Today was our last full day in Bangalore.. and it was a full one. For some reason I found myself wide awake at 4:30 this morning. Diane went off to do yoga at 6 and I got  up and started to polish the  presentation for my talk this morning. Around 8 Diane and I went downstairs and grabbed a quick  breakfast and then I went and joined my conference. As always, I was quite nervous before my talk. I was happy to see my friend Subrahjit in the lobby. A familiar face always puts me at ease. Around 9 AM they ushered us in to the hall and started the program. I was the first one up. I gave  a 40 minute talk on technology trends.. I think it went pretty well. Based on how it felt and the comments I received afterwards. It’s much harder for me to ‘turn on’  now since Sam’s passing.  I’m always surprised when I start talking at it goes well…   I was really relieved when I finished because that was my last official act before vacation. I’m a free man for the next week. Yee-ha.    As free as  I felt, I was obliged to stick around  participate in the rest of the Conference.. I’m really glad that I did. It was really fascinating. The next talk was by Mike, The CEO of Cadence, the company hosting this conference. He had some really good insights on the direction our business is taking.. and what that meant to India.   That was followed by an excellent panel session which included 6 very senior industry leaders from India. They all had really good insights on the current state and future of India‘s microelectronics business.  What was so clear in all their talks was the great optimism for India‘s future.  The excitement is palpable India is going to innovate for it’s own needs then take that innovation to other emerging geographies. They have such great skills and motivation.. It’s going to be very exciting to watch.  After the panel I hung around and spoke to many of the conference participants.   I really enjoyed the whole program..

The script of the event

The elevator was out

Looking down the shaft

As soon as it ended, I went back to the room and found Gabe and Diane..  We were able to pry ourselves out of the hotel and go in search of adventure. I was eager to get at least a half day of  sightseeing in . We hired a driver and headed off to the ‘Bull Temple‘ a 500 year old temple built around  a giant bull carved out of a single rock…

 We saw several ox-carts on the busy roads

Tomorrow is the end of Ramzsan (Ramadan)

The cows have to eat soemwhere

We saw a large group of basket makers

The entracen of the Bull temple (Pooja.. if you’re reading this.. what does ‘Pooja vehicle’ mean ? )

You must take your shoes off before entering the temple

The temple front

Kids playing Cricket in the park

Hill top pavillian in the park

Another memorial

Not sure what this is.. but it was wierd

What a strange order !

The guys at the temple had cultivated hot peppers and lemon grass.

We each got a bindi

The bull statue.. it’a huge !

A different side of the temple

A guy to watch your shoes

Sound advice

Made us feel at home !

Manual assembly of scafolding

Lots of cultures here

It was surrounded by an extensive garden.. as we walked through it we looked up and found huge bats ! They must have been 3-4 feet across ! They looked  like the ones I’d seen in Sydney.

From there we drove to the Summer Palace of Sultan Tipu.. It was about 220 years old.. It had some  cool stuff  in there/ One story is that the sultan had been defeated in battle by a certain British Colonel. When he found out that the Colonel  had been killed by a tiger, he commissioned a musical toy that showed a tiger mauling an English officer. When you turn the crank it plays tiger sounds and the hapless officer lamely waves his arms.  They also had some of the Sultan’s 200 year old rockets. Evidently they were accurate to over a mile.

A temple adacent to the Sultan’s palace

After the Tipu palace we stopped at a shrine to Shiva that was fairly near our hotel . It was the most amazing thing I’ve seen yet. They had these huge statues of  Shiva and Ganesh.. The place was packed with worshipers. It was unlike anything I’ve ever seen !

Aftr that it was back to the hotel.. a quick dinner. Tonight’s theme was tex.mex.. pretty funny to have that here..

Fogging the bar for ‘skeeters

Gabe and I then went swimming in the pool for about 45minutes.

That was great (we took my green laser pointer with us in a plastic bag and took it in the pool.. that was very cool.

Now we’re sitting and watching Pirates of the Caribbean together.. It doesn’t get better than that.. Tomorrow morning we head to Kerala..   We had to start taking out anti-malarial meds today.. fun-fun.  

Cheers !

OK more from the coast. !…

Talk to you tomorrow everyone.. you too Sam.

-us

 Ps. here’s some clips from last night’s dance entertainemtn. Thse folks were amazing !

