Ali Bytes: Bullet-sized strategies for modern living

A lot of friends both in India and in the U.S. have asked me what I do on the weekends. Though time passes and I feel busy, it’s been tough to answer that question because every weekend has been different. I’ve posted about going to the zoo and TedXHiTechCity but here is a larger sampling of what my weekends have looked like in Hyderabad as I come up on my very last just a week from today.

1. Saree shopping at Pochampally: A little known attraction just outside of Hyderabad is Pochampally, the home to handmade silk saree manufacturing. In 1970, some village headmen decided to integrate silk weaving into cotton weaving to improve the livelihoods of the village and now they are leaders in the industry. We arrived with tempered expectations and were amazed by the selection of incredible silk sarees and equally incredible tour of the huge factory. The lack of crowds, friendliness of the staff, and up close experience of seeing silk dyed and woven made for an awesome experience and I got a saree to remember it by. Now I just need an Indian friend to marry so I have somewhere to wear it.
2. Senegalese hip hop band concert: BBC Sound System was an awesome group that stopped at the Novotel on a 12 city tour. Despite their mostly unknown music, they had an audience of ex-pats and Indians captivated for the couple of hours they played. I highly recommend them.
3. Sight seeing in Mumbai with Abbey: My good friend likes to wander the back roads with a camera, exactly my style for traveling making for a perfect first visitor. We spent a couple days in Mumbai, where she was the pied piper for little kids looking for a few rupees and then a few days in Hyderabad where she was a celebrity taking photos with young Indian guys at Golconda Fort. It was fascinating to notice the difference in how I am treated alone versus when I’m with another white, blond woman.
4. Playing Holi at the Hyderabad Children’s Aid Society: There really is no better group to spend a festival of colors and water fights with than 80 teenage boys. They were quite excited to see they had blank canvases as Mary Ann and I arrived clean with pale skin. It was a lot of fun but almost two months later, I still have pink streaks in my hair.
5. Exploring road number 11: Every day I leave my apartment building, I turn right. It took me until a few weeks ago to turn left to see what the rest of road number 11 looked like. On my journey, I met these two kids Mansoo and Akoo (”like Hakuna Matata” is how they told me to remember it) who walked around with me for about an hour while I took a lot of pictures. Last weekend, I took a bunch of the pictures I took back to the people and it was pretty awesome to see their faces as I handed them the photos of themselves. Two days ago, Mansoo spotted me getting into an auto and called out “Ali Auntie”; he wanted to invite me to his birthday party. These moments are some of the best I’ve had here.
6. Getting baptized at Hash: Each time a “virgin hare” lays the course for the Hyderabad Hash House Harriers, the individual gets baptized with a name and a showering of beer. A few Sundays ago I was up at 7am with a bag of cement and 3 other hashers to lay the trail. It took almost three hours and then I spent the entire day trying to recover before having to do the course all over again with the group in the evening.
7. Fundraiser for the Hyderabad Multiple Sclerosis Society: Last month, I joined a few Deloitte friends for a Saturday evening art auction, dinner and cocktails to raise money for the MS Society.  It was interesting to get a small glimpse into the Indian philanthropic community which a Bain study (full report) recently reported is about 0.6% of the country’s GDP (compared to 2.2% in the U.S.). The event was well done with about 50 pieces of art for sale starting at around 13,000 rupees up to a couple hundred thousand. 
8. GreenMango retreat at the Pocharam Wildlife Sanctuary: On this Saturday, about thirty of us spent an hour walking 6km around a wildlife sanctuary only to see one deer (that we could actually pet) followed by listening to a park ranger talk for over an hour about how we shouldn’t feed plastic bags to cows because they will expand in their stomachs and cry (while motioning a tear running down his face). Lucky for most of you reading this, I didn’t capture it on video or I would make you sit through the joy of Kindergarten-level environmental education. The rest of the day was equally entertaining as we picnicked in a park full of wild monkeys.
   
9. Pedicures at Juice: A couple times I’ve splurged for a 400 rupee (about $8) pedicure. Given that I, like most people, wear sandals every day and there is dirt and trash everywhere, a good foot scrub is the perfect way to pamper.

I spent three days last week at the Indian School of Business for the Ashoka and Lemelson Foundation’s Tech4Society conference. It was a thought provoking, global, action oriented meeting of the minds. In the coming days I will synthesize some thoughts, but one conversation inspired this short blog post.

One fellow (who happened to also be a Fellow) came up to me with an unusual inquiry: he wanted to confirm that I was not the Ali Cherry he dated in college. In the course of this unique dialogue, some how mental health and Facebook came up simultaneously and Doug shared that he thinks Facebook is good for his mental health because sometimes meaningless is necessary. His theory is that we’re always searching for the consequential and that we need breaks from it. It was a very wise Seth Godin-esque moment that, combined with the ensuing conversations, made this guy one of my favorites of the few days.

So in that spirit, I’ll share some photos and musings from the last few weeks.

