Category: Archive

I ‘ve visited India for the first time in May of 2008. The main purpose of the visit was attending and speaking at the Great Indian Developers Summit at Bangalore. But I ‘ve combined the business and vacation and managed to visit a number of other cities in India. I ‘ve been blogging and taking pictures during this trip, and these are the links to the entire series of my travel notes.

You may find this coverage a bit unusual, but I did not want to bore you to death just by showing you the photos you can find in travel magazines.

1. Getting there

2. From Delhi to Taj Mahal

3. Jaipur

4. Bangalore is da man!

5. The Conference

6. The airport on walkie-talkie

This is the final blog from a series about my week spent in India in May of lsquo;08.

The building of the new Bangalore airport looks nice. The opening of the new airport has coincided with my departure from this noble city of software engineers and retirees. The BIA building welcomes you with a huge suitcase by Louis Vuitton. If a small LV bag can cost $10000 USD, this one will run for at least a couple of million unless it was made in China town.

This is a good part. The rest about Bangalore International Airport sucks on its first day.

1. People at the check-in counter are not sure which button to press on the luggage belts and which tags to give to the passengers .

2. At security checkpoint they did not find an airline tag on my carry-on luggage (I was not told I needed one) and immediately canceled my boarding pass and sent me back to the check-in counter.

3. It seems that the check-in counters were designed by a freshmen student of a second-tier engineering college. These metal printer covers have sharp edges. Lots of kids trying to peek what “s going on behind the counter will damage their heads.

4. My boarding pass does not have the gate number. It just reads that the flight 110 to Mumbai is operated by Air India and is supposed to depart at 11:25AM. Starting from 10:30AM I was trying to find out what “s my the gate. The monitors show past departures only. I stopped by the boarding counter of another flight of Air India asking about any information about 110. They do not know. Their computers do not have any information. But hellip;she had a walkie-talkie. The first attempt to talk to someone took about ten minutes and she could not find any information about the flight. After several walkie-talkie sessions I found the gate. I “m impressed by this disaster recovery system. Technically, even in case of a complete blackout, the airport can remain operational as long as there are charged batteries in walkie-talkies and gasoline in the aircrafts.

Incompetency of the airline workers feels even more irritating because everyone is extremely polite.

“Yes, sir. I “ll get an answer for you in just a minute rdquo;

“My apologies. Inconvenience is deeply regretted. rdquo;

Yeah, right! This reminded me the following situation:

In a park, an old lady is sitting on a bench, chewing tobacco. Then she sneezed. A boy scout standing by said,

“God bless you rdquo;

“Thank you dear rdquo;, and she went on with tobacco chewing and sneezing. The boy scout kept saying “God bless you rdquo; after each sneeze, and the old lady thanked the boy each time.

Finally, the she said, “You are very good boy, but I am not sick. See, I just chew tobacco, and sneeze, chew and sneeze. That “s all rdquo;

And the boy goes, “I do not give a f amp;%k what you do, but we, boy scouts must be polite! rdquo;

5. Bangalore authorities have forgotten that it “s because of IT their city is turning from a destination for retired people into a serious industrial hub. Apparently, they do not know that computer programmers use computers. Computers can be divided into two major types: Large and small. The large one stay home. The small ones travel with their masters, and unfortunately they need electric power, which is usually provided via two small holes in a wall called electrical outlets. Dear airport authorities, can you please send a man with a drill and two long wires and ask him to drill as many holes as possible in the waiting area? Thank you very much for understanding.

6. Decided to check if there is an Internet connection. Opened the browser. Finally, something positive:

“Free Internet access for passengers rdquo;. Not so fast. To get a login password you need to send an SMS, but I do not have the operational cell phone in this country.

There are several ways to improve the logging procedure, and the easiest one is this. Change the text to the following:

“Free Internet access for passengers with local cell phones. rdquo; The other methods are more time consuming and would require thinking on the Microsense “s part.

