First Day of Work

I had my first day of work yesterday. The night before, I was too tired to be bothered to arrange a ride into work, so I left it to the morning. It was a bit of an ordeal getting to the IBM location. First of all, it was a little farther than I thought. I had looked at a map online and didn’t really pay any attention to the scale of it. Second, there are two IBM building and I was brought to the main one, which wasn’t actually where I needed to be (this wasn’t the driver’s fault; it was the address I was given). There was no phone and the only way that they could direct me there was by pointing. An IBMer who worked there flagged down a bicycle rickshaw, gave the driver ten rupees and told him where I needed to go. That was an experience and a half. The drivers here are absolutely mad. There is no concept of lanes. Cars squeeze in wherever there is a spot and constantly honk. It’s a little unnerving in a car, but a lot unnerving in a rickshaw.

Everybody honks. They should invent a car here that just honks at random intervals. Cars could then be sold with standard and automatic horns as an extra option. A guy could make a lot of money with an idea like that.

I saw my first cow yesterday. I was looking out the window while teaching and three of them just walked down the street. There was also a goat sitting under a tree.

The hotel that I’m staying at, the Hyatt Regency is probably one of the swishest places that I’ve ever stayed (all for the bargain price of $53 US per night). The area of Kolkata that I’m in is Salt Lake which is where a lot of the high tech businesses are. On the way in, it didn’t seem like any business park I had ever seen, though. In the taxi from the airport, it seemed like the entire area was the “bad end of town”. After a few minutes, though, I noticed that everyone was fairly well dressed in button-up shirts and slacks. It’s not the bad end at all; it just is what it is. Pulling into the hotel was a shock after seeing the surrounding area. The brightly illuminted building towers above the rest of the area and is surrounding with beautiful gardens and an iron fence. The guards at the front gate check under the car with a mirror (terrorism is a big problem in India).

Initially, I was a little concerned about leaving the hotel in anything but a hired car. This was partly reinforced in talking other westerners around the hotel. However, after being out walking around a bit yesterday, I’ve realised that it’s not that much of a concern. This morning, I deliberately had the driver take my to the IBM location which is a couple blocks from the actual classroom and just walked it. Tonight, I’ll just take a regular cab home and will probably do so in the morning as well to come back to work. It sounds kind of silly, but it’s pretty intimidating at first; especially when you are here by yourself.

I went out for a walk today at lunch time. Here's a couple of pictures of the area by the office. The first is a side street just behind the class, and the second is one of the IBM buildings (the lean-tos in front are street food vendors).