Before I come to Indian, I heard that Indians don’t use toilet paper, they use their left hand. I thought it was a joke or it is stories from last centuries. Now I am in Indian, I can confirm the story is true. In a typical Indian toilet, you won’t find any toilet paper. Instead, you get a tap and a water bucket in each stall. After you had done your business, you can use the water bucket and your left hand to clean your butt. In some more advance toilet, it has a hose with shower head, so you can wash your butt more thoroughly than using a water bucket. I only find toilet paper is provided in hotels or fine dining restaurants with lots of foreigner customers.
No only that Indians don’t use toilet paper, they don’t even know what toilet paper is. The toilet paper in the guest house is running low, so I asked the maid to get me some new toilet paper. Guess what I got? I got kitchen paper towels! Flushing those thing down will guarantee a flooding toilet. Luckily, my box kleenex save the day. My highest priority task for this weekend is to get some toilet paper for the guest house from the super market.
A driver’s job is taking you to your destination and back. I am surprise some of my colleagues feel sorry for the driver doing their job. The traffic is insane in Bangalore, so we have drivers to drive us around the town. The driver will come to pick us up in the morning, take us to the office. After work, the driver will take us to the restaurant, then take us back to the guest house after dinner. When we finish our meal, we will call the driver’s cell phone and get him ready to pick us up. Some of my colleagues feel sorry for the drivers that they have to wait outside with the car while we eat. I really don’t understand why they feel sorry for the drivers. How tough can it be waiting relaxingly in the parking lot. While they are waiting, they can take a nap, read newspaper or chat with other waiting drivers. Sometimes they even get free meal from restaurant. Why would you will feel sorry for the driver for simply doing his job? Being a driver is not a bad job in Indian after all. I rather feel sorry for those of us who got sent over here to suffer.
I am the unofficial Bangalore food guide. Whenever I am in town, I will take care of dinner arrangement for everyone staying in the guest house. It does not take much time, but the return is great. I only have to spent 5 minutes every day to pick the restaurant, make the reservation, print direction and sent out an email invite people to join me for dinner. People are glad that some one is take care of the dinner arrangement, they can hop into the car and guarantee a nice meal. I always pick the expensive restaurants, so that it can never go wrong. It’s a fun to have some colleagues to chat and chill out with a few drinks. It is far better than the alternative. If no one organize dinner, we may end up eating at Indian restaurants around the guest house every night.
Somehow, some colleagues choose to cook for themselves in the guest house instead of joining us. I don’t quite understand why don’t they come with us. Granted, the restaurants are far away, it takes time to stuck in traffic. However, buying glocery, washing and cooking also takes time. Having a nice dinner doesn’t take much time than cooking. Money is not a concern, the food bill is paid by the companies anyways. There is no reason to go cheap on food by making your own dinner. I just can’t imagine someone can have sausage and egg every day instead of fine dinner. One theory why they stay home for dinner is they feel guilt spending company’s money. I tried to enlighten them with the correct value of money. The company outsource to India to cut cost, so we are just helping the company utilize some of saving by having nice dinner in India.
第一次看Tom Clancy的小說是很多年前的事﹐那時我十分喜歡辛康納利主演的《追擊赤十月》﹐看完電影後便急不及待從老父的書櫃找原著來讀。當年我還是只個中學生﹐英文水平馬馬虎虎﹐在看得明與不明之間﹐把整本小說硬啃下去。現在已經記不起原著好不好看﹐好像是情節﹐反而電影版的情節倒印象深刻。我常常以為自己很喜歡Tom Clancy﹐其實也只不過是看了後來兩套夏理遜福當Jack Ryan的電影﹐之後他的一本小說也沒讀過。不過老父倒是Tom Clancy迷﹐當年兩父子看電影時﹐他如數家珍地講Jack Ryan的故事﹐從小特工如何一直升上去當美國總統。我印象中老父說過Tom Clancy的眾多小說中﹐第二本著作《紅潮風暴》寫得最好﹐可是亦是最艱深最難讀。大慨從那時開始﹐這本小說便加入我腦內的必讀書單上。很多次想過買來看也因種種原因作罷﹐轉眼過了十幾年也一直沒有機會看這本小說﹐。想不到去渡蜜月坐遊輪﹐船上的圖書館剛巧有這本書﹐反正在船上閒著沒事幹﹐便借了下來以極速趕在上岸前讀完。
