All of your comments were thrilling so I thought I’d take a moment to respond…the post with the thick content on the internet connectivity, cell phone networks, education system and people giving ‘a shit’, and the photos upload is still in the works.
Ram asked, “What have you been doing during the days? Are you going to get a job? Do you have a phone number? Can we do one of those silly internet phone calls and call you? How about Roger Wilco when you are in a netcafe? There’s a place in India called Santa Cruz?”
So a lot of my time is spent getting to whatever place in Bombay I need to get to. Its only been 8 days since I got here and as of now most of my time has been spent on the local train getting from Matunga to Borivli and back. Also since its just the beginning I’m still getting around to visiting everyone. Off the top of my head there are still six houses of relatives and close family friends I haven’t yet visited.
I’m working on the whole getting a job thing. I’ll post updates about that as the hunt progresses. Right now I’m still setting up shop here.
Yes I do have a phone number. If you want to call me from the states you need to dial: 011-9198-2147-3258. That’ll be rather steep better you just send me an SMS message. Go to SMSJunction and on the left hand side there is a little area to send SMS messages. Fill in 9821473258 as the mobile number and then your email address and then the message you want to send me. If the site is working I get the message almost instantly and I have my cell with me all the time except when I’m sleeping and the phone is charging in another room. Don’t try the silly internet call things it doesn’t work and RW from a netcafe is just crazy talk Ram.
Dan said, ” It feels weird without your online ever-presence.”
Yea I don’t like not being online either. The net connectivity here for the common man though is at best a bad 56K connection. The next step up from the bad 56K is so much more expensive and offers such a minor speed upgrade its just plain not worth it.
Dan said, “What was that about drinking in the message?”
A beer for breakfast does a Dan good. Unless Ram finds out in which case it does a Dan bad.
Dan said, “Oh, and you mention phones without links. How backwards are we talking here? (seems odd for an asian country… or any country not in northern america) Do you tote one? if so, what’s the e-mail associated with it (so I can bother you wiht some of my 500 monthly msgs.)”
I do tote a cell, the number is listed on the right and I explained the detail above in answering Ram’s question(s). I will post details on the networks and services hopefully sometime this week. It all depends on which relative’s house I have to go to sleep. I’m still making the rounds so this type of uncertainty will go on for a while. Right now I’m in Matunga at my mama’s place.
Dan said, “The next time I see you I expect you to be married. :)”
Read the title of this post.
Anyway so yea internet connectivity is really shitty although right now its being really kind to me. Well I should really get some sleep. I’ll try and keep the postings regular, still hoping on the picture update. Nothing solid yet.
So its been just about a week now. Getting connected to the internet here is a real pain in the ass. My mama has ‘the internet’ at home, but the computer its connected to is slower than a TI-82. Right now I’m sitting in a cyber-cafe in Borivali East with my cousin. I attempted to post some of the pictures I’ve taken online, but thats proven to be impossible.
Its amazing to be back here. Bombay is still Bombay but with about five to six times as many people as before. I’ve already been riding around on the trains and its been great. People gawk at me, but I find it funny so I try my best to entertain them, it isn’t that hard. I’ve fallen down while showering 3 times already and broke a light bulb when I raised my arm to wash the pits. I’ve been drinking lots of ThumsUp! which I strongly believe has rejuvinating powers.
Its really hot, but I’m learning to cope. Over the weekend I went with my cousin (mama’s eldest daugter), my mama, my elder masi and masa to Daman. My foi is doing great as are my cousin, his wife (my bhabhi), their son and their new doggy an english cocker spaniel. I miss Fuaji terribly though, the effect of his loss was amplified while visiting Daman.
Driving here is awesome, its every man for himself. I can’t wait to have a go. Also I’ve realized that people in India care even less about ‘shit’ than people in America. Corruption is awesome, I’ve already seen a hawaldar taking a bribe. Can you blame him though, when it takes Rs. 20,000 just to maintain a middle class existence and the man gets a Rs. 1700 a month salary.
Cell phone networks here aren’t anything neat as I had been made to believe. As a matter of fact they only offer slightly better coverage and rampant SMSing. Phones here are still backwards, they are about the same as American cells from 2 years ago. I miss my Samsung A500.