7. All flight are delayed. But at least other airlines are announcing how deeply they regret the inconvenience. Did they say “Estimated time of departure rdquo; or “Guestimated time rdquo;? Air India keeps quiet, and their representatives stubbornly insist that IC 110 is on time even though it “s already 11:45AM and the boarding did not even start.

8. Finally, the boarding has started. Good bye, Bangalore. As the governor of CA once said, “I “ll be back rdquo;.

Mumbai is large. As per my tour guide, eighteen million people live here (extended Kolcata is a bit bigger though). Wikipedia offers different numbers .The driver with the guide picked me up at the airport, and I had a half day to explore the Bombay, which is a lot nicer and cleaner that New Delhi. The Mumbai lady-mayor fights for making the city clean.

I “ll just show you a couple of photographs I took in Mumbai.

The first one was taken at the huge Laundromat that did not change for several hundred years. People collect the dirty clothes from private citizens and businesses, bring it here, separate by colors and start hitting on the stones with the cold but soapy water. Then they rinse them and hang out for drying. After that, quick ironing, grouping by labels with initials and delivery back. People say that the quality of this type of laundry is a lot better than after Whirlpool laundry machine.

Now let “s pay attention to lunchboxes. Many Mumbai citizen enjoy the lunchbox delivery service. In the morning, they leave the lunchboxes by their doors, and commute to their offices empty-handed. A special delivery chain picks them up closer to the lunch time and delivers them to their owners at work. After lunch they take empty lunchboxes and bring them to the doors of their owners. As simple as that.

Oh, please do not ask these stupid questions like, “Yakov, why the owners could not carry these lunch boxes themselves? rdquo; Have you seen the Mumbai trains at the rush hour? OK, you “ve just received your cleaned white sari from the Laundromat, entered the train car, and here I am with my lunchbox that among other delicatessen contains freshly-made green curry hellip; Real peer pressure start when the number of people in the train doubles the capacity suggested by the car manufacturer. Did I tell you that my colleague Ashish prefers Red curry?

To say that I “m quickly get bored in museums is understatement. But for some reason, when my guide asked if I wanted to visit a house-museum of Mahatma Ghandi, I agreed. Why did I do this? I “m alone here ndash; no need to show my wife that I really enjoy immersion into history, no need to act as a role model for my kids, like “Dave, can you imagine that that this guy “s army had a 10500 people, and they “ve managed to cross the Alps and defeat the enemies losing 8,953 people, 3283 horses and raping 785 women on their way? Wow! rdquo;

Usually, I forget all important historical facts in about 10 minutes after leaving any museum. But this time not only I enjoyed the tour, I also felt an immense respect for Gandhi, bought and read (ok, a half) of the book with his letters and blogs, and enjoyed the movie “Gandhi, My Father rdquo; during the flight BOM-JFK. This country kicked Brits out of the country using the quiet disobedience techniques ndash; no war, no blood. They did it once, they “ll do it again. But this time they “ll kick out Yankees out of software industry as soon as a new person of Gandhi “s caliber will learn Java programming.

With all my respect to Mr. Gandhi, I was a bit tired with eating only Indian cuisine all week long. Before leaving for the airport, I stopped by a nice hotel and ordered a simple American dinner. To show my respect to India, I ‘ve asked for the local beer.

Mumbai “s airport is old and under construction. But it operates reasonably slow. I face a direct 15-hour flight to New York. Designers of Mumbai airport were smarter than their rookie colleagues from Bangalore. To ensure that people won ‘t charge their laptops, the outlets are conveniently located under the ceiling.

Unfortunately Delta “s flight has been canceled (the pilot was sick), and they filled out our plane with all these people who were stupid enough to book tickets from Delta, a cheap airline with bad food, inconvenient seats, old flight attendants, and sick pilots.