1. I live on Road Number 11 in Banjara Hills, a “posh” Hyderabad neighborhood. Like most roads in India, this one is shared by various motor vehicles, stray dogs, peeing men, speed bumps, grape sellers and people going about their day. While it may not sound like it, this combination makes quite the people watching scene. On my first day here I saw three camels on this road, but think it was a covert stunt to shock me into my new life because I haven’t seen any since.
2. I captured this store front in a drive-by shooting (of pictures) around Charminar. I can’t figure out what it does. Watch repair maybe? (Click here to see larger version to fully appreciate my sarcasm.) I asked my colleague to explain this to me and she laughed having with no idea why a store would need four signs. I think strategic signage consulting is a service that could do quite well here.  As far as I can tell, if a sign needs fixing or repainting, a new one is just put up; maintenance is not a core competency of India. 
3. Driving back from ISB a few weeks ago, I also shot this photo from the road. It is one of the best advertisements for targeted advertising I’ve seen. If you look closely there’s a Princeton Review GMAT class ad on a pole next to a shanty village. I would bet many of the people exposed to this sign don’t even go to the U.S. equivalent of high school. 
4. More than anything else, I’ve taken a lot of pictures of kids.  This is partly because almost every weekend I’ve volunteered at a school and partly because kids go crazy when you put a camera in front of them. For whatever reason, they love to wave to the camera though I can’t figure out why. These are some kids from a government school in Film Nagar.
5. I’m intrigued by advertising in this country. In addition to the poorly placed GMAT ad, public service-type announcements lack creativity and seem to have very little impact (like encouraging bikers to wear helmets).  This is a recent favorite: “do not jump signals.” It is actually necessary to promote following a law which would be like seeing a stop sign with a sign below it saying “obey the stop sign.”  Seems a bit redundant.
6. While the western notion of recycling is pretty uncommon, the adage “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” is very much alive in India. In the dumpsters, groups of animals and people pick through to recover leftover food or reusable materials.  Here are some goats eating trash, a pretty typical scene in many neighborhoods. 
7. Instructions that articulate the obvious amuse me. For example, these rules posted on the back of a bathroom stall door include: “3. Very Important!! Please do not use the extra floor space of the last loo for any of your business”  I would love to hear the story that brought about this rule.
8. On Sundays, I like to go for a walk in KBR park.  It’s one of the few outdoor spaces where one can walk without having to be careful not to get hit by a moving vehicle.  It is interesting to me that what I consider exercise clothes aren’t very common. 
9. I took my new friend James out to dinner for his birthday and had the wait staff surprise him with a mini cake.  They then insisted that they take our picture while we awkwardly followed the Indian tradition of feeding one another cake. 
10. I didn’t hear about this until seeing this ad in the paper. Apparently Lays discovered some SMS and email messages that suggested their products are not entirely vegetarian. This ad included a full letter from the Director of Legal ensuring customers that they are in fact 100% vegetarian, reinforcing the need for culturally specific marketing.
    
11. Of course my cost of living is less than Washington, DC.  In an attempt at a literal apples to apples comparison, I took this picture of groceries that cost me 150Rs or about $3.  As you can see, it bought me a small loaf of bread, head of cauliflower, pack of gum, 5 bananas and 4 apples.  (And now you also know my pitiful dinner most nights.) 

Picture posts are the best. Here are some gems I’ve taken on my iPhone over the last few months.

1. Not the best name for a company. Maybe they were trying to be witty juxtaposing smells.
2. Interesting product extension CareerBuilder.com. Wait, I’m confused. Am I supposed to upload my resume or mail it?
3. Someone actually designed and made this. Best gift ever.
4. Bike lock fail.
5. I call this one “Woman using public bathroom in odd way” (because I’m at a loss for words) She was also singing along to the background music with her own special lyrics: “Midnight train to Texas”
6. Poor t-shirt choice. It says “Doomed from the start”

Other picture posts if you’re interested: Arlington, VA, DC, New Orleans and to kick of September.

My gosh it’s been so long since I’ve posted anything on Alibytes. I’d like to say the Sarah Palin news froze my brain temporarily but more on that later. To get things back into gear, I’ll post on a favorite topic - random pictures - following my post from a few weeks ago on 8 conversation sparking pictures from around DC. Ever since I learned how to get pictures off my phone after I take them (about a year after I got a “smart” phone ironically), I have been capturing “huh” moments all over town. Here are some.

1. How do you feel about 100 calorie pack candy? Isn’t this just a clever way to package Halloween candy at a premium? A good example of why I have a love hate relationship with marketing.
2. I got nervous taking this picture of a make shift plastic bag bike lock that someone would think I was plotting to steal the bike. Fortunately for it’s clever owner, it wasn’t taken as I walked by it tonight with a proper lock.
3. A little girl traveling in style on her elderly friend’s Rascal. No commentary but thought it was amusing.
4. A Five Guys employee in line at Subway: not the best endorsement for Five Guys.
5. Creative advertising for the Washington Improv Theatre “Classes are small but thanks to role-playing you’ll meet hundred of new people.”
6. If 100 calorie packs say that we have no will power, hot dogs sold “in a soft warm bun!” (emphasis not mine) says we might as well invest in feeding tubes.