I was in New Delhi this past weekend and returned to Pune on Sunday. At 14M people strong, it’s easily one of India’s most populated cities. It’s also the home of India’s central government. I get the same goosebumps in Delhi that I get in Washington, DC. The monuments adorning both cities are truly spectacular.

It’s the beginning of monsoon season in India. It just went from being constantly hot to constantly wet. It rained so hard yesterday that water forced its way into my bathroom skylight and flooded the entire top floor. There was no permament damage, but the heavy rains knocked out the already fragile energy supplies.
In July of 2005, Mumbai received 37.5 inches of rain in 24 hours. Pune, only 3.5 hours away by car, was also affected but not as severely.

Checkout the weather.com page for Pune to see what I’m talking about.

At 2:00 PM everyday here in Pune, I am reminded that the infrastructure can’t keep up with the demand.  The entire office has backup power, but like clockwork on most days there’s a “current cut” or what’s also referred to as “load-shedding.”  Apparently, the magic hour is designated downtime to reduce the strain on the city’s power supply for this part of town.  In rural parts of the country it’s not unusual for villagers will go without power for large portions of the day.

The general problem related to lack of infrastructure supply to fuel the demand is widely understood in India.  What strikes me as unusual was that the promises of the candidates from the recent elections in Tamil Nadu made little mention of advancement in infrastructure services.  Instead, people were promised 1kg of rice at $.05, 4g of gold for women, color televisions for everyone — all things that ultimately were used to prey upon the poor and uneducated.
Politicians are self-serving universally — so nothing new necessarily here.  What is appalling is the blatant disregard for improvement of municipal services that would end up helping in untold ways contrasted against a backdrop of corrupt politicians lining their own pockets.  Influence peddling is an a la carte service and politicians are the maître d’.
Which leads me to another post for another day:  there seems to be a universal corollary to having survival mentality vs. lack of civic duty.  I have noticed in places as disparate as areas of India and in country towns of South Carolina.

Things to know when travelling in India:

1.  In India, a hotel isn’t necessarily a place that has rooms for overnight rental.  The word hotel is also used synonymously with the word restaurant.

2.  Chat has two meanings.  Chaat (proper spelling, pronounced ch-aught) generally means snack food.  To chat is what you do with a friend over instant messaging or the phone.
3.  A “call taxi” is just a taxi that you call to schedule pickup.

4.  Using your left hand to give someone something or eating with it can be considered slightly faux pas in some areas.

5.  An Indian that shakes his/her head in a side-to-side motion with their neck as a pivot is really expressing an affirmative even though it could appear as if their expressing negation.
6.  When accepting business cards, it’s courteous to receive the card and read it rather than immediately filing it in your front pocket.  Consider this in other parts of East Asia as well.

7.  A “love marriage” describes people who fall in love and get married.

8.  An email ID is the same thing as an email address.  In the West, we typically don’t pluralize email by adding an ’s’ although it’s not incorrect — in India, it seems to be the norm.

9.  Vegetarians abound in India.  It’s paradise for a person (like me) who seems to have a laundry list of questions to ask of waitstaff before ordering.  When they say vegetarian in this country — they’re serious.  Packaged food items are duly indicated as being vegetarian using a green dot.  Foods containing “non-veg” related items use a red dot.

10.  A red dot on a woman’s forehead has nothing to do with meat products (as noted in point 9 above).  It typically signifies that she is a married, Hindu woman who’s husband is still alive.  Young, unmarried, girls will also wear the chukkha or bindi. The position of the bindi is significant as a center of energy, according to schools of Hindu thought.  The bindi itself can be comprised of either a pinch of red holy powder or what amounts to a sticker.

Keeping cool during the summer months is key to survival in India.  Combined with the humidity, the heat can be absolutely punishing.

Tender coconuts seem to be the preferred cool-down beverage down South, but here in the North it’s lime soda — either sweetened with a syrup concoction or salted. One would think that the salted version would lead to further dehydration negating any interim benefit of a cooling effect, but the locals seem to buy into it.

At my Uncle’s place in Coimbatore, a man would come by every evening and climb up one of several coconut trees in the backyard to fetch one tender coconut for each person.  He then uses a sickle to lop off the top creating a convenient opening from which one imbibes.

I’m in Pune, Maharastra for an extended period of time before visiting Delhi and then returning back to the States. I’m here working with a group of software engineers on my startup. Things are getting off to a good start — more on that subject as things evolve later.

Pictured above is the view from the balcony of the house where I am staying. The white bungalow in the foothills belongs to the Mayor apparently.

This is Hemant. He doesn’t speak very much English and I speak neither Marathi nor Hindi with the exception of all the bad words, but we somehow manage. Hemant is the caretaker of the house and visits every morning and prepares breakfast, etc. Most North Indians, unlike South Indians, prefer chai over coffee and as a result, I have been drinking much more of it than I typically do in the States. There’s an instant chai/coffee machine in the office that makes a fantastic cup of cardomom chai. You would never know that it came from a machine.

Overall, I like Pune. Not unlike the rest of India, the people are quite friendly. Quite a few technology companies have setup shop here and in Bangalore. Pune is emerging as the next best alternative to Bangalore considering the high cost of living there now.