Surprisingly, the flight was not too difficult to bear and we had soft landing at JFK on time. As soon as the plain stopped taxiing, this familiar beep was played and almost everyone INSTANTLY stood up, and took their heavy carry-on in their hands just to stand like this for another 5 min till the aircraft doors would be opened. People can “t resist this Pavlov “s dog reflex ndash; when it beeps, stand up and grab your bags.

It “s great to be home. The immigration officer could not find an empty spot in my passport to stamp. Need to file for an insert with a US passport agency.

So long, India. I “ve enjoyed the visit and wish all the best to your people. I “ll be back.

Till the next trip.

Yakov Fain

Continuing my travel notes from India…

Organization of the Great Indian Developer Summit is great. I see it as a speaker and as a vendor (Farata Systems had a booth in the vendors area too). Transportation, hotel, food, parties ndash; all are good. I “d say it “s the most speaker-friendly conference I “ve been so far and I usually speak at four conferences a year.

I “m not selling anything, but my main goal is meeting people, giving away brochures, demoing some of our applications, making the name of our company well known around the world. Basically, I “m making some noise or as they say, doing PR.

And I did meet people from a Paris software company called DreamFace ndash; they created an application that allows end users create portals with Flex and AJAX widgets. The product supports easy communication between the widgets on the screen.

After a quick but heavy tropical rain the roads became flooded in some spots. Because of that I “ve got locked in a cab with Greg Murray, a very intelligent guy from Sun Microsystems. We “ve been talking all the way on various subjects. Greg “s created jMaki. I “m not using this product, but will try to attend his technical session. It “s not important what are you being taught ndash; who is teaching is important.

Venkat Subramaniam is an excellent speaker. I met him in the US, but this time had a chance to talk about life and programming. Here “s Venkat, Greg, and myself (on the right).

We “ve had useful discussions with Adobe India Flex evangelists ndash; they are friendly people who really like their software. Here “s the photo of Raghu, me (in the middle), and Harish.

They gave me an Adobe mug and a nice little wooden pyramid with quartz clock that show Indian time only. I wonder how many different version of such clock-pyramid exist? Is this a collectible series? Collect three pyramids showing the time in Bangalore, NYC and SF and you ‘ll get a free license of Flex Builder?

During lunch, I introduced myself to Jesse James Garrett and said, “I was attending your presentation two years ago. But I like today “s one a lot better. rdquo; I was planning to make a compliment, but I have a feeling that it did not sound like one, did it?

The conference parties are as important as technical sessions. Upon my arrival, I was invited to .Net Champaign party. Good food, nice bar (I “ve enjoyed a couple of glasses of good wine). The band was playing covers of all familiar songs including one of my favorites, “Wish you were here rdquo;.

In the beginning of the party, presenters were invited to the stage, which made me thinking about the culture. Please take a look at this photo of the speakers. Especially, notice number two and number four from the left.

I “m sure they are great software engineers, but why wearing these outfits in a party? Is this just a way to look cool or they never thought that people do not dress like this for a party? Are they from California? It “s a West Coast style. And then Americans complain for not being welcomed in Europe. This is BS. Visitors who respect the hosts are treated well anywhere, but that “s a different story. BTW, I know that India is not a European country.

To encourage attendee-vendor communications, every attendee was expected to visit vendors and get their stamp in the Expo Passport – sort of a proof “I “ve been there rdquo;.

While sitting in our vendor “s booth, I “ve got to face an unusual behavioral pattern. About thirty percent of the people were polite and they at least asked me to stamp their paper let alone asking what our company is about. But majority of attendees just slapped the brochure on the table without saying a word ndash; neither hello, nor thank you. Some people did not even stop talking over the cell phone while receiving a stamp from me. Not too kosher. If you are one of such stampers, read the section about the conferences in my e-book “Enterprise Software without the BS rdquo; (it “s free download).

