Musings n' More

So, I finally got an apartment. The address is...well, I actually still don't know what the address is, or what the name of this apartment complex is, BUT it's located at the intersection of Vittal Mallya Road and Lavelle Road, next to the huge Cubbon Park.

It's funny, whenever venturing from Penn, everyone always comments on how nice it is to leave the 'bubble' for a while. I totally agree. One of the best feelings you can get is when you're jogging by the Schuylkill, running by the huge boathouses, looking at trees and statues, watching people picnicking, etc. It's a treat for the eyes, just to see something different.

So these last two weeks in India have been the same thing 10x over. It doesn't have to be anything visually appealing, just the novelty of seeing new stores, roads, dhabas, statues, parks, greenery is good fun. Bangalore itself has to be the greenest large city in India. Particularly the area where I live is covered with tree-lined roads.

After work, which usually gets over at 7 or 8, I like finding longer, more roundabout ways to walk home. It's a 15 minute walk home if I walk straight back, but door to door, I usually take about 2 hours, haha. I have a pretty good sense of direction, and haven't managed to go anywhere where I couldn't eventually find my way home...I've taken pictures, some funny, some jaw-dropping, some plain ordinary; I'll post them soon. Anyways, one day when walking home I ran into a guy (foreigner) I met when searching for apartments, and he had been in the same situation earlier so he gave me a few pointers. He was hanging out with a few other guys he had met while in Bangalore, and before I left, a friend of his suggested I come by to a promotion launch event his company was throwing for one of their new products the next day. I almost didn't go because I was at work till 8, and was absolutely beat, but grabbed an auto and took his directions. 20 Minutes later I arrive at the 'event', which happens to be a ginormous party in a huge club; his company is SABMiller, and the new product is a high-end beer. Haha, it was pretty awesome, and met a bunch of chill guys. More importantly, they played bhangra for quite some time, which made my day. Good fun, overall, though it had to be on a Wednesday...



Haha, and a few days before, Prasanna, from Dhamaka also happened to be in Bangalore for a day, so we had coffee. In addition to arriving late, he bored me with how his family was visiting relatives and temples and how he wasn't having fun, blah, blah, blah.

Haha, jk. Mr. Swaminasty did indeed come to Bangalore, single-handedly rekindled my faith in the human spirit, and then gave a long talk about how to face adversity with gusto. Happy Prasanna? Hahaha.

Work is fairly hard. For the first few days, I wasn't sure if the other employees were speaking in Hindi, Kannada or English. Later, I found out it was indeed English, but infused with heavily venture-capital-specific terminology, and some Hindi for kicks. I have my own projects, the first of which involves 'valuing' the companies they've invested in. But man, it's damn interesting listening to management teams of the companies in which they've invested come and talk about their operations, ideas, growth prospects, etc.

My colleagues are absolute no-nonsense types, but I've gone to dinner with them a few times, and they're real nice dudes.


Anyways, again, fingers are tired, so until next time....peace mangs