All in all its awesome to be back. I adjusted to the jet lag almost immediately. I’m still being cautious with my health and haven’t eaten any meals at restaurants. Its bloody hot, but its good in a sick I like to torture myself sort of way. Hopefully I’ll have a chance to get some pictures online when I visit my mota mama’s place in Santa Cruz sometime later this week.
Oh yea its not all smiles and giggles being back. Men have to wear pants. I am pantless when I’m home though, lounging about in my lungi, but it blows all the same.
More soon, hopefully with pictures.
Some notes I made while in the air.…
6/15/200 11:45p
South of the Labrador sea flying over the Atlantic at 654mph. America was left behind a little too quickly. Sometimes the best goodbyes are the ones that happen when you don’t realize they’ve happened. Mummy took a well calculated jibe at me as we were completing the final bag check before leaving…it really got to me and I really brushed her off at the final checkin time. Its the angry decisions that hurt the most. Extraordinary girl called me this afternoon too, her voice had all the comfort of hot soup on a snowy winter’s night. For some reason the sound of her voice brought an unexpected bout of post-hangup waterworks which was so oddly therapeutic and most unlike me, what it was, it was load lightening.
7976 kms to Kuwait.
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Woke up at 2:30a because Mr. WindowSea could hold it in anymore. Groggy vision told me we were south of England and just north of Spain. Sleep came fitfully after that. Thankfully Mr. Check-in had upgraded me to business class out of the the goodness of his super-spiked hair so at the very least I’m reasonably comfortable.
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I just took a poop in Kuwait. Thankyou Bush Sr. for freeing this nation, otherwise I might have shit my pants. When will the world realize that it’s just better sitting down with some good reading?
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There are a lot of U.S. soldiers here at the airport. They all seem to have this far away lost look on their faces.
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6/16/2003 - 2:51p
It’s almost time to board the flight to Bombay and for whatever Keyur type reason, I find myself getting some butterflies in my paet. Could it be the 7 years it’s been since my last visit?
…I go.
When I come back even I don’t know.
I’ll miss all you U.S. based folks, all of you. Even you Extraordinary girl, even with all the shit that went down, old feelings die hard I guess.
I’ll get to Bombay on Monday June 16th 9:15pm EST.
All of you who need to reach me email me at the address on the right. Calling me won’t really work until I get my cell over there and I’ll put that number online.
Hopefully I’ll get some reasonable internet connectivity over there and post some updates from Bombay.
Until next time good people…
…until next time.
People have been leaving me some awesome comments. I think its only fair that I respond.
Steve asked, “On the long drive back to NJ, did you entertain your parents with “Flagpole Sitta”, “Smack My Bitch Up” et al from your music collection (yes, i’ve still got your 3 year old collection backed up at home), all the while loudly singing along and dancing enthusiastically against the constraints of your seat?”
I think this would have more confused my parents than anything else. Furthermore I think my father would have found it necessary to physically tie and gag me in the middle seat of the minivan for the duration of the drive home.
The Old man said, “Dude, is there some method to your madness in naming your posts? I don’t see how any of them are related. Its become quite evident after the “{1 Olivia, … ,9 Olivia}”, which had nothing to do with Raven Simone, The Cosby Show, or having kids with the same name. You need to rope in that monkey running around accessing information in your head.
FYI The Cosby Show rocks!”
At some point my post names did have some sort of convention and related to what I was writing about, some still do, but its usually something very obscure that only I understand, but mostly its just me writing something that I, as a pauper king, think sounds grand and in some way beautifully poetic. More often than not though it ends up sounding like the catch phrase from some bad ‘60s art student project. The Olivia reference was correctly identified and I was talking about The Cosby Show.
The Captain said, “That’s how you learn, by screwing up. It’s sad that people have to get hurts when you screw up, but that’s just the way it is.
The hard-to-understand part is that you can’t be told certain things. You have to experience them. Consider yourself lucky if you get it right the first time.”
