Noida, India - Party for our Friends

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Yes, I know...as many of you have pointed out, I have been remiss in keeping my blog up-to-date with the most recent happenings here at Camp Noida. It certainly isn't because I don't have anything to write about. Quite the opposite in fact...I have TOO much to write about! Trips to the Himalayan Mountains, Jaipur, Goa, events right here in Noida and New Delhi. However, I won't write about those quite yet. Instead, I decided that this particular entry will be fairly light, mostly about the party that we had here at ATS Green Village for the folks that we work with. It's not that the party was so eventful or spectacular that I need to dedicate an entire entry to it. Rather, it's just something a little different...something about the people...something that I will always remember because it IS about the people.

Before I get to the party though, I mentioned in my last entry that I tend to always tell a story that involves a bathroom. I swore to myself that I wouldn’t write anymore bathroom stories for fear that you would get the wrong idea about my pastimes. But I do have one very quick story that I can’t resist telling. After using the facilities at the office the other day, I washed my hands and put them under the automatic hand-dryer. As soon as the dryer turned on, not only did nice warm air blow out, but so did a cockroach...right in to the palm of my hand!! This happened on October 31st of all days! And how was YOUR Halloween?

Now to the party. The best thing about being here is the people, specifically the ones we work with. I look forward to seeing them every day because they are so refreshing and happy and inquisitive and young. And they too are excited to see us...everyday. In September, Brenda, Brad and I decided it would be fun to have everyone over to our place one Saturday for a "party"...a simple gathering outside of the office environment, maybe some games, definitely food and drink, perhaps some swimming, but most importantly, fellowship.

We sent out an E-vite invitation to everyone and the response was almost immediate. It almost seemed like we were throwing the party of the year. “How are the plans coming for the party?” they would ask with anticipation. We were beginning to feel a bit of pressure as weren’t sure what they were expecting beyond the simple gathering that we had planned.

One day at the office, we noticed all the Associates gathered around having a meeting. We assumed they were reviewing some of the training material for their job; however, we later found out that they were focusing on another priority…transportation to the party!! Soon, a spreadsheet was sent around detailing the meeting spots, meeting times, drivers, passengers, contact information, etc. Again, a couple of days later…“How are the plans coming for the party?” YIKES!! Should we roll out a red carpet, perhaps have fireworks? All I planned on doing was showering before everyone came but I was beginning to think that that wasn’t going to be enough!

Knowing what a huge event an Indian wedding is, we were wondering what the expectations were for this “informal” gathering of our Indian friends. Brenda and I pulled aside Vikesh, one of the managers, and asked him if we should be doing something beyond our simple plans. We certainly didn’t want to let anyone down. However, he assured us that there was absolutely no expectation or requirement for anything special. Their planning and questions about the party were quite simply their display of excitement...spending an evening with their new Canadian friends, being invited to our home, being away from their own home for a few hours, doing something totally different than what they would normally do on a weekend. Whew...okay...back to my original plan of just having a shower before they arrived.

One request that they had was that we make something that we would serve at a gathering or potluck in Canada. Brad and Brenda decided on macaroni salad and potato salad; I decided on ice. I mean, ice is important. Didn't Phoebe have the important job of getting the ice for one of Monica's infamous, yet dreadfully boring, parties on "Friends"? Besides, I do well to make a meal for myself, let alone make something that will serve 30-some people (I might as well tell you now...I wasn't successful in getting the ice so we had to call Vikesh and ask him to bring ice on his way to the party). We also ordered a tray of assorted sweets from “Uncle Sam’s Pastry Shop and Unisex Hair Salon” (yes, you read that correctly and no, hair is not one of the ingredients in their sweets...although they ARE famous for their mousse!).

