting up e-mail and phone, etc. The problem is that I’ve completed these tasks and am now eagerly awaiting the real work. I’ve met with probably twelve managers from various different teams and I’m excited about the work I’ll be doing. Some of the groups have opportunities for me to gain some ridiculous experience! Any of the Integrated Business Units (IBU’s), such as Communication Service Providers (CSP), Banking and Capital Markets (BCM) and Retail and Consumer Packaged Goods (RCPG) are creating some fascinating campaigns where they integrate several different types of media and channels. (As you’ll notice, everything in India is an acronym. Takes some serious getting used to.) Some of the channel oriented groups are very interesting. The PR team is obviously a place I would fit in well considering my experience, but I would really like to gain some a more diverse skill set. The online team really intrigues me. Everyone has been extremely knowledgeable, very sophisticated and quite helpful. I have had every opportunity to ask many questions and they don’t make you feel like an idiot, which has been my experience other places I’ve worked. We went out for dinner and drinks with the marketing team last night and had some really interesting conversations with drunken Indian coworkers. One of the Group Managers, a fairly senior exec, explained to me that he does not discriminate between alcohols, so he drinks a lot of everything.

“Keep in mind, there are many paths to God.”
“Whoa! Just give me one second, cuz you just blew my mind!!!”

The culture barrier at work is almost non-existent, except for the food. There are several food courts on campus. Two of them have traditional Indian food, which is usually very good; I just can’t eat it everyday. Today I had an Indian breakfast that consisted of steamed rice patties what resembled a doughnut. Even these dishes were meant to be dipped in a curry sauce…for breakfast! I have no idea what any of the dishes on the menu are, so I just go with someone who knows what they’re getting and I order the same thing. I’ll learn soon enough. There’s also Domino’s pizza, which is pretty good. Food Court 27 offers more “American” fare, such as chicken burgers, pizza, French fries, etc. They also have Chinese and Thai dishes that aren’t bad. I thought the Kung Pao chicken was great. The Chinese interns I sat with, however, berated it till they eventually convinced me of its mediocrity. Oh well. Today we are going to Le Terrace, which is in the hotel on campus. It’s a bit more expensive ($3 rather than $1), but it is run by the 5-star chef, Jean Michelle, that I’ve mentioned before. Stay tuned.

I found out about the other 5 marketing execs that are arriving in about two weeks: one guy from Cornell, a girl from Smith College, a guy and a girl from Georgetown and a guy from Harvard. Not a bad team and a good mix of gender. Way to go, Josh! It will be nice to have that many Americans to work/hang out with. And no, Winnie, I’m not saying that you’re getting annoying.

I’m looking forward to going out tonight. A friend of mine from Northwestern University, Farah, will be in town. She also has friends to introduce me to. I feel like it can be a huge advantage to have native Indian friends. Right now all of my friends are from literally every country in the world BUT India. She is a native Bangalorean and is going to show me around the city. I’ve also heard that the bars and clubs are going to stay open later beginning this weekend! I haven’t gone out since Tuesday, so I’m getting a bit antsy! I didn’t end up going out Wednesday night because I ate a piece of fruit that made me sick. I was fine once it was out of my system, but certainly didn’t want to go out drinking afterwards. My stomach is still getting used to some of the food here, but that’s to be expected. Think about it: your stomach gets accustomed to your schedule of meals and the types of food you eat. So my stomach is all like:

“What the fuck, Nate?! You’re stuffing me at 4:00 in the morning with combinations of spices that could kill a cow!!!”

I’m all like:

“Shut up, stomach! Not only will you accept the crazy food I feed you, but you will also be assailed with native Indian beer and whiskey three nights a week! What’s that you say, stomach? The Royal Challenge whiskey I buy from the guy on the street for 250 Rs. eats away at your lining? Tough shit! Don’t make me get Indian food from a street vendor! I don’t even know what that fly-infested shit is, but it’s sold by an unsavory fellow who mixes it with unfiltered well-water. As Ganesh as my witness, I WILL do it!”