Yea sometimes the cost is too high and my mistake was costly beyond imaginable belief and the fact is it effected aspects of my life that go beyond just the concept of “make mistake - learn - move on sans repeating mistake.” Even to this day I’m still trying to figure out the ramifications of my actions and its so complicated, simply because I made it this way. I created this maze and now I’m lost in it and haven’t got a clue where I am.
The G said, “Just a random comment - I searched for ‘keyur’ in google, and the 8th link that comes up is an anti-pants site - that messes with my head.”
I take my anti-pants stance very seriously and there are others on the web who look to me for leadership. Google understands and hopefully so will you G.
Dan said, “You did a brave thing. Sometimes people wait too long and lose all chance of resolution.
On another note: did all the Jerseyians pack up and move to Austin? I swear the level of driving madness is getting worse here.”
I don’t think what I did was brave at all Dan. Hiding from a problem you’ve caused until you’re ready to face to it doesn’t make a man brave. Brave is someone who can face the problem they have caused when they have caused it. Extraordinary girl insists that its best that I wasn’t in touch with her when the fit hit the shan but thats not much consolation. I don’t know what I can do at this point to put this problem in the past and carry on. What do I need?
Man. You mentioned pizza a the end of this post and I just emailed you about my Jersey pizza addiction. Oh, well.
Have you tried being pantless to deter your mom from checking on you so often?
Your mom rounds the corner into your room, “Is everything okay. . . “
Keyur: “I’m kind of in the middle of something mom.” Maybe have cameltoe.org up on your monitor or something. Either that or say “Glad you came to check on me mom. I could use your help with this tourniquet. Oh, and could you bring me a spoon? I’ve already got the lighter and syringe.”
Okay someone needs to make sure he doesn’t skip his daily medicine. Being pantless around the house does not happen, its a matter of protocol. I’m only pantless late at night when I’m working at the computer like now and the whole Cameltoe website with lack pants and the syringe lighter and torniquet scenarious would only lead to me having broken knees and being entirely homeless. Also Jersey pizza is the best. There is slightly better pizza in Manhattan only because they do it with much appreciation for authenticity of actual pizza as it was invented in Italy.
I finally did it. I called the Extraordinary girl and requested, nay demanded, a face-to-face meeting. I’ve ran from shadow to shadow much too long, if I don’t resolve this matter, the matter will resolve me. You see resolving is the sort of thing you want to be doing, not having done to you. Its sort of like beating, but less kinetic. Anyway hopefully I’ll meet with the Extraordinary girl and we’ll both be better because of it.
Living at home is weird. Mummy still cannot come to terms with the fact that I can work quietly without causing damage to myself, our belongings or others. This is most annoying because I absolutely cannot code when someone keeps checking up on me every four to five minutes. I haven’t written any meaningful code since I left Texas. I took the Waste source code and integrated it with an API to get Linksys routers configured automatically, but thats like eating a salad for dinner. I need more. I’ve been quite a bit out of it with Mozilla and I don’t really know why, I’ve even stopped rolling my own nightlies. I will do it for sure though before the end of this week. Using the regular nightlies doesn’t “feel” right.
Also driving around in Jersey is a bittersweet experience. Roads are in far worse shape than any other state in recent memory. States in recent memory include Texas, Georgia, North&South Carloina, Virginia and New York. There are a couple of potholes(1,2,3) that are very close to home and just harsh. I usually drive around the mother unit’s minivan, and the potholes thoroughly shake up the car, its unnerving. There is only so much a man can swerve to avoid them and most of the time its impossible. The other thing that I noticed about Jersey’s local streets that I never noticed before is that manhole covers are directly in the middle of your driving path and its a good bump everytime you drive over them. Its annoying. The other weird thing is that suddenly an inexplicably large amount of people have become polite drivers. This I don’t understand. I haven’t even been cut off once, not even by delivery trucks! What the hell is going on? I was really excited about the cutting off and the fist waving and the finger giving and the light flashing and the angry honking, its as if The Captain swooped by one night and brain washed everybody. I demand that Jersey drivers return back to their own states and the let the other states handle the pansy-wansy niceness. It is kinda nice though, you know the whole keeping your blood pressure normal during regular drives thing. Beyond the potholes and the nice drivers I just love being home where I can literally drive blind to all the local spots, thats just a wonderful feeling where you don’t even think and you’re there. I never did achieve that sort of road feel in Texas.
