Charlie Meatball

Good times last night with guest house folks. Chosun was making Chinese food for Matthew, Tony, and himself when I wandered out to the kitchen. As they always do, they invited me to join.

Chosun cooking up something tasty for Champagne Thursday

It’s so much nicer to eat meals together with other people, so I decide to join them. Someone breaks out a bottle of non-alcholic Australian champagne and suddenly it’s Champagne Thursday. I explain the concept and I think it takes hold. The next thing I know, folks are posing for pictures and Chosun is juggling while I clown around a bit.

It sounds corny when I read it, but the folks at the guest house have been a huge blessing. I would not have kept my sanity to nearly the extent I have without the connection to them. I will definitely miss them and I hope that, as many of them have threatened, they actually will show up in Seattle at some point.

So last night I was finally feeling better - over my head cold, still a bit weak, but definitely on the road to wellness - and I was playing it safe.  Tom and Siobhan had invited me out to debate watching at a bar in Hyderabad sponsored by a group of ex-pat Dems and then some further shenanigans (I think any party to which you invite someone named Siobhan can accurately be termed shenanigans or perhaps sionanigans), but I chose to only attend the debate, and only because it didn’t go too much later than dinner normally would.  I wanted to rest up and really get better.

The debate was fun to watch in a group - even on tape delay - and the bar was a very weird/funky place to watch a presidential debate, what with its dim, blue lighting illuminating a modern bar scene complete with disco lights on the dance floor and semi-comfortable, ultra-modernist furniture.  We came, we watched, we jetted in separate cars, and I was home to the guest house while Tom and Siobhan were off to their party.

Even when Tom texted me (humorous on my little phone which looks like its display is “a sticker” according to a number of folks) saying that he was having a bunch of fun and I should join, I remained resolute.  No, I’m getting over my cold, I need to heal up.

Which is why I can’t help but feel disappointed, though not at all surprised, that I woke from a bad queasy dream at 5 this morning, to a bad queasy feeling in my stomach.  Food poisoning.  While previous bouts could have been described more as my stomach letting me know it generally didn’t like what I was doing to it as it became more or less upset with me over the course of a few days, this one was direct and specific.

I don’t know if it was the ice they put into my drink - I had asked for no ice, but didn’t feel like making a big deal/scene of it when ice showed up - or the mysteriously-caked-in-batter “stir fried vegetables” or the actually-finger-shaped chicken fingers (which I didn’t look too hard at, just ate) or even my late night snack of a bowl of cereal with milk followed by a square of dark chocolate.  Heck, it could have been the water from the pitcher in the guest house, since pitchers are left to dry, after goodness knows what kind of a cleaning process, in a big cabinet frequented by ants the size of chihuahuas.

Point is, I’ll never know what did it, but something very unequivocally gave me food poisoning last night and, where I had been feeling weak before, I feel wobbly now.  I have a week and three days to go to nationals, so I hope I can heal up fast.  Yeah, between the water sanitation issues, the food prep sanitation issues, the presence of so many livestock (and their wastes) in and around the human population, and the pollution in the air, I would not suggest Hyderabad as a training destination.

I had already noticed that my immune system was under a lot of strain just by being in Hyderabad.  Even working out had a significant impact on the chances I’d feel ill, and I just required a lot more sleep here than I do in Seattle, but man, actual food poisoning was a different level.  BLEAH.  I definitely recommend Colorado or Kenya or perhaps the Swiss Alps as training destinations before seeing about Hyderabad.  The people and food here are lovely, but - unless nationals is hit by a wave of e. coli or a roaming herd of oxen decide to take up residence at the polo grounds - I doubt it’s doing anything for my training regimen.

ATTN: waitstaff at restaurants and hotel staff

RE: Your request for comments

I’ve received about fifty comment cards from hotels and restaurants now, so I have to assume that you, the good people of the Indian service industry, or at least your managers, want my opinion on how my experience of your service has been.  I’m guessing that I’ve gotten this many requests for my feedback entirely due to the fact that I’m a foreigner, but I’m beginning to suspect that this has as much to do with you thinking I’ll give you better marks than Indians will as it does with you wanting to market to foreigners.  Regardless, you asked and now I’m going to actually tell you what I think.

First off, you know all those comment cards I filled out?  Full of lies.  Why would I give you honest feedback when you were about 3 feet away, looking over my shoulder, reading my answer as I wrote it, and making nervous faces?  Worse, some of you actually told me which boxes to check or what to write and got agitated when it looked like I might fill something else out.  I was once even asked to change my answer.  Look people, I really don’t care enough about your particular restaurant enough to deal with that.  I’ll just tell you what you want to hear and tell my friends not to go there if the service was pushy and the food was crap.