Sorry. Went a bit overboard with that imaginary conversation with my stomach. Remember what I said about looking forward to having more Americans to talk to.

>>>>FAST FORWARD 1.5 HOURS

Just got back from lunch at Jean Michelle’s restaurant. It was really good! Might have even been worth the 150 Rs.

So this weekend is Dan Hess’ 22nd birthday party. “Hey brother!” It pains me deeply to think that I will be missing this. I will, however, do something really outrageously stupid on Saturday evening in honor of my good friend and compatriot. I’ll keep you updated. Those guys are going to have a ridiculous time in Chicago. Happy birthday, bro. It’s been nice that I’ve been able to talk to people from Evanston in the past couple days. I’ve been getting on AIM Express around 9:00 AM when I get to work, which is about 10:30 PM in Chicago. I’ve talked to Bruss, Hess, Jessica, Tony, Sheyner, and even Kannelis and Jepson. It’s nice to be able to discuss what I’m missing in the states, although my friends do not even realize what they are missing here. If I haven’t talked to you yet, get online around 10:30 and drop me an IM.

Also, many people have been requesting contact information, so here it is:

Nate Linkon
Adarsh Gardens, Unit G702
Jayanagar 8th Blk, 47th Cross
Bangalore 560082
Karnataka, India

Cell phone: +91 98 8689 8078

I believe you have to dial “00” before the country code, which is “91.”

I’ll post a link where you can find cheap calling cards to call me if you so desire. My parents found a card that gives them a 6.1 cent/minute rate. So gimme a call!

Here is your moment of Zen: (this may become a regular addition)

Jason and I at Taika.

A picture!

2005-07-27T01:46:00.000-07:00

A bunch of us went out to I Bar, last night for the birthday of one of the interns. This place is much like Domaine in Chicago but located in the Park Hotel. One of my friends, Maura, an intern from the University of Illinois, had a camera and took a few pictures so I thought I'd post them as physical evidence that I am alive and have even made a couple buddies. This picture is of the three new full-time people with whom I spend every waking moment, Matt (U of Mich) and Winnie (NYU). We all look very happy to be out at I Bar on a Tuesday evening.

My mom sent me a digital camera that should be here in about a week, at which point I will add pictures to my previous postings. I'll let you know.

We're going out again tonight because it's Maura's last night in Bangalore. It's an open bar at a club called Sin. When this batch of interns are gone, and most of them will be gone very soon, I won't be going out as much. I just can't handle it, physically and monetarily. Fortunately, last night someone paid for all of my food/drinks! Don't really know who, probably this Indian guy that likes Winnie, but when I went to the bar to pay my rather large bar tab (which was probably about $15) someone had already closed it out. Hopefully things will continue this way.

The long-awaited preliminary nightlife review!!!

2005-07-25T04:17:00.000-07:00

It is the first Monday morning back at work following my first full weekend after adjusting to this outrageous time-change. That being said, I will now relay the experiences and impressions I had in my first weekend out on the town in true Nasty Nate Linkon form. Actually, this weekend was merely a warm-up as I surveyed the landscape to formulate a strategy and game plan that will allow me to conquer this city. There are roughly 7 million people in Bangalore, and as I embark on my mission to party with each and every one of them I will keep my loyal readers fully informed. At least as informed as you can be while keeping my family in the dark as to my life when the sun goes down. Enjoy!

Little did I know that the weekend in Bangalore, at least for the expats, begins on Wednesday. (Expats, short for expatriates, for those who are not familiar with the term are what the foreign nationals here on business are called.) And just as I thought starting the party on Thursday was a bit premature for the working man, here come two days of hangover before the true weekend! I figure that half of my reason for being here is to network, and network I will! After all, it is my professional obligation to do so.