I “ve had many conversations with local software developers. The word local may not be exactly right, because a number of people moved to Bangalore just because the IT jobs are here. The other IT hubs are Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune, Mumbai. People complain about the cost of living getting higher and higher in Bangalore. Rent of a two bedroom apartment in a good area costs about $1000 USD. Morning commute is a problem ndash; driving 10 miles during rush hour takes 1.5 hours. The food is more expensive too. No wonder people are demanding higher salaries.

Here ‘s what I ‘ve I “ve learned from them:

1. About 10% of local software developers enjoy programming. Ninety percent are just making a better living. I wonder what would be the numbers among American developers? I “d guess 20/80.

2. People working remotely for American companies want more control, “Just give me the task, and I “ll complete it rdquo;. I explained, that it “s possible only after the trust between American and Indian parties is established.

3. Life in Bangalore is more simple than life in the Northern areas of the country. People in the North like to show off. They purchase lots of expensive dresses, spend a lot of money on their daughter “s wedding (which reminds me of this stupid tradition in America to spend up to 20% of your yearly salary for an engagement ring). It “s hard to imagine rich closes given the poverty I “ve seen on the streets of Delhi, Agra and Jaipur. I “m sure there are rich people too hellip;

4. Software developers working in consulting companies mainly resign because of poor management. They work from 10AM to 10PM on a regular basis. And people do not mind, they just expect some tokens of appreciation like free food after hours. If you are managing a team in a consulting firm and want your project to be successful, please buy some basmati rice at 7PM (it “s the most tasty dish I “ve eaten while in India). In product companies people leave for better paycheck.

5. A guy stopped by asking for a career advice. He “s an experienced programmer but is asking what “s the best way to switch to project management. I went,

“Do you like programming? rdquo;

“Yes, I really do rdquo;

“So why do you want to switch? rdquo;

“I am 35 years old, and when relatives ask me what do I do at work, and since I “m not a manager yet, they think that I “m underachiever rdquo;. I can “t imagine that in the USA a person would want to become a manager just to please family members and neighbors.

Here comes yet another party. This one is called Java Teenage Party. It does not mean that it “s a party for teenagers. Java turns 13 this year. This was a large-scale party with awards, solid rock band and a birthday cake.

To celebrate my departure, Bangalore authorities delayed opening of the new international airport. OK, I “ll be an early adopter again.

Yours truly,

YF

P.S. I got it.

Continuing my Indian notes hellip; I left Jaipur in the morning – my vacation part is over. Ram took me to the airport, and I gave him good tip for getting me safe and sound thought this Brownian motion called Indian traffic.

Up till now, I “ve been enjoying local beer produced by the company called KingFisher . But to live a little bit better than a beer producing company, KingFisher is abysele flying too. During security check-in, they “ve found and took away my bottle of Absolute ndash; it was almost full. No problem. I did not enjoy drinking warm vodka anyway, which reminded me of an old Russian joke:

A boss asks his subordinate,

“Vladimir, do you enjoy warm vodka and sweaty women? rdquo;

“Not at all rdquo;

“OK, your next vacation is in January rdquo;

If you “re born in America, you might not get this joke, assuming that ice and air conditioners were always available, but this was not the case in Russia. So trust me, this was and remains a funny joke.

The KingFisher “s aircraft was a new Boeing. Flight attendant s were Western looking young girls (no open bellies), the service was excellent. I do not remember any American airline that would offer you free food on a two hour flight. The aircraft made one short stop in Goa. I was looking in the window while the it was landing. The landscape is dramatically different. Green fields, a wide river, and an ocean with long sandy beaches. This could have been a great resort place, or is it?

It “s all upside down ndash; we fly south but go further from equator hence the temperature here is only 33 degrees Celsius.

The Goa-Bangalore leg is just one hour, but I already received yet another food menu. This airline will either go out of business or will start flying internationally.

Finally, I arrived to the city that looks like a city. No wonder that Western companies decided to settle down over here. I “ll try to help you to visualize this 3+ million people city.

