Tuesday, June 22, 2004
May in Maharashtra...
Maharashtra is an indian state on the north-western coast with Mumbai/Bombay as capital.
Fortunatly when arriving I had not to endure a hot indian summer.
As it was 35 C in Pune (4 million inhabitants, 150 kilometer south-eastern from Bombay, some hundreds meter altitude on Deccan plateau), Mumbai and Dehli had 45 C.
The hot saison in Maharashstra is usually april-may but by mid-may temperature was already decreasing... - I could even enjoy a nice hot wind - ...decreasing until monsoon start (exactly on june 8th, so everything falling before is not monsoon). Can you imagine iceballs falling from the indian sky? There were some this year in a "pre-monsoon" evening.
As everywhere, summer holidays come during hot saison, so april-may, and school start is also monsoon start. By the way, part of english heritage, all pupils are going to school in uniforms with ties - always surprising for french.
Second time off-set ("decallage") is specific to the Pune area where there is no electricity coming from public network on thursday, so day-off is thursday and sunday is worked. Third & last one is the jet-lag, we live 3hours & 30min ahead from Europe.
From the first day on the way to work I was like hypnotised by the permanent spectacle through the car window (I have the privilege not to drive...). People, animals, trees, temples, houses, slums, vehicules, all is fascinating...and noisy. Rickshaws (three-wheelers) are racing together and blowing horn, truck drivers are proud of their decoration ("PLEASE HORN OK"...and often "INDIA IS GREAT") and use hand-signs to get free way, 4 family members are driving on the same motorcycle (3 adults + 1 kid, woman in "amazone"), cows are lying and resting in the middle of the road without beeing threatened by anybody, men are sleeping on the trottoir, somtimes with the head hanging on road area. You feel like everyone is just about to be victim of an accident and in fact nothing happens (or at least much less than what you could expect). No helmet is the rule.
The main factory where I work currently is in Chakan, 30 kilometers and one hour (!) from Pune center. In the last kilometers you are really in country side. Along the road, in small playground between farms, kids play cricket...Power supply cut five times a day in average and Ganesh (the God with elephant face and 4 arms - less is not possible)pictures, swastika and OM-symbol in every corner (all bringing luck...here). In the mechanical workshop, people bring fresh coconut pieces and pour color powder and flowers every morning.
Pune is a huge horizontal city. Only few roads are known by their names (if any available). The orientation works with landmarks (like at sea). Nobody will ask you for streetname and number but for landmark. This landmark can be a monument, a shop, a bank, a temple, anything well-known close to the place where you want to go. As in every indian city, one of the main roads is the MG road (MG for Mahatma Gandhi). First landmark for any foreigner.
Let's end with some usefull vocabulary :
-lakh : 1 lakh = 1,00,000 = 100 000 (thanks to Carsten for warning)
-crore : 1 crore = 100 lakhs = 1,00,00,000 = 10 000 000 = 10 millions (did you know this one?)
-"kadjee" : kilogramme (kg)
-soft copy / hard copy : document in file / print-out
-to take a call = to decide something
Seems that the language here is living its own way, independantly from british-english.
Fortunatly when arriving I had not to endure a hot indian summer.
As it was 35 C in Pune (4 million inhabitants, 150 kilometer south-eastern from Bombay, some hundreds meter altitude on Deccan plateau), Mumbai and Dehli had 45 C.
The hot saison in Maharashstra is usually april-may but by mid-may temperature was already decreasing... - I could even enjoy a nice hot wind - ...decreasing until monsoon start (exactly on june 8th, so everything falling before is not monsoon). Can you imagine iceballs falling from the indian sky? There were some this year in a "pre-monsoon" evening.
As everywhere, summer holidays come during hot saison, so april-may, and school start is also monsoon start. By the way, part of english heritage, all pupils are going to school in uniforms with ties - always surprising for french.
Second time off-set ("decallage") is specific to the Pune area where there is no electricity coming from public network on thursday, so day-off is thursday and sunday is worked. Third & last one is the jet-lag, we live 3hours & 30min ahead from Europe.
From the first day on the way to work I was like hypnotised by the permanent spectacle through the car window (I have the privilege not to drive...). People, animals, trees, temples, houses, slums, vehicules, all is fascinating...and noisy. Rickshaws (three-wheelers) are racing together and blowing horn, truck drivers are proud of their decoration ("PLEASE HORN OK"...and often "INDIA IS GREAT") and use hand-signs to get free way, 4 family members are driving on the same motorcycle (3 adults + 1 kid, woman in "amazone"), cows are lying and resting in the middle of the road without beeing threatened by anybody, men are sleeping on the trottoir, somtimes with the head hanging on road area. You feel like everyone is just about to be victim of an accident and in fact nothing happens (or at least much less than what you could expect). No helmet is the rule.
The main factory where I work currently is in Chakan, 30 kilometers and one hour (!) from Pune center. In the last kilometers you are really in country side. Along the road, in small playground between farms, kids play cricket...Power supply cut five times a day in average and Ganesh (the God with elephant face and 4 arms - less is not possible)pictures, swastika and OM-symbol in every corner (all bringing luck...here). In the mechanical workshop, people bring fresh coconut pieces and pour color powder and flowers every morning.
Pune is a huge horizontal city. Only few roads are known by their names (if any available). The orientation works with landmarks (like at sea). Nobody will ask you for streetname and number but for landmark. This landmark can be a monument, a shop, a bank, a temple, anything well-known close to the place where you want to go. As in every indian city, one of the main roads is the MG road (MG for Mahatma Gandhi). First landmark for any foreigner.
Let's end with some usefull vocabulary :
-lakh : 1 lakh = 1,00,000 = 100 000 (thanks to Carsten for warning)
-crore : 1 crore = 100 lakhs = 1,00,00,000 = 10 000 000 = 10 millions (did you know this one?)
-"kadjee" : kilogramme (kg)
-soft copy / hard copy : document in file / print-out
-to take a call = to decide something
Seems that the language here is living its own way, independantly from british-english.