Wednesday night started at Taika, a very eclectic club that satisfies both the need to dance and relax. A beautiful waterfall and river that runs through the center of the main room with floating rose petals. This main room consists of huge couches with tons of pillows. This is a great area to lay around, have a casual conversation. The dance floor is separated from this room by the bar, so you can enjoy the music while having a conversation. The food is really great and so are the drinks, but they are both fairly expensive. There is also a 300 Rs. cover, but you get a drink ticket, so it’s not all money down the drain. A 650 ml. (about a pint and a half) bottle of Kingfisher, Indian beer that is actually pretty good, is about 100 Rs. (roughly $2. By the way, I’m going to stop making the monetary conversions every time, so just get it in your head that it’s about 45 Rs. to the dollar.) You never have to get yourself a drink at the bar because there is always a waiter within shouting distance who can get you a drink in a few seconds. It took me a while to get out of the habit of heading to the bar every time I needed a refill. I’ll get used to it somehow. We enjoyed Taika so much that we went back there on Thursday night. I got to hang out with some of the new interns from China, which was very cool, a country I hadn’t yet met someone from. We talked for hours about the NBA. “I much like Ray Allen and his outstanding ability to shoot the perimeter.” This guy claims to be quite the baller, but we’ll see. I should really keep a list of the countries that I’ve met people from, although there are already too many to remember

The weird thing about bars in Bangalore is that they have been closing lately around 11:30 PM. As I mentioned before, the government of Bangalore can be very corrupt. The “law” states that no bar can serve alcohol later than 11:30, but the commissioner of police usually accepts bribes, and depending on how much you bribe, your bar can stay open later. The old commissioner used to demand a crore, which is 10 million rupees, a month for some of these bars to stay open! Apparently, this money would be collected at a warehouse, and there is so much cash collected at such a rate that there are not enough people to count it all. Maybe the reason for the hiatus in bribes? In any case, some bars used to be open till 5:00 AM, but there is a new commissioner of police who is, at least for the time being, not accepting bribes. A few of my Indian friends tell me that this runs in cycles, so in a week or two the commissioner will begin accepting bribes and the bars will be open later.

On Friday night we went to a bar called Spin, which was more of a dance club than anything else. This is interesting, because dancing is technically illegal without the appropriate license, which Spin does not have. Traditionally, most dance clubs have operated on the bribery system, so with the bribes out the window it is rare to find dancing, but Spin had it and it was great! I had to pay 450 Rs. to get in because I was not with a girl. This will soon change. I was initially really pissed about this, but they give you the money back in coupons equaling the cover, so you are basically forced to buy 450 Rs. worth of food/drink, which I was clearly going to do anyway. I ran into Prakash, one of Indian guys that my flatmate’s girlfriend, Huda, introduced me to at Taika, and he introduced me to some cool expats from Florida. When Spin closed I ended up leaving the club with Prakash, Winnie and a few other "IndiaIT" employees and we went to the Raj Residency, a 5-star hotel in Bangalore, for desert. Wow! It was really amazing! I got home at about 2:00 AM and passed out. It was really a great night.

Saturday I was too tired to go out, so I just chilled in the apartment, watched a movie and passed out by 12:30 or so. Expect a better effort out of me next weekend.

There were a few things that really struck me about the nightlife here. First of all, the whole system of briberies that effect the closing times. That really sucks, but I’m told it will change soon. The other is the price structure of the bars and life here in general. The clubs we frequent, the “expat circuit,” are clearly priced for expats. Expats = top 3% income. That is, it may cost 300-500 Rs. to get into a club. To put this into perspective, I went to the grocery store and bought enough food to feed for a week easy. This cost me 483 Rs. So merely getting into these clubs costs me a week’s worth of food. I can also order enough Chinese food from Chung’s’s to give me dinner for 3 nights for 150 Rs., and a beer at the bar is 100 Rs.?! It just doesn’t make sense. Now, I’m still spending significantly less at a club than I’d be spending in the US, but the value comparison seems insane!

