The controversy continues

Addendum, 18 November: Aww,man, that's not the right picture at all! This post makes no sense. Why didn't anybody say anything?

Ummm. Anybody?

Oh, alright.

Cars

Here's what I know about cars in India:

My grandmother, when she was alive, was driven around in a white Hindustan Motors Ambassador, which wikipedia reveals has not undergone any significant revisions since the late 1950's. These cars are still very much made and sold today, though not as ubiquitous in Calcutta as they once were.

They have seatbelts, now.

When I was younger, they were part of the miracle of India, for me. They looked nothing like the boxy, angular station wagons of the 80s nor the sleek sedans that came later, and they suggested to me (for good reason, it turns out) the rounded, full-bodied elegance of old grey British motoring. Subsequently I began to see in them something closer to Cuba's crazy time capsule.

Little did I know what lay beyond West Bengal.

My mother's father, who worked in Delhi for the most part, had a little Fiat that my mom would drive. In my mind's eye he is a thin, elegant, bespectacled government official of forty-some-odd who managed to look comfortable in the 1970s, somehow, and she has owl glassed and long, long hair. And their Fiat is bulbous, with an over-sized windshield and a light-green paint job.

Spending time in Delhi this trip, for the first time since I was little, all of a sudden there were many, many cars. The Chevy, in the picture above, for instance, was unexpected, as were the occasional BMW and Mercedes, and, most elegant of all, a Volvo with flags streaming at the windows. I saw two Fords, just about. Mostly it was Japanese cars - Suzuki is a mainstay here, having gotten in early as a joint-venture with Maruti, an Indian firm with a funny name. Toyota and Honda are catching up, though, Sonatas and the occasional Civic. A CRV looked huge, trundling down the street.

Back in Calcutta, which lacks Delhi's power and Mumbai's commerce, the streets are still filled with Ambassadors. The plant where they are made is in-state, and maybe that has something to do with it as well. But even here they are giving way.

Inquiring minds want to know

From today's Calcutta edition of the Telegraph, in the "Your Voice" feature: "Question: Should the idea of peeing on compost heaps be implemented in India?"

Text your response to 56569.

I am not sure what "implementation" of this idea would look like. Would the government get involved? Public Service Announcements? Pee rationing?

The Telegraph, incidentally, has turned into a horrible, terrible newspaper, but was my Grandmother's favorite.

Ceci n'est pas un blog entry

Sometime during my last year of college a movie came out, maybe a heist movie, maybe the last of those copycat heist movies following Ocean's 11, notably including Ocean's 12 and Ocean's 13, this movie came out with the tagline "It's not about the money. It's about the money."

I was puzzled and a bit troubled that my pricey liberal arts education, which, at the least, should have made me really good at cocktail chatter, could have failed to prepare me to interpret the metanarrative which was surely lurking in those two incongruous bits of ad copy.

Eventually I realized that some advertisers are just dumb.

I was reminded of this ad, and of my subsequent realization, upon spotting Volkswagen's full page wrap-around advert in the Times of India yesterday, which is pictured above.

The ad copy doesn't get much better in the smaller type below. Specifically, the statement 'back in the 30s, we started out producing cars for the people," seems a little disingenuous in eliding the context of producing the people's car in Germany as the Nazi Party was consolidating power.

In any case, the upshot is that VW is joining the large pool of car manufacturers plying their trade in India. Of which more, soon.

City at night

A few more notes from my late night arrival.

In Delhi you take prepaid cabs from the airport, as a security measure - mine boasted some connection with the Delhi police, ever vigilant, but I couldn't say how. The issue is that if you get into a cab with just anyone, they are liable to drive you out to some corner of the sprawl and rob you or otherwise do you harm. Here, you prepay to receive a voucher, which the cab driver must countersign and submit when he drives you away. If anything untoward happens, up to and including your disappearance, somebody knows who you were with, at least.

Delhi is a sprawl, by the way. I forget how my perception of urban landscapes has been shaped by three of the few cities - New York, London, Calcutta - that are primarily build up. I can't speak too informedly here, but in my limited experiences today Delhi's highrises appeared as lonesome buoys in a sea of smaller buildings, and a surprising amount of green.

Much of the ride to the hotel was along an eight-lane highway, still moderately trafficked at 1am. Along with colorfully painted trucks and businessmen in compact Japanese cars, I saw some late night cyclists and at least one man on horseback. He was four lanes across by the side of the road, and I couldn't quite make out, but he appeared to be dressed as Mughal courtier, complete with small white turban and well-trimmed mustache. He made no sense, but sometimes these things don't.

I also saw a man straddling two lanes in his minivan, talking on his cell phone. Just one example of the fruits of India's rapid development.

Last observation about the process of getting settled: I need to properly learn Hindi. This is just getting ridiculous.

Arrival

In all the trips I remember from childhood, we arrive in India late at night. I suppose that's how it works from the East Coast - you take a night flight to cross the Atlantic, layover somewhere like any other where in Europe, and fly through the day, losing time to midnight when you finally touch down. Consequently my first breath of Indian air is inevitably the petrol-inflected, thick, humid but noticeably cooling draft of late nights on the tarmac, waiting for the bus to take us to the terminal, looking out over jets that look like sharks in the murky soup of diffracted hazy light. You feel underwater, a bit, and I feel somewhat at home.

Journey=Destination

Not really true anymore, journeying being relatively straightforward, a routine prescribed and enacted pretty routinely by all and sundry. Still, these trips to India offer more potential for event than the many hops to Midwest and West West and even East-West to London that are sometimes called for as consultants ply their trade. Maybe also it is a different mindset, traveling for pleasure, or at least in anticipation of pleasure. Sometimes business trips feel like extended rides on the subway, keeping eyes low or high, avoiding persons and personalities and any complications.

There were some personalities on the flight over the Atlantic, some complications, but none that a thumb-typed message will support.

So let me instead entertain you with images from the Brussels Duty Free Shop. Hopefully these speak for themselves. I have no idea how to add captions from my mobile phone.

Two observations:

1. They take beer very seriously here.
2. The Coke folks have some strange ideas about what might make a person thirsty.