Brenda and I got up in the morning of the party and started prepping the place. Three of the four bedrooms in our condo open up to what we would call a family room in Canada. It is a large room with stark white walls and cold white marble floors, two bedroom doors on one side, my bedroom door on the opposite side, a large window and door opening on to a balcony at one end and the dining room/living room/kitchen at the other. There is no furniture in the space…the only items are two aluminum clothes drying racks, often draped with freshly laundered, but questionably clean, pants, shirts, socks and...skivvies of all sizes and colours (we’ve gotten to know each other REALLY well!!). Knowing that we needed seating space, Brenda and I started filling the room with furniture from the other apartment across the hall. We hauled over the area rug, chairs, side tables, lamps, even pictures for the wall…anything that would make the empty room look homey and provide additional seating for our guests. It looked pretty nice by the time we were finished.

Brenda washed the kitchen floor because, as she said, she wasn’t having guests come over and seeing a filthy kitchen floor! Although a group of young men come in every weekday to “clean”, our place never really feel it is clean, and the floors are a good example of that. We have seen what they use to clean the marble and tile floors. It is a mop of sorts…a dirty and grey (grey from dirt…not grey in colour) wet towel wrapped around a rectangular board. They push the wet towel around the floors but they don’t rinse it out or wring it. Essentially, they are just wetting the floor and pushing dirt from one spot to the next, leaving streaks behind. We wear slippers 99% of the time but, when we don’t, our feet are grey, if not black, from the dirt on the floor. So, with that in mind, the kitchen floor needed some work to get it up to par and Brenda did a good job of it. I removed the glass from the coffee table and the hall table in the entryway and washed them as well as the mirror above the hall table. Anything to give a sense of some sparkle and cleanliness in the place. By the time 3:00 pm rolled around, things were looking pretty nice.

Right on schedule, our guests spilled out of the two elevators, filling the hallway with excitement. There were smiles from ear-to-ear as they gave us flowers, chocolates, and two bottles of rum. They were here…and we soon found out that were here to have a good time! Several of the guys didn’t waste time getting a beer in hand and everyone posed for pictures. One thing these folks love to do is pose for pictures, that is for sure!

As we got everyone drinks and put out some munchies, the furniture that Brenda and I earlier set up in the empty space was soon pushed back against the walls and the rug was rolled up. What the heck? We spent part of the morning setting that up so they would have a comfortable place to sit. But they weren’t interested in sitting…they were interested in DANCING!!!! That’s right…out came Basant’s laptop, then some portable speakers and before we knew, a dance studio was born, right there in the stark empty room. But it wasn’t stark anymore…it was filled with music and dancing and laughter and smiles and shouting and good times…for more than two solid hours! Non-stop, they sang and jumped and twisted and jiggled and gyrated and moved in positions I didn’t know were possible. And of course they wanted us to be a part of it. I am usually content to stand back and watch but, before long, Brenda and I were dragged in to the middle to strut our stuff while they formed a circle around us and cheered and clapped and hooted and hollered. I was certain I would put one of my aging body parts out of place if I kept it up. On the other hand, I may have shook a few things back IN to place. Sadly, no one slipped any bills in to my pants so I guess I need to work a bit more on some of my moves.

Now, not everyone was in on the action. As with any gathering, there are always some who like to maintain a low profile (I am USUALLY one of those), perhaps chatting in the next room or having a cigarette outside on the balcony or calling home to tell the folks that everything is okay. This gang was no different. While mostly everyone was on the makeshift dance floor, there were a handful who were not dancers and were quite content to just relax and chat. And that was perfectly okay…that’s what makes a gathering a success…letting people do what they are most comfortable doing. Mind you, that didn’t stop a few of the dancers from grabbing someone off the couch to shake their booty. In fact, Brad made his debut on the dance floor for a brief moment amid more cheers and clapping.