All in all, not a particular crazy weekend, but they will only get crazier. This is the last week for this round of interns, so we’re going out a lot later in the week. Probably Wednesday through Saturday and then to a nice brunch buffet on Sunday that has free champagne, beer and wine from 10:00 till 4:00 with masseuses and a pool. It is clear that the bulk of my expenditures will be on going out. Some things never change.

That’s all for now, folks. In a related story, the monkeys have yet to be named because I haven’t seen them around much lately. It’s been raining a lot so they’ve been hiding in their tree.

The everyday stuff

2005-07-20T04:16:00.000-07:00

Some people have pointed out that I sometimes forget to talk about the everyday crap. Weather, my transportation habits, accommodations, etc. So here's a quick summary:

My apartment is really nice. I share a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom with one other guy, Josh. Actually, his girlfriend, Ghouda, basically lives with us, but that's fine cuz she's really cool and cooks me an incredible breakfast from time to time. Josh is also out of town a lot so it's nice to have someone to chill, have drink with when I get home from work. My place is on the 7th and top floor of Adarsh Gardens. I have a great view of the city and the mountains in the distance. It's really nice to sit out there and read during the day or just look out at the city at night. My room has 2 closets, a queen size bed and a dresser. The beds here are very different than American mattresses. They are a bit harder, more like a pad than anything else. It doesn't really bother me, though. I've been sleeping great.

I have a maid who cleans my apartment everyday. This guy is incredible! He changes my sheets and towels, sweeps and mops the whole place, takes out the trash, cleans all the dishes, straightens up anything that's around (He puts all of my shoes in the closet and folds all of my clothes and puts them on my bed, kind of like my mom). I started keeping a bottle of water next to my bed, and he's even keeps it full with fresh water everyday. He does all of this on a daily basis! It's great! There's a laundry service that costs very little, but we also have a washer in my apartment so I generally just use that. It's just easier.

The weather is fantastic! Bangalore is on a plateau, so the weather is really quite temperate considering the location. It hasn't really gotten much hotter than about 92 degrees outside during the day and it gets quite cool at night, around 70. We're in the rainy season right now, but that just means that it rains almost every night, which is fine cuz I'm usually either chillin in someone's apartment or out at a bar. The rain also helps it cool down, so that's all good with me.

Another one of the marketing execs moved in a few days ago. Her name is Winnie. She was a marketing major at the Stern School of Management at NYU. Really cool girl! We’ve been hanging out quite a bit eating dinner, going grocery shopping, taking the bus to work, etc. A bunch of the other new guys moved onto the campus into the hotel there because the rainy season can apparently make the commute worse, but I haven’t seen much of a delay.

I take a bus back and forth from the apartment when I'm just going to work in the morning and back in the evening, but I can get a car and driver pretty much whenever I want to. No, I don't have the same driver all the time. I had to run some errands in the city today and my driver was really cool. They are also usually extremely helpful. They'll wait for you outside of wherever you go and will come to assist you with pretty much anything you need. This is nice because Indians will often try to scam me cuz I'm white and they know I have money, so my driver will usually step in and correct the situation. Today I had to find a notary public to notarize an affidavit and this really sketchy guy tried to take me to a back alley where he said the notary was. My driver, who was a big Indian dude, came with me to make sure everything was kosher. He threatened to beat this dude if anything happened, but luckily everything was cool and there was actually a notary in this alley. Very weird! Also, the local government can be very corrupt, so I often have to bribe people to get what I need. For example, the notary tried to make me pay 400 Rs. (about $9) for his signature and stuff. I bartered him down to 30 Rs. with the help of my handy chauffeur. These are just the little things you have to get used to.

I saved the best for last: One of the coolest things around are the monkeys that chill around my apartment. There are three of them that are always hanging out in this tree outside my building. Just think about having monkeys around all the time! It’s awesome! Just as long as they don’t bite me. I’ve been trying to think of good names for them. Bruss thinks I should go Jane Goodall on them and observe their behaviors till I can give them appropriate names, so we’ll see what happens. I’ll keep you posted.

