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12/04/2012

Because a woman will always be a woman...

The Indians are quite not too adventurous. Especially in India as a matter of fact.

Having my (female) assistant to come to a meeting in the evening was really not easy, the whole office talked to the parents and her brother-in-law came along... What are the parents afraid of I don’t know, but they were damn scared. Obviously, given the act that I am a foreign girl, all alone in India for 6 years, it is difficult for me to fully understand. Though I respect it.

And this kind of attitude is not the exclusivity of the lower middle class people. For example my upper-upper-class girl friends have “crapped me a watermelon” – this is a French expression translated by Bing and I found it too funny so I left it!! It means they made a big fuss – the other day because I wanted to drive home at 2 AM. And according to them it is not safe (for the girl, not for the others, I see you coming! – though in my case I would think I am the danger...).

They have for example asked me to put on a sweater over my dress. And I drove home safely, and without my sweater.

When I told an Indian female friend, who is now roaming around Vietnam that I intended to do a road trip from Delhi to Mumbai, she told me without hesitation "no you can’t do that! I told her to stop being an Indian mum...” That said it's funny, a French girlfriend also told me I was reckless!

 

12/02/2012

Lawyer attitude

I've never liked my neighbour too much (see our first and only encounter: here) but he has never complained about the noise (of my sound system) and that’s good enough !

The other day my landlord came over. And hold on tight! I think he was hitting on me! It is not too surprising except that he is in his eighties... And so he was, asking me to sit closer on the sofa and all... But once he got really comfortable he started discussing his prostate problems and then, how to tell, it killed everything...

To get back to our subject, grandpa called the neighbour in, his grand-nephew or something like that. We came to discuss electricity bills. My neighbour, a 30 year old lawyer, was really upset: "Can you believe it? If you don’t pay your bill, they send someone to your house and if you don’t pay, they cut the wires immediately. I called to ask them how they dare do this to me? To me! A lawyer! »

Yes you arrogant idiot, lawyer or not, you pay your bills. And if you're never at home like me, you pay them online. Yes yes...

11/30/2012

Getting high security plates

A few months after buying a car, you need to get your “high security” plate.

It seemed obvious to the Hyundai staff that they were not the ones giving me the plates and they would not have even told me hadn’t I insisted. They laughed a lot, but finally wrote down the details…

I could tell another adventure was coming up…

 

I understood why they were laughing when I arrived to the place. I appreciated that they had given me enough details for my GPS to find the place. Because the shop was tiny. But you could guess it was there by seeing at last twenty guys pressed against the railings and holding some papers in the air.

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I tried to mingle in the crowd – I am not easily scared! And I was half hoping they would be nice enough to let a foreigner go first. No such thing. We were fighting for our lives there. But I managed to catch the attention of an employee and he let me inside, took my paper, and asked me to wait in my car.

I waited. When they arrived to put the plates, I went out. One old fatty came to me and started speaking to me, too fast and too loud. I finally understood that he wanted me to remove my bag from the passenger seat as the window was open and somebody could easily fetch it!

In any case, five guys started fighting – God knows why – and I went back to the safety of my car…

But my mission was accomplished! Next: the pollution thing and the driving license. Need a few weeks to gather the energy...