Zzzzzzzzzz . I already fell asleep twice before I realized I hadn’t blogged this evening. We’ve transferred hotel as my week shifts from my IBM meeting to the Vendor meeting tomorrow. Right now we’re in the Leela Palace.. and it IS a palace. I’ve never been In a more opulent hotel.. It took us about 10 minutes to walk to our room from reception. It’s a perfect setting for a spy movie.. Gabe says it’s a   place to film a movie about Clue.. there’s a library. A conservatory.. Where’s the lead pipe ?

 Changing hotels was a full day job for  Diane and Gabe.. I worked at my IBM meeting until 4:30 then hired a car to the new hotel.. The IBM meeting was really fu ad really hard.. Lots of passion, lots of ideas.. and lots more to do (!). I love the people I was working with.. so that’s ok..
 
When I got to the new hotel Diane and Gabe we’re already in a room.. but it had two small beds.. not enough for three big folks like us.. Don’t get the wrong idea.. the room was palatial !.. It had everything including a remote control operated set of blinds between the bathroom and the bedroom.. I went of to a grown-up dinner with some friends fro the company that’s sponsoring this event.. When I came back.. they’d moved us into a different room.. Also very nice .. but we’ve traded the electronic Venetian blonds for a balcony overlooking Bangalore.. Not a bad trade..

 I don’t have more than 3 minutes of wakefulness.. so I’m just going to give some pictures from the day.. and fall asleep.. I hope in that order.

A sampling of Indian TV

G’nite all.. g’nite Sam..

-us

Hanging  out in on our hotel room at 10PM waiting for dinner.. fish and chips, cauliflower  curry and some spinach thingy. We opted for room service because we couldn’t face the Bangalore traffic again.. It’s a nice room.. so it’ actually a nice way to spend the evening.   Last night we went to a fancy southern Indian place in the hotel with my friend Mohan and his friend Raj.. It was good meal served on banana leaves.  Gabe joined us for a while and demonstrated his musical skills before heading to the room for a TV fix…

Raj and Mohan

Dosa.. Yum !

My attempt at an Indain flag in chutney on a pratha

Our banana leaf plates

They gave Diane flowers to wear in her hair.. they smelled so great !

Oops.. This was breakfast yesterday.. also dosa

Pan for desert..It’s beetle nut, slaked lime, tobacko, cardamon, cloves and silver foil  wrapped in a beetle nut. It’s a stimulant..   and tastes .. uh.. interesting

Once again, Gabe has the TV clicker in hand and is taking us on a a tour of really goofy music videos and commercials in Hindi.. They are truly hilarious.. We’re also picking up hort clips f movies.  If you’ve never seen a ‘Bollywood’ movie you should !. They make every story into a musical .. murder mysteries, love stories, spy move.. I love watching them…  Here’s a quick sample  (oops.. can’t upload it.. I’ll try it later)

     Once again.. I don’t have much to show for my day.. it was 8am until 7:30 of brainstorming in a hotel conference room.  I was beat by the end of the day… and we have another full day tomorrow !

Diane and Gabe had a pretty layed back day, too… . Gabe slept in until 12:30 !.. ftter he woke up they shuffled down to the pool, played games and had lunch.   They then called up Joseph the driver and they went out to the market again. It turned out that today was some sort f holiday do the museums they had though about seeing were closed. They went  to an inside mall and parked in the underground lot.. As they drove in the attendant slid this thing under the car to check for bombs.. nice…   Diane said that they were amazed to find out how many folks were hanging out in service roles.. a person to press the elevator button. 3 people to point to where your car should park, one to open each door. There are so many people that there are people for every job. The mall was packed because of the holiday.   They went a couple of more markets.. for example they went to a silk store.. Diane and Gabe were instantly mobbed by a gaggle of earnest sales people who did not know the meaning of ‘no’.  They both said it was pretty cool.. but exhausting.. every time they turned to leave the sales people were spreading out more stuff in front of them..   Gabe says ‘it was crazy’.   It took 30 -45 minutes to drive back in the crazy traffic. Diane says she feels very safe being driven around.. even with the noise and crazy lane changes.. no one is in a hurry.. no one is mad. They use their horns every few seconds to let folks know they’re coming.. It’s chaos but friendly chaos.

She also observed how much everyone loves their kids here.   Here are some pictures from their day

Diane and Joseph

On the streets

Cow on the road

lunch !

A brick from Vermont ?