That’s about it for now. Keep the questions coming if you have any, it’s nice that people are somewhat interested. Damn, I can’t wait to get a digital camera because it’s really going to make this much more interesting.

-Nate

First weekend and first days of work

2005-07-19T02:09:00.000-07:00

So I'm finally set up at my desk and able to regularly update my blog, which is good because a lot has happened since the last time we spoke. I'll start where I left off:

On Friday I took a rickshaw to Electronic City to where the Infosys campus is. This was my first rickshaw ride, and it can hardly be explained in words. Imagine this: You're in a car with me driving, but every other car is also driven by me (if you've been in a car with me, then this is truly a frightening experience), there are no lanes and many more motorcycles than cars, there are no doors or seatbelts and there are cattle wandering on semi-paved streets. All in all, pretty insane. I went through the most impoverished parts of Bangalore, and it's pretty depressing. Children in standing barefoot in streets heavily littered with trash, stray dogs everywhere, hovels on the side of the road…not pretty.

All of a sudden there is a huge glass pyramid on the right side of the road, the first landmark of the Infosys campus. My driver took me to Gate 5, where I checked in with security, where they escorted me through a metal detector, checked me and my bag for disks and laptops. All of the guards carried huge elephant rifles. I waited for Matt, a University of Michigan graduate who has been working here for about 4 months. It was nice to finally see a friendly, American face. Matt is a really great guy and I can tell we’re going to get along great while I’m here. We just seem to have a lot in common.

He gave me a cursory tour of campus, and HOLY COW!!! It can’t accurately be described, so wait till I get my digital camera, but it blew my mind. These buildings would stand out in any American metropolis and the landscaping is incredible. Reminds me of Disney World, if Disney World was a pristine 85 acres of bio-dome in the middle of complete chaos. There’s a huge shaped swimming pool in the middle, buildings that I never thought I’d see till at least the year 2020, gyms, one-hole golf courses scattered around campus, a 5-star hotel…it goes on and on. Matt and I met up with Josh, my flat-mate, and we went to meet Jean Michelle at one of his restaurants on campus. Jean Michelle has been a 5-star chef in France, Japan, Australia, Thailand and a few other places. Infosys hired him to run the dining halls and restaurants on campus, which I can say are really very good, and I haven’t eaten at the nice ones yet.

That night Matt and I met up with some other Infosys employees and interns at a bar called 1912. It was a really nice joint, a place I felt much more at home. The others had called ahead and reserved us a private table, which is pretty much standard operating procedure around here. This ensures that you have at least 2 waiters at your table at all times. Getting a refill on your drink takes a couple minutes at most. The really great part was that in a group of about 8 of us, there was one girl from Iran, a guy from France, a girl from Ghana and a girl from Romania. The rest of the crew were Americans from around the country. (Today at lunch I ate with a group of people that included a guy from Belgium, a guy from Guatemala, a guy from Spain and another from France). I can’t imagine I could have had this kind of experience anywhere else. Really great night out.

Not much since that. I’ve just been getting organized at work, but from what I can tell the work as a Marketing Executive is a lot of fun and very diverse, which is exactly what I wanted. That’s all for now. Talk to you guys later. Peace.

First 24 hours (longest entry there will ever be, just stick with it)

2005-07-14T23:52:00.000-07:00

Alright, so bear with me cuz this could be a longer entry seeing as I just got here and the whole experience is a bit overwhelming. I'll start from the beginning:

The longest travel day of my life. I left Milwaukee at 2:05 PM on Tuesday and arrived in Bangalore at 7:00 AM on Thursday. Taking away the time change it's like traveling from 1:30 AM Tuesday till 7:00 AM Thursday. Close to 30 hours of travel! All in all, not too bad. I sat next to this mother and son, Usha and Janesh, from Chicago all the way to Mumbai (Bombay). Really nice people. Usha talked to me about India and the changes I would have to make. Janesh, a really cute 7 year old, really took a liking to me and asked me maybe a billion questions on the ride. No matter if I was reading, listening to music, sleeping, eating... "Nate, have you tasted Indian food before? Nate, do you have any brothers? Nate, do your brothers ever get on your nerves? Really?! What do they do to annoy you?" The transfer at the Bombay airport was nuts. Indian soldiers with various automatic riffles checking you through security, clearly talking about you in a language you can't understand. I slept a good amount and arrived in one piece with all of my luggage.