The dancing went on for around two hours before it started to quieten down but the quiet didn’t last long. Brenda came running in to the apartment yelling, “MARK, DID YOU KNOW WE HAVE OUR OWN PRIVATE POOL UP ON THE ROOFTOP??!!!!!” I couldn’t imagine that we had been living here for two months at that point and didn’t know that our tower had its very own private pool on the rooftop. We had been making use of the large community pool in the courtyard but the thought of having our very own pool was more than intriguing so we ran upstairs to the rooftop and, sure enough, there it was…a nice-sized swimming pool with a cabana at one end, lounge chairs, potted plants and what looked like the construction of a hot tub in the corner. Some of our friends had already jumped in to the pool and it wasn’t long before I was in there too…or should I say, THROWN in! We had told everyone to bring their bathing suits in case they wanted to use the large community pool outside so some of the guys were already prepared but some of the others who didn’t bring suits waited until the girls left then stripped down to their underwear and jumped in. This seemed odd to me…I guess because I still thought of Indians as being very quiet and reserved and “private” (for lack of a better word). But not that night. In hindsight, I think the many beers that the guys had consumed by this point removed any reservations they might have had previously.

The girls did not go in the pool. Oh, let me correct that…there was ONE girl in the pool…BRENDA!! While it was okay for the guys to jump in to the pool in their underwear, it was not considered appropriate for the Indian girls to be in the pool with the guys. In fact, this is the case at the large community pool as well. It is very uncommon to see a woman in the pool. More often than not, the men go in the pool with the children while the women sit very coyly at the side of the pool. Back at our pool, the girls made a brief appearance only to see what all the fuss was about then moved back downstairs to our condo.

Meanwhile, the guys carried on like little school kids! They had a blast splashing water on each other, challenging each other to races, grabbing each other’s legs underwater, taking pictures (more posing!), drinking more beer and just enjoying this rare moment…time spent in a swimming pool. This went on for another hour or more while Brenda and I still marvelled at the fact that we had a pool of our own now…just up two flights from our condo. We now had no excuse to not go for a nice refreshing swim each night after work.

Eventually it was time to eat. The Papa John pizzas had arrived (Papa John’s is a chain that originated in Jeffersonville, Indiana of all places) and everyone was soon diving in to the potato and macaroni salads. Immediately, the requests for salt and pepper came. Brad and Brenda didn’t put S&P in their salads and that made the salads VERY bland for the Indians who, of course, are used to spice! Vijay turned to me and said, “Don’t you use seasoning in your food??” Then came the requests for ketchup. Ketchup??? That’s right…ketchup…for the pizza. Everyone dips their pizza in ketchup. Whatever! I went in to the kitchen to get the new bottle of ketchup but couldn’t find it. Kunal then told me that they had already finished that one…they wanted a SECOND bottle of ketchup! We certainly hadn’t anticipated a run on ketchup so we only had the one bottle. I actually think there was a bit of disappointment that there was no more ketchup for the pizza!!

Then came the sweets. Prior to everyone arriving, Uncle Sam’s delivered the trays of sweets, wrapped in Saran Wrap, to our condo so I set them out on the dining room table, leaving the wrap on. Earlier in the afternoon after everyone arrived, Akhilesh and some others were gathered at one end of the dining room table, looking at these sweets still all tightly wrapped up. “Why aren’t you serving these? Why are they just sitting here?” asked Akhilesh. Two things about Indians that you might not know…1) they are very direct so will ask ANY question about MOST topics and 2) they love their sweets!! I just smiled and teasingly said that they would have to wait until later in the evening after we ate our pizza and salads. He politely smiled but I know what he was really thinking was, “How odd...silly white people.” In addition to the trays of sweets, the gang brought a box of custard-like desserts served in small little clay pots. They were very good. By they way, I have come to understand why there is a garbage problem in India. In Canada, we would have washed the little clay pots and reused them for something else. Not here…as soon as people were done with their desserts, most threw the pots in to the garbage. That was so strange to us. I made an effort to retrieve some of them later in the evening after everyone left but, the reality was, what was I going to do with them? I certainly wasn’t going to pack them all in my suitcase and, quite honestly, I don’t know where they ended up. Perhaps back in the garbage.

The gathering ended quickly. It was almost like Cinderella at the ball. We just assumed the dancing and pool fun would continue after everyone ate but that was not so. It turns out that the girls could not be out past a certain time and, as is the case around here, it was a long drive back to their respective homes…and some were already late. So, by about 8:00 pm, everyone had vamoosed. All was quiet as we cleaned up, moved furniture back to the other apartment, relived all the fun of the evening…and celebrated the fact that we had our very own pool on the rooftop of our tower!!!

