Hello Delhi

After several months of planning and two very long flights, I arrived at Indira Ghandi International airport in New Delhi, India just after midnight on Tuesday Oct. 11. Following a two hour wait to have my passport stamped, I pushed my stuff on a airport cart out into the dusty Delhi night and a government-affiliated taxi driver pointed the way to his car. If you've never been to a third world country before (and before Wednesday that included me) arriving in India is a shock to the senses. The first thing that hits you are the smells, some good, some bad, all very pungent. On the highways, burning rubber mixed with engine exhaust fills your nostrils, but on entering the city, a mix of smoking kabobs, saffron and even wilting flower petals can be smelled and seen lining the crowded streets and alleys. The city is made all the more bewildering upon arrival by the dark night sky. Trucks decked out with Hindu symbols zoom past and stray animals look for food among small tent cities of the poor which are propped up against the walled enclaves that serve as neighborhoods along the highway. But despite the areas of poverty there are also nice palm-covered neighborhoods, sharply-dressed policeman and little children smiling at you as you drive by. The place is teeming with life and activity. U.S. cities seem only half-full compared to Delhi. There are two main forms of transportation here if you have at least 30 Rupees (USD 50 cents) to spare. Taxis, like the one I hired out for my first few days, look like British versions of the bubble-domed bug car from the movie Herbie (at the beaten up end, not the shiny beginning). The cheaper, and more frequently used method, are auto-ricksaws, three-wheeled green and yellow motor carriages driven by thin, grimy old men smoking cigarettes and eeking out a living one fare at a time. Everywhere you look there is traffic. Not Beltway gridlock or 70 mph California freeways, but rather a sea of little cars, motorcycles, buses, craft and wares-loaded bicycles, cows, caged chickens, children on foot and an army of auto-rickshaws that all weave their way through cracks in the metal and flesh, never fully stopping, and only really yielding when the oncoming object is much larger. Rather than waiting their turn, drivers just honk and honk and then finally dodge each other like Blue Angels pilots, turning safely at the last moment before a crash looks inevitable. It's terrifying at first and thrilling once you see it all seeming to work, with vehicles and pedestrians all anticipating each other, as if following some unwritten rules of the road. My place of residence while I hunt for an apartment is the first floor of a guest house provided by the founder of Lok Capital (www.lokcapital.com), Rajiv Lall, who I shared lunch with on Friday after I arrived. The house is south of the city center and takes roughly thirty minutes to get to and from but is comfortably furnished and staffed with three servants that take care of everything. In a scheme that seems to follow a caste or age seniority system, the oldest man's job is to cook (breakfast and dinner) while another makes tea and brings me the newspaper each morning and a third cleans the place and does my laundry. Three grown men, whose job for the week is to wait on my every need. I'm all for specialization of labor, but this is a little different from what Henry Ford had in mind. While none of them speak English, they are all very polite and we communicate through smiles and broken "Hinglish" (Hindi mixed with English "yes's, no's and thank you's"). But to an outgoing, self-starter American, it feels strange and unnatural to be waited on hand-and-foot and to sit down to elaborate spreads, only to dine silently alone at a big dining room table in a big house. My office is nice and in an upscale central area of the city, near the Delhi Golf Course. While the space is smaller, the computers, equipment and furnishings are all on par with those from my old investment bank in San Francisco, and it includes a large conference room and balcony where lunch is brought in daily. I've spent the last four days following around Indian apartment brokers from neighborhood to neighborhood and meeting with fellow ex-pats to line up housing, and while the details of my flat shopping aren't worth delving into, one benefit has been that I've quickly gotten a sense of both the city layout and the Indian art of price negotiating. If you've got white skin here you might as well have dollar signs imprinted on your forehead and you have to assume that every price you are quoted, whether for a rickshaw ride or an apartment, is roughly 30% more than what a local would pay. A couple of nice highlights from my first week here: On Thursday night I was invited over to dinner at my co-worker Shakshi's apartment, where she and her husband explained Bollywood movies and music to me and hosted me for home-cooked Indian food and Kingfisher beers. Friday night my boss from Lok Capital asked me to attend, in his stead, a small dinner and conference at the very posh Claridges hotel in central Delhi (www.claridges-hotels.com/Delhi) where professors from the Asian Institute of Management were giving a presentation on the Indian economy. And finally Saturday I met up at a Middle-Eastern restaurant with my friend from the U.S., Priya Parker, who introduced me to several other young U.S. ex-pats living here in Delhi, including people from the U.S. Embassy, Bain Consulting and American Express. A last minute addition to my first post...the photo at the top of the page was taken inside an auto rickshaw with some of my new housemates - there are four of us in all. They are European ex-pats I met through Craigslist who also just moved here. We met up and found housing together over the weekend - more on our new place next week after we move in, but it's a 4 bedroom flat in South Delhi with a huge gameroom and rooftop terrace, perfect for entertaining. Thats all for now. Bookmark this site (www.bankerinindia.blogspot.com) and check back once a week if you're interested in hearing more. I'll try to keep my updates brief, and since I've got a fairly diverse audience I will also try to write about different things each week. Sometimes I will just describe daily life here and other times I'll try to give a picture of the economic changes taking place and my work in microfinance. Until then, "Namaste" -M