There were these guys at the baggage claim who assign themselves to you and grab all the luggage you point to and put it on your cart. I exchanged my money into rupees, $65 into 2,695 rps! Keep in mind that 15 rps. will buy you a nice dinner. The driver was outside the terminal with a card with "IndiaIT" and my name on it. I pointed to the driver and the baggage people and the driver coordinated how they would get my luggage in/on the car. At least, I’m assuming, cuz I don’t speak Hindi. Maybe they were saying "How can we rip this American out of all his cash?" They did, cuz they pressured me into tipping them, which I wasn’t supposed to do. What can I say, I’m spineless. I’ll get better, I promise.

When I decided to move to India my friends made fun of me about there being cows and elephants in the road, which is completely absurd!!! There are only cows in the street. Seriously, we almost rear-ended one. Well, it would’ve been a rear-end if the cow wasn’t walking towards oncoming traffic. Traffic is insane! I put on my seatbelt right away but my driver never wore one. I had joked about buying a motorcycle… well, not anymore.

Nothing looks real in this country. The astounding poverty is juxtaposed to these huge, beautiful temples and office buildings with guards out front. There are people living in little huts made of tarps and bricks. Many of them are construction workers who just set up their home on the construction site. Like nothing I’ve ever seen.

We got to my building, safely, and there were 3 guards, with guns, at the gate. I showed them my contract and they let me through. I went to meet a man who was supposed to give me my room, but he didn’t even seem to know I was coming. I could barely understand what he said. Basically, I was about to start crying. "What the FUCK am I doing here?! Wasn’t someone supposed to talk me out of this?!" I finally got in my apartment and met my roommate, and his girlfriend, who had just woken up. Turns out this guy, Josh, was one of the guys who interviewed me. Nice guy. That part was fine.

I basically sat around all day doing nothing, looking outside whenever I could muster up the courage. I found this cyberhouse near by, which is where I’m writing you now. I’ll be doing this from work when I start on Monday.

I’ll end this now because it’s already WAY too long. If you’ve made it this far, kudos to you. If not, then you’re not even reading this. I’m going to head to the "IndiaIT" campus this afternoon to meet another one of the guys from my program. He’ll show me around the campus and then around the city of Bangalore, which I haven’t really seen yet. Things are still very tough, but are getting better everyday.

Sorry for the long entry, this will be the longest there will ever be.

-Nate

T-minus 14 hours and counting...

2005-07-11T21:24:00.000-07:00

Never thought this time would actually come.

I leave Milwaukee at 2:05 tomorrow on the longest journey of my life to Bangalore, India to work as an Executive of Marketing at "IndiaIT" (the fictional name I've chosen to protect myself and my blog from prosecution). It really still hasn't hit me that I'll be gone for about a year, and probably won’t till I’ve been there for a few weeks and realize I’m not going home any time in the near future. Although I may be back to visit as early as November, it's still pretty crazy to think that I'll literally be half-way around the earth. Seriously, check an atlas. As excited as I am for the work and the experience, I'm also scared about being immersed in a completely new culture with which I have had practically no experience. But when you think about it, fear is an emotion brought on by excitement. One can not exist without the other. So I think that excitement, along with anxiety, is what I’m currently experiencing. The fear is more surrounding my 28 hour-long travel day tomorrow. Damn!!!

Obviously, this is my first post to my blog and I'm new at it so please bear with me as I navigate the ins and outs of web logs. I’ll soon be posting pictures of practically everything I see, from the sights in India to my apartment and office. I’ll keep this one short, but check back as often as your little heart desires to hear about my international exploits. Peace.