And the bagels, ohhhh the bagels! And the pizza, ohhhhhhh the pizza!!!
Quoteses:
“Why would they do that in Parsistupidity?” - The Old Man
“Nothing like slashdotting MIT to make you feel like you’ve accomplished something! How’s your precious class-A IP registry now?” - Bunker Hill Community College
“If you remember one thing Keyur, remember this: ‘Mita is always right. Even if she’s wrong.’” - Sumita C.
“Well if you get me a job there, I’ll put in a good word for you.” - The Old Man
I am broadbanded once more. OO is much faster than TW’s RR. With RR I got a max download speed of 250kilobyes/sec, whereas with OO I‘m downloading at over 950kilobytes/sec. That can’t just be because of a “vacant” neighbourhood, this has to be by design and I’m thankful for it. Fast internet is very good for mind, body and soul.
Anyway talking to the Mita grrl today and she mentioned that I don’t really write much about my life and its more about product reviews. I suppose it is like that. I figured writing entirely about my life won’t be worthwhile for you the reader or me as the writer, because face it my life is about as exciting as week old yogurt. I suppose my product reviews or rants on the goings on in the tech world can’t be that much more exciting either but I like sharing and its gives me a soap box.
None the less its rather sad that to this day I haven’t been able to write or even say a single word about one of the most defining times in my life. You see I used to know a girl, a rather extraordinary girl, and as time progressed this girl and I found ourselves in the midst of a relationship. It was a rather extraordinary sort of relationship. Of course being the sort of person I am I could never possibly do things right and this was a classic textbook example of that. I wish I could write freely about this, but its not easy, and even today the wounds are still quite raw and festering. People can be forgotten but you have to live with your own doing, its not easy. Worst of all there are some things I come across in life which just rip the bandages right off and claw at the flesh all over. Good examples come from High Fidelity one of my Top 5 favourite films of all time. In the film Rob, John Cusack’s character, is realizing the goodness of the woman he just broke up with and he launches into the following soliloquy…
“Top five things I miss about Laura: One - Sense of humor. Very dry, but it can also be warm and forgiving. And she’s got one of the best all-time laughs in the history of all-time laughs. She laughs with her entire body. Two - She’s got character…or at least she had character before the Ian nightmare. She’s loyal and honest and she doesn’t even take it out on people when she’s having a bad day. That’s character. Three - I miss…her smell…and the way she tastes. Its a mystery of human chemistry and I don’t understand it. Some people, as far as your senses are concerned, just…feel…like home. I really dig how she walks around. Its like she doesn’t care how she looks or what she projects. And its not that she doesn’t care, its just…she’s not affected I guess. And that gives her grace. and Five - She does this thing in bed when she can’t get to sleep. She kind of half-moans and then rubs her feet together an equal number of times. It just kills me.”
This gets me everytime, even though I’ve seen the film no less than 10 times by now. Then I finally got around to seeing Good Will Hunting and when Sean, Robin William’s character, is talking to Will about love he delivers this line…
“But you’ve never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable…known someone that could level you with her eyes. Feeling like God put an angel on Earth just for you..who could rescue you from the depths of Hell. And you wouldn’t know what it’s like to be her angel, n to have that love for her be there forever. Through anything. Through cancer. And you wouldn’t know about sleepin’ sittin’ up in a hospital room for two months, holding her hand because the doctors could see in your eyes that the terms visiting hours don’t apply to you. You don’t know about real loss, because that only occurs when you love something more than you love yourself. I doubt you’ve ever dared to love anybody that much.”
At this point I was just broken. You could have poured me into a bucket and flushed me down the toilet. I try to be a tough guy but this whole topic is by far my absolute most vulnerable point, it destroys me with horrific absoluteness.
What really bakes my noodle is knowning what that extraordinary girl went through and that too alone…we hardly ever talked about it.
P.S. HTML in comments is not allowed.