Mark's Writings - India. It's not Rocket Science

I spent a week in India and visited Bangalore, Mumbai, and Pune. It is good to be back here in Shanghai, amazing as that might sound to Susan. While I was in India, the military launched their first intercontinental ballistic missile. They lobbed a rocket from the east coast, out into the Indian Ocean…while the entire Indian population beamed with pride, and thumbed their noses at their Chinese neighbors. They’ve got rocket science, but are still working on a solution to build roads, collect garbage and elevate the majority from relative poverty. I’m not an expert on India after a 1 week visit, but living conditions for those along my torturous path were quite consistent and very rough. Due to some flight cancellations, I had to take a car from Mumbai to Pune, not that much over 100 miles, but took more than 4 hours. And that lengthy time is not due to lack of effort by the driver, who jockeyed and shifted and honked the entire time. Lanes are loosely defined. Speed bumps are numerous, but not greatly differentiated from the general condition of the road.


I got a chance to see a Cricket match in Bangalore. Cricket may as well be the ONLY sport in India; they love it more than American’s love baseball. My 3M colleagues educated me on the rules, which are pretty straightforward and easy to follow once the match is underway. I still don’t understand the subtle strategies. The match, a greatly shortened version, went to half past midnight, and was won by Bangalore on the last ball. It’s a very fun game to watch. Somewhat comical leaving the stadium, with 50,000 others, and quite bottlenecked exits: the crowd moves you…literally. Sometimes your feet don’t need to touch the ground as you move along.

I had some interesting food on this trip. Indian food seems to me much more flavor-full than Chinese. Some of my colleagues are vegetarian, and one restaurant had an extensive menu, not a smidgeon of meat in the building. I could have sworn some of those things had meat in them, but must have been some spiced up cheese-tofu-vega-something or another. I was warned by my USA and Chinese friends to be extremely careful about food poison. I only drank bottled water (and bottled beer, of course). Maybe 6 months in China has built up some of my immunities. I probably already have most of the nasty bugs already coexisting on-board.