Take Miami, Florida, get rid of the ocean, beaches, buildings that are more that 15 storey tall. Add more parks. When this is done, replace all girls wearing miniskirts and bikinis with people on motorbikes. Done? Now the last step ndash; eliminate all traffic police officers. Welcome to Bangalore!

Here “s the parliament building with engraved words ” Government Work Is God “s Work rdquo;. Sounds refreshing.

Coming back to the topic of a little extra income hellip; Here “s the front of the Maharaja summer palace (as per my taxi driver, Maharaja is the king of all India). According to my driver, prince lives there now.

There is a huge tent attached to the back of the palace where IBM runs some event under the logo “We are unstoppable rdquo;. It seems that they are, if they managed to rent a piece of the kings property and are partying there (loud music, DJ).

I “m wondering if IBM can pull this off in the Buckingham Palace in London? If so, they are unstoppable! Do you know if Prince Charles needs some extra cash?

It “s Wednesday morning. I “m sitting in a large auditorium. Jesse James Garrett will start his talk in a couple of minutes. Quiet Indian music plays ndash; the kind you hear during a relaxing massage in a good spa. Are they trying to put the speaker or the audience in nirvana? Will know tomorrow ndash; I have one of my presentation on this stage. In general, this conference is very well organized. Just one detail ndash; when was the last time when you “ve seen an American conference where wireless Internet actually worked?

I was pretty busy today- conducted a 3-hour Flex/Java workshop, and another one-hour session on picking the right technology for developing Rich Internet Applications. The next blog will be about the conference.

Falling asleep hellip;

Continuing my Indian observations hellip;

This morning we left Agra and went to Jaipur, Rajastan, which looked a lot cleaner and civilized than everything I “ve seen so far. Much better roads, more civilized people. I asked Ram, my driver, “Why such a big difference? rdquo; He responded, “Hindu people like clean. Muslim people do not like clean rdquo;.

Here “s a new addition to the transportation department ndash; camel-cars. These animals can go without drinking water and eating for a week or longer.

Now I see more open Jeeps that are used as cabs here. If yellow three-wheelers could accommodate 16 people, it “s peanuts for a Jeep. I “ve seen one with about 25 people. Most of the people were winzipped inside, and 6-7 where hanging around the vehicle.

On my question if gasoline a.k.a. petroleum is expensive here, Ram answered, “No, it “s only 50 rupees a liter. rdquo; Let “s do some calculations. 50 rupees is $1.25. One gallon is 3.7 liters. $1.25*3.7= $4.63.

Conclusion: Americans, please stop the f@ amp;k whining about high gas prices until they reach at least $20 per gallon. And then, we ‘ll either invest into a nuclear power plants to minimize dependency on oil, or will also be hanging around someone ‘s SUV while carpooling on New Jersey Turnpike.

After two hours of driving we stopped at the rest area ndash; they call it midway. I got a bottle of cold beer and some nuts . One of the vendors asked me,

“Where are you from? rdquo;

rdquo;The USA rdquo;

He goes, “Pabla Espaniol? rdquo;

I don “t pabla, but given the current situation in the US, this is not a stupid question. It reminded me of an old story. One of our acquaintances immigrated to the USA from Ukraine. She had broken English at the time but managed to find a job in a kindergarten. One day, she was telling a story to a toddler in English for two minutes, the boy was listening to her and finally said, “I don “t speak Spanish rdquo;.

Three million people live in Jaipur. It takes two hours of driving to cross the city. Ram explained that if the name of the city ends with pur, it means that Hindu people rule there. If it ends with bad, it “s under Muslim “s control. Jaipur is also known as a Pink City – all buildings here are painted in terracotta or pink color. I “m not going to bore you with a story why one king was visiting Jaipur “s king, etc.

