First Days in India

September 5, 2010

Greetings from the other side of the world. We have now been in India for a little over a week and its been a roller coaster ride of cross cultural experiences. Being in India really does feel like being on another planet sometimes because it is so far a away from the world I know and because so many things are different—like cows in the road and rickshaws everywhere. We are here because James has the entrepreneurial bug and is starting his own business with a classmate from Wharton, Neeraj, who happens to be Indian. So Neeraj found us a nice apartment complex to live in called The Palms in a suburb of Delhi called Gurgaon. Now when I say suburb, I’m not talking suburbia in any sense of the American image. It’s a suburb because its out of the main city but there are not houses or tree lined streets. Almost everyone lives in apartments and there is construction going on everywhere. The sheer volume of apartments here boggles my mind. If everyone living in these buildings came out into the streets it would create the biggest crowd of people ever. The women here are beautiful. I love seeing the colorful tapestry of the traditional women’s clothing and I feel so drab in my Western garb. The saris are all different colors and the cloth is gorgeous. Anyhow, we’re finally settling in better after combating some serious jet lag. I had a lot of crazy nights with the boys (involving pirate camp, bathroom ice-skating, and fort making) and its nice to be awake in the day and asleep when its dark.