Yes.. they have it here

Our hotel

OK.. got to get back to the night in the room. We’ve been exploring our surroundings. Diane just found a copy of the Bhagva Gita in the room and some cool aruvedic aromatherapy lotion for your pillows. This place is full of nice surprise. Ok s time to logout and watch a movie…    (right now we’re watching skooby doo  with Hindi intro songs… )  OK.. Nite for now.. Nite Sam

-us

Hi folks,

My day was basically pretty unexceptional .. I had a meeting inside a big fancy hotel from 8AM until 7:30.. After that I came back to this hotel and met up with Diane and Gabe. We met up with a few of my friends for a nice Indian dinner in the hotel restaurant..

Luckily, Diane and Gabe had plenty of adventure today.. which will save today’s blog. With that.. I will turn it over to Diane.

Namaste everyone.. Namaste Sam

Here’s a report on Diane’s and Gabe’s day:

Hello Everyone…

It is 11:45 PM Tuesday and we have just come back to the room after a light Indian dinner. We got a phone call from Max right before dinner. Not all calls come through yet Max must have grabbed a special celestial line to get to us. Max, we are happy you are back in Brooklyn. We also sat around and watched a special home movie Scott made for us. It is wonderful Scott…we love you too. Hey…someone hire this guy…he has much to offer to the film industry. I often think about Scott and Max teaming up someday again. They produced such beautiful work while at Burlington Tech Center…and such innovative works.

Anyways…

Oh, I just wanted to mention a very cool marketing drink that has originated in Singapore and will make its’ way to the US soon. There are two drinks called “whatever” and “anything”. One is carbonated and the other is not. Essentially they are drinks of different flavors and you do not know what flavor you will get. So…when someone asks what you want to drink…you can answer “whatever” or “anything” and be truly surprised with what you get.

Back to today. Jetlag hit big time for Gabe & I today. I had to coax him down to breakfast and then coaxed him outside before we fell back to sleep. We sat by the pool fumbling our way through a few card games then sat and read or listened to music. After a bit we had some energy and decided to venture out. We got a driver named Joseph and he took us to a true Indian market. Wow. It is just at the end of the month of Ramadan and Saturday is their big feast celebration so the markets were full. We parked after a bit of looking and Joseph lead us through the market. First we stopped at a Catholic Church right in the middle of the activity. I was amazed by the activity in the two prayer halls. Many people came and went and were deep in prayer and expressed their devotion to the statues and pictures of Jesus and Mary. They also kept their cultural dress so you saw many converted Hindus praying at this Catholic Church. It felt like a bit like Jerusalem with a Catholic Church on one street, a Muslim vendor near by…and right next to a Hindu temple. Okay…no apparent Jew yet these cultures and religions sharing a market. We were impressed with multicolored baby chicks (just like those Easter chicks!), a feast of fruit, veggies and flowers…a meat market…fish market which thought we could pass on…although our noses knew where that was…camel meat (a special holiday treat)…and the occasional cow wandering by.

Colored Chicks

More than 33,000 Hindu Gods…some right here

yummy meat

St. Mary’s Basilica

cow walking by

best way to travel

Hindu temple

these are everywhere

Gabe’s opinion of the market…pretty crazy…the fruit was the best…most surprised by how hard it was to walk among the moving cars.

From there we went to the Botanical Gardens. When Bangalore was first formed the guy (can’t remember name) made a mud hut and put 4 towers on the corners. Oh, those were the days when you could just decide where you wanted to place a city. So the gardens have one of those towers and it is on a little hill so we could see the city. Well…I must say I loved the walk and how the Indian people loved the park. There were many couples seeking a quiet moment to cuddle and kiss. Walking by you felt a little awkward. On the other hand it took self control for me not to jump the fence around the rose bushes and weed them. Here were these beautiful roses and grass and weeds growing through out. The whole grounds could use a group of gardeners to clean up and bring back the beauty of the vegetation. It is as if the people cannot or do not see what they are walking upon. What a difference from the Orchid gardens in Singapore to this. Yet, subtract my moral opinion…people genuinely enjoyed the gardens. Maybe that is what is most important.

Gabe & Mom at gardens

Okay…clock and 7 dwarfs…no Snow White…random

2000 year old tree stump

topiary

Okay…hello Sam.  What made me find this one tree amoung many and look up about 20 feet to see “SMC” carved in orange.  Magical world.

Gabe & Mom in front of SMC tree.

Lotus pond…hmmm lotus of many petals was hard to find in this swamp.

Ant hole

plastic garbage tree trunk…maybe that is why people could not find the trash bin ?

standing in front of Bangalore city from tower

top of tower

stone steps leading up to tower

government building

Gabe’s opinion of the gardens….garbage everywhere…big trees…