People of Jaipur quickly recovered of the recent terrorist attack. It “s a tourism-driven city ndash; there is no industry here. The Common Wealth games are coming to India in 2010, which is a big deal for the locals. They are restoring all historical places to be able to show the visitors their historical heritage. They believe that their enemies do not want American and European tourists to come here for the games and try to scare them by setting up terrorist attacts. Terrorists killing peaceful people are animals no matter where they live and what excuses they find for these cowardly acts.

The tour guide was a pleasant and educated young guy. He showed me the Amber Fort, City palace. I “m not into museums, but it was not boring, and especially I was impressed by astronomical devices that Indian people built in 18th century. This short dialog becomes relevant in this context:

“How many high education degrees are required to become an intelligent person? rdquo;

“Three. Grandfather “s, father “s and yours rdquo;.

Conclusion. American programmers! They “ve got more than three! It “s just a matter of time and local Indians will learn how to deal with American enterprise IT from a distance. I already got this feeling, and I even did not arrive to Bangalore yet!

Don “t forget that Indians invented Kama Sutra ndash; they just need to find the right position for America.

I took this picture in Fort Amber too.

The rest of the tour ended by the same scenario as yesterday. The tour guide brings you to a place where local craftsmen show you the secrets of their profession, and then the golden door opens into the store where they show you their commercial goods that will be securely shipped by DHL right to your doorsteps anywhere in the world. I bought some stuff and my only regrets were that my friend Dora (Happy Birthday!) was not here ndash; she “s an excellent bargainer and would “ve saved me some cash. But hey, why not help locals a little bit too?

After 5PM we started moving toward our hotel. In short 45 minutes we “ve arrived. This hotel looked a lot nicer than the first two. Now we are talking! Oops hellip; the last minute decision was to give away the entire hotel to a wedding party, and there is no room for me. To be fair, I need to acknowledge that my guide quickly got in touch with the travel agency that takes care of me in India, and they arranged for another hotel two blocks away. They even offered me to inspect the new room to get my approval.

If you are planning to visit India, contact me and I “ll get you in touch with a reliable travel agent in New York.

Now the good news:

1. On the way to my room I noticed that the lizard running along the corridor sneaked under the door of another room. No biggie. In Thailand, lizards were running on the walls of a lot more upscale hotel than this one.

2. The room was huge ndash; it was more like a suite.

3. After I moved in and decided to take a closer look at the bathroom. Just one call to the reception and the guy came in an got rid of the ants in the shower.

4. Visualize me in the shower. .. I “m hopelessly trying to find cold water. Both facets produce the hot one. Quick call to the reception, “I do not know how to turn on the cold water rdquo;. In a minute the guy comes in again and asks me if I tried the facet that reads Cold Water. I wonder if he just following the steps from an instruction manual “How to provide customer support in the shower rdquo;, or I do not look like an intelligent person? He promised to go somewhere and fix the problem.

Then I “ve realized that to guarantee cold water in a hot day like this, they have three choices

a) run the cold water pipes through a couple of Sub Zero refrigerators

b) run them six feet under

c) drain the water for an hour.

I do not know which solution did they chose, but in about 15 minutes, the cold water temperature was about 45 degrees of Celsius, which is in my comfort zone.

Now “s the quiz time. If you “ll correctly answer what “s this large rectangular thingy attached to the wall in one of the rooms of Amber Fort, I “ll send you a signed copy of my book “Java Programming for the Real World. rdquo;

I “ll post the answer as a comment to this blog in a week.

Till next time.

My journey to India began on May 16. I was invited to speak at the Great Indian Developers Summit and gladly accepted the invitation. First, it’s good for PR (hey, you never know). Second, even though I’m always surrounded by Indian colleagues, I’ve never been to this country and was curious to know what’s going on at the source of the IT world force. The first two day of this trip is my vacation, and after that – business as usual.

In the evening of May 16 I was going to boarding the Air India flight JFK-London-New Delhi. My Indian colleagues did not approve my choice of the airline, but so far I had great experience with this carrier.

