"I got my promotion!" crowed my boss.
"Thank God for that" I said to myself. Perhaps now the department could get back to normal, and not be all about his attempts to suck up to the next rung of the ladder.
"Yes", he pontificated". It was thanks to the new innovative ideas I came up with and implemented in the Silverstone matter. That's what finally swung it for me. Let's go out for a drink to celebrate. My treat!
"No thanks. Not today. I have a few things that I need to sort out here. Maybe next week."
How could he have forgotten that it was my ideas and my implementation of the same that made the Silverstone matter such a success. Not only that, but how could he be so stupid as to then tell me that he had used my ideas in order to get his own promotion. This was only one of a number of similar incidents. Just about the final straw for me.
I arrived home to find that someone had crashed into my wife's car; completely wrecked it, but just driven off. The Police weren't interested, and I sat down quite dejected that our life in rural England could get so impossible. At least is was quiet and I could relax for an hour before dinner.
With that, the deaf guy next door turned on his television. This was a regular occurrence, and as he was challenged in the ear department the volume was up at eleven, even though the dial was probably only numbered to ten.
"I've been asked if I would like to go to India for a while to work for six months" Jennifer revealed.
"Could you not make it longer and take me with you?" I joked.
"Well, actually, they did want me to go for a couple of years on a long-term assignment and bring you with me, but that's obviously not possible"
We arrived in Bangalore in the early hours of the 29th June 2011 and got straight to our temporary apartment. It's on the eighth floor, but is modern and spacious, and just a couple of minutes from Jen's office on the Old Madras Road. We were the only white people staying there and as a result attracted a certain amount of inquisitive stares.
Staring at white people - one of the more annoying habits of the locals. When I am in the mood, I have fun with it now. I stop dead in my tracks, and stare back saying "Is there something wrong?" This seems to be sufficient to end the deadlock and send the offender scurrying away with head bowed.
This country is intense. The heat, the noise, the smells and hustle and bustle make it quite disorientating at first. There appears to be no order; no system. A free for all and whoever gets there first wins. This will take some getting used to.
"Thank God for that" I said to myself. Perhaps now the department could get back to normal, and not be all about his attempts to suck up to the next rung of the ladder.
"Yes", he pontificated". It was thanks to the new innovative ideas I came up with and implemented in the Silverstone matter. That's what finally swung it for me. Let's go out for a drink to celebrate. My treat!
"No thanks. Not today. I have a few things that I need to sort out here. Maybe next week."
How could he have forgotten that it was my ideas and my implementation of the same that made the Silverstone matter such a success. Not only that, but how could he be so stupid as to then tell me that he had used my ideas in order to get his own promotion. This was only one of a number of similar incidents. Just about the final straw for me.
I arrived home to find that someone had crashed into my wife's car; completely wrecked it, but just driven off. The Police weren't interested, and I sat down quite dejected that our life in rural England could get so impossible. At least is was quiet and I could relax for an hour before dinner.
With that, the deaf guy next door turned on his television. This was a regular occurrence, and as he was challenged in the ear department the volume was up at eleven, even though the dial was probably only numbered to ten.
"I've been asked if I would like to go to India for a while to work for six months" Jennifer revealed.
"Could you not make it longer and take me with you?" I joked.
"Well, actually, they did want me to go for a couple of years on a long-term assignment and bring you with me, but that's obviously not possible"
We arrived in Bangalore in the early hours of the 29th June 2011 and got straight to our temporary apartment. It's on the eighth floor, but is modern and spacious, and just a couple of minutes from Jen's office on the Old Madras Road. We were the only white people staying there and as a result attracted a certain amount of inquisitive stares.
Staring at white people - one of the more annoying habits of the locals. When I am in the mood, I have fun with it now. I stop dead in my tracks, and stare back saying "Is there something wrong?" This seems to be sufficient to end the deadlock and send the offender scurrying away with head bowed.
This country is intense. The heat, the noise, the smells and hustle and bustle make it quite disorientating at first. There appears to be no order; no system. A free for all and whoever gets there first wins. This will take some getting used to.