Now…about that pool. Brenda got up early the next morning and thought she would go for a swim. Afterall, the pool was only up two flights of stairs and it was a great way to start the morning. She went upstairs to jump in but, now that she was seeing the pool in the daylight, she started to have second thoughts. Suddenly the pool didn’t look so much like a public pool as it did a PRIVATE pool. She came downstairs to get me to go look at it and get my take on this new perspective! However, as we reached the 9th floor, we ran in to one of the residents of the two apartments on that floor. We had met her before so we had some idle chatter and then casually asked if she knew anything about the pool on the rooftop. “Yes, that is the private pool for the 9th floor apartments.” Oh. We haven’t been back since.

There was a lot of talk at the office on the following Monday...reliving the fun, looking at pictures and movie clips, and laughing about "our" pool! And the best part...everyone is coming back to our place this Saturday (Nov. 22nd) for a good-bye party (minus the pool).

I thought I would share a little bit about the price of things here. Many items are unbelievably cheap. Other things are on par with Canada. Below is a sampling of prices, converted in to Canadian dollars.

• Haircut - $2.00
• 1 hour massage (not a good one, mind you) - $10.00
• 2M of 100%!c(MISSING)otton - $3.75
• Tailor-made suit - $350.00
• Custom-made leather jacket - $65.00
• Men's leather dress shoes - $70.00
• Men's dress shirt - $30.00
• Ticket to the Taj Mahal (Indian) - $0.25
• Ticket to the Taj Mahal (Foreigner) - $18.75
• Dinner for 3 ordered in - $20.00
• Delhi Belly - free
• Gas (the other kind!!) - $1.25/litre
• Maruti Suzuki SX4 - $17,250.00
• 3 bedroom, 2100 sq ft condo - $340,000.00
• Mortgage rate - 12%!<(MISSING)br>• White gold wedding band with engraving - $380.00
• Filling lunch in the canteen (cafeteria) - $0.75
• Loaf of bread - $0.30
• McChicken with cheese - $1.60
• 6 bananas - $0.35

Notice the price of the bananas. On a recent outing, a lady outside a market tried to sell a dozen bananas and six oranges to Brenda at a "special price just for you"...450 Rps. That equals approx. $11.25!! Brenda said, "I wouldn't even pay that in CANADA!!" Dumb-ass (not Brenda...the lady ). Then in Monday's paper, we read about 2 Dutch tourists who paid 10,000 Rps for 4 samosas (a pasty usually stuffed with potatoes, peas and spices). That equals approx. $250.00! The vendor claimed they contained special spices and that the samosas had "aphrodisiac qualities". Another dumb-ass. In that case, the Dutch tourists had to get the police to intervene and get their money back, minus 10 Rps. which is a more realistic price.

I have so much more to write about from our trips to the Himalayan Mountains, Jaipur and Goa but I will save that for my next, and probably last, entry. My stay here in India is quickly coming to a close with only eight days left here. I'm really looking forward to going home to see my family and friends, and especially my dog Pepper and my cat Moonshadow. And what a great time of year to go home...at Christmas! But make no mistake, I am going to miss my dear friends here in India. They have made it all worthwhile, that is for sure.

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Photos

Makeover
Without furniture, this room is cold and stark. With furniture it actually looks inviting...and ready for our guests.

Balcony boys
Ankit, Abhishek, Amit, Rishi, Kunal

Friends
Swati, Rubi, Moulshree, Vijay

Friends 2
Nidhi and Susmita

The "quiet" lounge
Shailendra, Akhilesh, Neeraj, Vikesh, Pushan, Abhishek

Burnin' the calories
Meanwhile, back on the dance floor...

Shop talk?
Akhilesh and Brad

Dancers
Basant - shakin' his groove thang

Having fun
Swati, Rubi, Susmita and Nidhi

Mayank
Taking a breather

Fun in "our" pool!
I am the white one! Back - Gaurav; Front (L to R) - Mark, Mayank, Jatin