The rest of Pune
The first entry about the Pune trip sort of got away from me, there, so just to hit a few highlights about the rest of it
[Censored.]
Yes, that's right. I just wrote a long-ish paragraph about the next institute we visited, including a bit in which I may or may not have compared one of its high mucky-mucks (by title) to a character from Hedwig and the Angry Inch. And then I thought about how these guys are the type to google themselves, and, well...the Times of India would have such a blast with this. It sucks, my job: my personal life is utterly constrained. And yet, without it, I wouldn't have this stuff to write about in the first place. I'll try to slip a less identifiable description of the place into a future entry. Suffice it to say, the reliance on pomp at this place means I'm always highly entertained, if for no other reason than that they always include a homemade PowerPoint presentation about the honored guest, superimposed on his or her photo, which they unfailingly enlarge without preserving the aspect ratio.
It's kind of a private running joke, actually, and a good test of my (not terribly good) composure skills: there's always something at this place that threatens to reduce me to highly inappropriate giggles. This time it was realizing that one of the self-important and pompous white-kurta-clad officials seated near me feathered his ear hair. I just kept imagining a philosophy of life in which one decides to face the world without self-impugning one's genes, and thus banishes the clippers -- but still decides to try to spruce oneself up a bit. Actually, what really pushed me over the edge was imagining the itty-bitty round brush.
Digression: this may be a gross generalization and/or culturally offensive, but I really like Sikhs, and only a little bit in part because they remind me of Klingons. The older men have such a proud military bearing and regal presence, while the younger ones are uniformly striking, with their feminine silky flowing hair, long lashes, dewy eyes, beautiful skin, and Marines' physiques (there's heavy cultural emphasis on fitness and agility for men). Plus, though in practice, they're as misogynist as any Indian (and indeed, female Sikhs are indistinguishable from the general population), I'll allow partial credit for a religion that's at least in theory completely egalitarian.
Digressive interruption: They really need to do something about the name, though. I remember last year being a bystander in a phone conversation between one of our delightfully East End London consular clerks and a visa-seeker who was evidently trying to impart some information, with neither party able to surmount the linguistic sub-group wall. Exasperated, the London clerk covered the receiver and said to me:
" 'E says 'e's sik. Nowz 'e not well, or 'is 'e one o'them turbanned gents?"
Digression resumption: This is background so that you can see I say with genuine affection that there's a personal accoutrement the Sikhs must do away with, before it gets me into a lot of trouble. I refer to the mesh netting that older Sikh gentlemen place against their combed-out beards, roll up like a roulade, and hook behind their ears. It's very neat and hygienic and presentable, of course, and highly commendable in its intention, but, as K points out, I'm going to spark a riot one day when I inevitably slip up and refer to one of these things in public as a beard bra.
Anyway. After the talk, and after a brief but surreal software company inauguration (I was asked to light the ceremonial lamp, but had the candle snatched away by an older white-kurta-clad gent who was incensed that he'd been asked to follow a woman in lighting priority), we went to dinner at the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce. Unfortunately for me, one of the speech-makers mixed me up with a colleague who works in our commerce section, so for the next four hours during the buffet dinner, I was besieged by people -- again, more accurately, men -- wanting highly specific business information and not understanding why I was being so cruel/stupid/miserly as to not give it to them (coming blog entry: how conversations with Indians can often be like two pre-recorded and utterly non-interactive monologues). I suppose the CG had it even worse, though: as you may have picked up on, there's a great deal of ceremony at most of these functions, with intricately embedded protocol (A introduces B, who introduces C...), and I've sometimes wondered how our hosts keep track. Answer: they don't, always. Some third-sublevel emcee introduced the CG, who gave the remarks I scripted for him. He turned over the floor to someone, who turned it over to someone, who spoke and turned it over to someone, who introduced the CG again. What could he do? He gamely gave his speech again.
[Censored.]
Yes, that's right. I just wrote a long-ish paragraph about the next institute we visited, including a bit in which I may or may not have compared one of its high mucky-mucks (by title) to a character from Hedwig and the Angry Inch. And then I thought about how these guys are the type to google themselves, and, well...the Times of India would have such a blast with this. It sucks, my job: my personal life is utterly constrained. And yet, without it, I wouldn't have this stuff to write about in the first place. I'll try to slip a less identifiable description of the place into a future entry. Suffice it to say, the reliance on pomp at this place means I'm always highly entertained, if for no other reason than that they always include a homemade PowerPoint presentation about the honored guest, superimposed on his or her photo, which they unfailingly enlarge without preserving the aspect ratio.
It's kind of a private running joke, actually, and a good test of my (not terribly good) composure skills: there's always something at this place that threatens to reduce me to highly inappropriate giggles. This time it was realizing that one of the self-important and pompous white-kurta-clad officials seated near me feathered his ear hair. I just kept imagining a philosophy of life in which one decides to face the world without self-impugning one's genes, and thus banishes the clippers -- but still decides to try to spruce oneself up a bit. Actually, what really pushed me over the edge was imagining the itty-bitty round brush.
Digression: this may be a gross generalization and/or culturally offensive, but I really like Sikhs, and only a little bit in part because they remind me of Klingons. The older men have such a proud military bearing and regal presence, while the younger ones are uniformly striking, with their feminine silky flowing hair, long lashes, dewy eyes, beautiful skin, and Marines' physiques (there's heavy cultural emphasis on fitness and agility for men). Plus, though in practice, they're as misogynist as any Indian (and indeed, female Sikhs are indistinguishable from the general population), I'll allow partial credit for a religion that's at least in theory completely egalitarian.
Digressive interruption: They really need to do something about the name, though. I remember last year being a bystander in a phone conversation between one of our delightfully East End London consular clerks and a visa-seeker who was evidently trying to impart some information, with neither party able to surmount the linguistic sub-group wall. Exasperated, the London clerk covered the receiver and said to me:
" 'E says 'e's sik. Nowz 'e not well, or 'is 'e one o'them turbanned gents?"
Digression resumption: This is background so that you can see I say with genuine affection that there's a personal accoutrement the Sikhs must do away with, before it gets me into a lot of trouble. I refer to the mesh netting that older Sikh gentlemen place against their combed-out beards, roll up like a roulade, and hook behind their ears. It's very neat and hygienic and presentable, of course, and highly commendable in its intention, but, as K points out, I'm going to spark a riot one day when I inevitably slip up and refer to one of these things in public as a beard bra.
Anyway. After the talk, and after a brief but surreal software company inauguration (I was asked to light the ceremonial lamp, but had the candle snatched away by an older white-kurta-clad gent who was incensed that he'd been asked to follow a woman in lighting priority), we went to dinner at the Indo-American Chamber of Commerce. Unfortunately for me, one of the speech-makers mixed me up with a colleague who works in our commerce section, so for the next four hours during the buffet dinner, I was besieged by people -- again, more accurately, men -- wanting highly specific business information and not understanding why I was being so cruel/stupid/miserly as to not give it to them (coming blog entry: how conversations with Indians can often be like two pre-recorded and utterly non-interactive monologues). I suppose the CG had it even worse, though: as you may have picked up on, there's a great deal of ceremony at most of these functions, with intricately embedded protocol (A introduces B, who introduces C...), and I've sometimes wondered how our hosts keep track. Answer: they don't, always. Some third-sublevel emcee introduced the CG, who gave the remarks I scripted for him. He turned over the floor to someone, who turned it over to someone, who spoke and turned it over to someone, who introduced the CG again. What could he do? He gamely gave his speech again.
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