On Friday morning we were to meet the relocation company to view our permanent residence. We had viewed a number of properties when we went over a few weeks earlier on our orientation trip. Anything that seemed to be agreed with the landlord then fell through at the last minute. We had finally agreed on a property and were looking forward to seeing it. When they picked us up, they told us it had fallen through as well. They knew this the day before, but never told us. It was evident from what they said that they had told us a number of lies. These people are just incompetence personified. All the time they promise to ring or email, and never deliver. Really frustrating. Anyway, we may have got somewhere else, but I'm not positive about it until we are actually walking through the front door.
This practice of telling lies in order to save face was to became one of the more dominant features of our time in India. It is not even the fact that someone is not being truthful, it is the insult that they think you are stupid enough to believe them. I have had countless shouting matches with shopkeepers and service staff for blatantly lying, as you will see later.
This practice of telling lies in order to save face was to became one of the more dominant features of our time in India. It is not even the fact that someone is not being truthful, it is the insult that they think you are stupid enough to believe them. I have had countless shouting matches with shopkeepers and service staff for blatantly lying, as you will see later.
We have had real problems with our bank in the UK. They just blocked our cards because they thought it strange that we were in India, despite me writing to tell them that we were moving here. We couldn't get any money out. Jen rang them four or five times (ten minutes on hold each time) and they kept saying that they had unblocked her card, but it refused to work. Couple this with a number of unreliable ATMs in Bangalore, and we were pretty angry. We eventually got someone that said that her card had been cancelled as the Police had found a card skimming machine, and her card details were on it. It must have happened somewhere in the UK before we left. They just cancelled the card without bothering to tell us. Great customer service.
Finally, we got my card to work. The joy was short lived. The ATM machines work in a different sequence here, whereby you get your money and then your card is returned. This is the opposite in the UK, so now I have walked off and left my card in the ATM. This was to be yet another recurring theme of our time in India. Sometimes I have been lucky and got my card back from the ATM security man, but others I have had to wait up to four weeks for a replacement to be sent. Now who's the idiot?!
Finally, we got my card to work. The joy was short lived. The ATM machines work in a different sequence here, whereby you get your money and then your card is returned. This is the opposite in the UK, so now I have walked off and left my card in the ATM. This was to be yet another recurring theme of our time in India. Sometimes I have been lucky and got my card back from the ATM security man, but others I have had to wait up to four weeks for a replacement to be sent. Now who's the idiot?!
Our three cats were arriving the next day and we had to pay cash on delivery. Eventually between us we scraped the money together, but we just had boiled rice for dinner!
So, where do you find a cat litter tray and cat litter in Bangalore? Maybe I should he asking "How do you explain to an Indian what cat litter is?" Que Gareth and Jen's random rickshaw drive along the streets on Bangalore looking at every shop to see if we could solve this problem in time for arrival of the cats. I spotted an animal hospital (a very liberal description) that supplied me with a huge 25Kg bag of Chinese cat litter. I then found a shop and got two plastic trays. It was a strange sight - two white people in a rickshaw in the middle of all that traffic with a large bag of cat litter between us.
Anyway, the cats arrived the next morning, and were none the worse for their 26Hr journey. I can say that they are a little confused though. Well, then so are Jen and I! The realisation has hit home, after of weeks of planning and headaches, we have finally done it.
Jen's underwear blew off the balcony.
No, it's not what you are thinking. She had hung them out to dry; I mean after she washed them - there were no accidents so don't all rush out and buy shares in Tenna Lady.
Of course I was dispatched to go down the eight floors and retrieve them. I was fishing around in the bushes and emerged brandishing Jen's underwear in my hand in an almost triumphant pose, only to look up and see a security guard about ten yards away. He had a look on his face that changed rapidly from "What is he doing?" to "Is he some sort of panty thief?" to "it must be something that foreigners do." and finally "I don't get paid enough to enquire further." He shuffled off back to his hut.
I wonder what the next week will bring.
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