That’s another subject entirely for a different day —- India is getting expensive on a number of levels because of the gold rush. The weak American dollar doesn’t help either though. I feel sorry for the millions of already poor Indians because things will just get more expensive for them without getting better first. At some point in the next decade, Africa will be the only place left to use as outsource venues.

I’m in Coimbatore, India for a few days after Bangalore to catch-up with some relatives before heading North. I was finally able to upload some photos after being broadband deprived for the past few days.

Pictured above is Pete Deemer, CPO of Yahoo, talking about agile project management at BarCampBangalore held at the Yahoo Bangalore offices on April 21st.

Pictured above is Chad Dickerson who also works for Yahoo talking about “Yahoo Hack Day.”

Pictured above is an old school wiki.

More photos from BarCamp here.

I was in Bangalore this past weekend for BarCampBangalore and I can honestly say:  It was one of the most worthwhile events I have attented in quite some time.  I met some very nice and intelligent folks who I will blog about when I can find something other than dial-up.  I had the good fortune of meeting people who I consider to be current and future leaders of the technology movement that we currently find ourselves a part of.  Pete Deemer, Chief Product Officer of Yahoo, lead a discussion on Scrum project management wrappers that essentially pushed me over the fence as to whether to implement such for my new venture or not.  After hearing him speak, I can think of no other way to efficiently come to market.  BarCampBangalore was that important and I’m glad that I attended.

I’m currently in the remote interior of South India where broadband isn’t quite so common, so it’s near impossible to upload any photographs and such though I have taken quite a few already.  It’s hotter than Hedes at the moment here and the humidity is equally as brutal.  Most adult Indians don’t wear shorts in the South (though they should really give it a try) but I have been pushing the bounds by wearing them anyway. 

BarCampChennai was held this weekend in uh, well, Chennai.  I was originally planning on attending since I was to be there for other business, but unforseen circumstances delayed my arrival.  It looks like it was indeed informative and fun.  Hopefully, I will be in India for the next unconference.  It’s amazing how the BarCamp phenomenon has spread to India.

I’m in Vail again. I was just here in late January for a late winter vacation and now I find myself back for business this time. Sorta strange, considering that I have never been here before either.

It’s also strange on another front. It’s also going to be my last gig with EMC. My last day with the company, after nearly 10 years, is Friday, March 17. It’s been a great experience, but I feel compelled to enter the startup world. Though I came from acquired companies, I have tremendous respect for the company and the leadership team running the EMC Software Group.

I was hardly old enough to drink when I started in 1997 with OTG , the company acquired by Legato in February of 2002. I was about as green as one could be when I started. I listened and learned quickly though.

In October of 2003, EMC completed the acquisition of Legato. In the same month, EMC also announced the acquisition of Documentum. I was lucky enough to work in both organizations and as a result, I know quite a bit about the markets and technologies.

I understand the Storage and Content Management markets as a result of thinking very hard about some of the problems. Anyone who has read some of the posts regarding Enterprise Search and Storage can now understand why I feel as passionately as I do about the areas.

I have a good idea and I’m going to aggressively pursue it. What’s the focus of the idea? I can’t publicly say yet for obvious reasons. I can say that I have spoken to some very smart people about it and they were very bullish.

Being a first time entrepreneur (and a CEO at that) will be interesting. We’ll see…

I’m leaving for London this evening for a few days. My entire laptop case was stolen on my last visit there in December of 2004. My Blackberry, iPod, and laptop were all lost for good though the police did manage to return the empty case somehow.

It’s going to be a quick trip and my digital SLR is just another piece of luggage when on business. The inability to fine tune settings using compact cameras is a serious drawback for me.

I can’t tell you the number of times that I have thought, “I should have brought my camera.” Making an impulsive purchase for a digital compact and sacrificing quality without doing the requisite research is not what I want to do. Problems, problems.

You’re never to old to breakdance on your birthday. You might break something though.

This picture shows me after I fell from standing position while attempting some Bob Pollard leg kicks. You have to be a pro to do that shit. And I was wearing socks.

Someone was getting annoyed at me.

It takes a massive amount of booze for me to actively take a bone from a dog and begin to chew. Cindy demonstrates her lack of fear.

If ever you get the chance, a visit to Sweet Basil at Vail Village is a must. Call ahead. Ask for Sam. He royally hooked us up considering we are crazy vegetarians. Good thing we like wine because they’ve got a great selection.

Terra Bistro? Didn’t hit the spot like Sweet Basil did, but for carnivores it could be entirely different.

I’m currently in Vail making a first attempt at snowboarding. Since I’m currently not at the height of my personal fitness history, my body is in an aching state of chaos.

I fell a bunch, but got right back up and continued on. Perseverance in anything is all that is important.

Searching for cheap tickets?  Yahoo Farechase is pretty neat and makes extensive use of AJAX, but more importantly it employs meta searching.

I did entered one trip and it searched the following:

That’s what I’m talking about.  I have been waiting for something like this forever.  Expedia is no more.

Yahoo! FareChase