But first things first. After hearing the horror stories of Westerners returning from this country that in the best case scenario I “ll get severe diarrhea, one of my friends who just came back from there gave me an advice, “You need to take one or two shots of vodka every morning. This will disinfect your organism for a day”. I decided to change the time of this medicine consumption to the evening hours and purchased a one liter bottle of Absolute duty free store at JFK. To make sure that I won’t finish this bottle while air born, they sealed the bottle in a special bag.

At the JFK airport, I also purchased a couple of electric adapters. They have three very large round pins – three times larger than in Europe. The pack reads: “For South Africa and India”. When I arrived to the hotel, I found out that they are too big. My European adaptor worked fine.

It was a large Boeing 777 with large screen monitors for every passenger, good (for airplanes) food and young flight attendants (Delta, shame on you) wearing sari opening belly dancer’s bellies. The animated instructions on the plane safety and facilities were very detailed. After years of traveling, I thought I knew everything about oxygen masks and life saving vest. But this time I was immersed into details using the toilets. The green sign on the door means Vacant, while the red is for Occupied. They’ve demonstrated how to flush the toilet and what exactly should and should not be placed there to keep it functional. It was suggested that after using the sink passengers should take a paper towel and wipe the sink. Sorry, but I’m not that courteous.

The movie selection is very decent – a dozen of English movies. Indian movies are in abundance too. Thirty years ago, watching an Indian movie was quite an experience. The plots were pretty much the same – he’s a young factory worker from a poor family, she’s from a rich family, they love each other but her mean parents would never let them get married. All movie goers were in tears. Things are very different now – I skimmed through a couple of Hindi movies. Here’s a couple of quotes from “Life in Metro”.

A young woman browses the Internet site trying to find a boyfriend. She talks to herself, “I’m hitting 30, single and still virgin”.

A guy works in a call center . These are his thoughts: “I have to listen to the abuses of 15000 Americans for 15000 rupees…”

I guess, they’ll find each other and will live happily ever after by the end of the movie.

New life, new plots, no Raj Kapoor.

The best part was that on the way to London the plane was 20% full and I got to sleep on three seats having plenty of pillows and blankets – the poor mens’ first class. The food was a lot better than on any American airlines.

My laptop with 1.5hr battery would not keep me busy for such a long flight, and I purchased a Sony e-reader with a screen that is as good to your eyes as paper, loaded it with books and, when not sleeping, I was reading a book by a keyboard player of a popular in the past Russian rock-band “Time Machine”. The author decided to take out dirty laundry revealing how the band lived while being famous.

In London, we had to leave the plane for an hour. My bag with Absolute was taken away from me again in fear that I “ll drink it all up in the Heathrow airport, and returned to me when I boarded the plane again. London-Delhi the plane is only literally empty and I “ll make myself comfortable right after finishing writing this blog. Too good to be true!

In about an hour before landing, the pilot started announcement, “I don’t want to be a bearer of bad news…” , and after 20(!) second pause he continued, “There is storm in Delhi and the 90 mph wind, and we are not sure if we’d be able to land there. We’ll keep circling in the area in hope that the storm will end. Please fasten your seat belts and bear with us. Thank you for choosing Air India”.

After that announcement we kept entering turbulence areas that felt like a roller coaster at THE Disney World. With all my flight history, the next 90 minutes were the worst one in my life. Every time when this huge plane was diving in yet another black hole, I was reevaluating my life, “If only we safely make it to the ground…” It’s a grim reminder of how fragile we are.

It was very quiet in the plane. Only one old lady kept returning the food she consumed during the last month with easily recognizable sounds.

Oh well, since you are reading this blog, you could have guessed by now, “We made it!” The travel agent who met me said that he did not recall such a storm ever – this was an echo of the last week’s earthquake in China.

It feels so good riding in a new Toyota van on the ground! Bus stops are full of people sleeping right on the ground. It’s like a Manhattan homeless times five without any belongings. But let’s stay positive. Tomorrow morning I’ll spend four hours in the van riding to Taj Mahal.