Second, we Westerners (and actually all of the East Asians I’ve talked to as well) have this thing about not liking to have people - even ones trying to be helpful - constantly underfoot so that we have to negotiate with you in order to do simple stuff.  That means we want service when we ask for it, being available if we need something, and otherwise staying the hell away.  A couple of examples of this come to mind.  First off, I am perfectly capable of carrying things, opening doors, and picking stuff up for myself.  It’s nice for the occasional door to be opened for me, but when I tell you I’ve got it please back off.  Most importantly, if I have the bag in my hand and I say not to take it, do not attempt to take it from me.  At that point, I’m doing everything in my power not to get really angry and perhaps physically assertive.  Sure, people who aren’t 1.82 meters tall, 90 kilos, and a bit of a hothead are probably not going to physically do anything, but they’re probably even more pissed off than I am and more than a bit frightened.  No grabbing!

Also, when you treat us like we can’t do anything for ourselves, it’s bad enough, but you often compound this by actually getting in our way as we’re trying to do stuff.  I’ve had items that I needed to hold, plates and saucers at buffet tables, picked up and brought one foot closer to me as I attempted to reach for them.  So now, instead of reaching two and a half feet for the thing on the table, I have to stop, wait for you to move it, then reach a foot and a half (to the new place you’re holding it) for something that you just put your hands all over.  That saves me zero effort and is one more set of hands on something that will touch my food.

Worse is when you don’t even seem to be attempting to anticipate my needs and yet still doing things to me or my stuff.  OK, I can accept that your idea of service means I don’t actually get to control my portion sizes and instead you will dish out food to me when you want to.  I can even deal with feeling like you’re my Jewish mom (hi mom!) pushing food on me (and I can push back when required).  But why, as a part of that, do you sometimes just re-arrange the stuff on my table?  When I put my glass or plate or fork down in one spot on the table, you came by and moved it somewhere else.  Why?  What are you thinking?  Is it an attempt to improve the feng shui?  You put your hands where I’m going to be eating for no good reason I could see except that you expect me to have a certain arrangement of plate, fork, and glass.  Sometimes we’ve even gone back and forth a couple times.  I put it one place, you move it to another, I put it back, you move it again.  I’ve re-arranged things to suit my liking - not much mind you, not to crazy weird locations like putting my plate on someone else’s chair or anything - and yet you see the need to “correct” them.  Seriously, cut it out.

OK, I have more to tell you about, but I gotta go to work, so I’ll have to write more later.  Until then, quit hanging about only yards away from my table while refusing to meet my eye contact and dressing down the waiters below you.  I love your food, and I know you’re trying so hard to please me.  I honestly think that if I just clear a few things up, we can both enjoy my meals out a lot more.

Sincerely,

Charlie

P.S. Next time I’ll likely want to talk about retail salespeople.

P.P.S. Sarah, Sharon, Tom, Dev, or anyone else who’s traveled in India, send comments for things I’ve missed.

So I just got back from going out to one of the many Muslim section of town for haleem.  Haleem is a special dish that’s only made during Ramzan.  Haleem is made of wheat and some type of meat - usually chicken or mutton - that’s beaten until it’s a thick paste and spiced with all kinds of stuff (I tasted cardamom and coriander in addition to the cloves and pepper I pulled out of my teeth), and making it involves beating the ingredients a whole bunch.  The mashing is typically done in tiny little shops using tools that make a very distinctive clopping sound, and it’s kind of cool that I heard the sounds of haleem before I had my first bite.

I went with Tom, who is also working at Microsoft, and his girlfriend Siobhan (hope I spelled that correctly). It’s great having folks to do stuff with, and they’re both a lot of fun. We could geek it out and compare experiences, yay!

The section of town was all lit up when we were there and was quite the site.  I just took video to give a sense of how many people are in the streets celebrating Ramzan and how brightly lit and festive it is.

Then we went to a drive in haleem place.  A crowd of guys came up to the car to serve us in the car.

Eating haleem in the car at Pista's during Ramzan (Ramadan).

One guy eventually ripped us off (for less than a dollar) but not before both me and my driver chewed him out. Bleah, kinda a junky end to that part of the evening, but very fun overall.

Went over to Ohri’s to introduce Tom and Siobhan to chaat.