Till next blog…

After safe arrival to Delhi, I checked in to the hotel at 2:30AM. My laptop “s clock still showed 5PM. I wonder, what was the big idea to set the time zone in a 30-min increment?

The bellman showed me to the room of this three-star looking hotel and proudly announced, “We have hot water 24 hours a day! rdquo;. I took a shower keeping my mouth shut. Literally.No tap water should make it into my stomach ndash; diarrhea won “t forgive such a mistake. Only bottled water is allowed.

The morning buffet offered two type of juices: one labeled read Real Juice, and the other Fresh Juice.

The waiter answered, “The real juice is from cans and the fresh one is fresh rdquo;. O-Kay hellip;

My new Toyota van is waiting for me at 8:30AM. The plan is to drive for an hour doing quick sightseeing in Delhi, and then head toward the city of Agra, where Taj Mahal one of the wonders of the world is situated. The distance is about 150 miles, but the driver says it “ll take us more than four hours. Got it. I should not be expecting auto bans here.

If for some reason I “d be allowed to show only one of the photographs to represent the look and feel of this 16-million people city, I “d have chosen this one:

I ‘m sure there are much better residential areas, but I can only speak for what I ‘ve seen. For more touristy photos of New Delhi call your travel agent. If I like some new city, I often say to my wife, “I love it here, let “s relocate! rdquo; For some reason these statements always irritate her ndash; she “is very happy in New Jersey. Honey, I would not relocate to Delhi even if someone would offer me free house in the center of the city.

Lots and lots of poor people. The streets are dirty and dusty. Free cows are eating garbage (when a cow stops giving milk, her master gives her freedom).

Of course, I “ve seen better places today like the House of Parliament or the Gates of India, but most of the city that I “ve seen looks bad. By the way, I saw but did not photograph three men and one women openly peeing on the streets (this was not a quartet ndash; I “ve seen them at different locations one by one).

During our ride to Agra, I kept taking pictures of three-wheeled auto rickshaws. Take a look at this baby that originally was designed to carry a driver and three passengers. I “ve seen them with 8 passengers inside.

After leaving the city limits, I “ve seen hundreds of other modifications of this miscarriage of the car industry. It has the same wheelbase but the body is about ten feet wider which immediately doubles its passenger capacity. This model can accommodate sixteen happy Indians or four complaining Americans.

Drivers here are honking all the time. The overloaded rickshaws and trucks can ‘t see what ‘s happening behind the vehicle. So very often my driver was hanking either when passing by just in case or to request the truck to move to a slower lane. My driver said the following, “Indian drivers need three things: good breaks, good tires and good horn “.

By the way, men in India are slim and women are heavier. I wonder, what will happen with sexy bellies of those flight attendants from Air India?

And this moped owner takes care of recycling.

My driver said that the city of Agra is a small one ndash; only 1.5 million people. After a short rest in the hotel room, we went to see the Fort of Agra and Taj Mahal. It “s 40 degrees Celsius outside, but when you see Taj Mahal, you just forget about the hot weather – it ‘s so beautiful!

I hope you appreciate that I did not publish a picture of me covering a half of Taj Mahal.

The guide told me the whole story about the Mogul dynasty . After giving a birth to the last of the fourteen kids, she died and the Emperor build this wonder of the world as a symbol of his love to her. He loved her so much! To get a little different perspective, you need to know that the Emperor had a harem of 1000 beautiful girls too. This helps.

When I was a teenager, we had an English textbook, which contained the following sentence, “London is a city of striking contrasts rdquo;. For some reason, this phrase is carved in my brain, even though I ‘ve been to London a couple of times and its far from truth. It seems that the author of this textbook have never been to India.

We can call it a day. It was a good one. I “ve seen a lot and did not get diarrhea. When I “ll get it, you “ll be the first to know.

Stay tuned.

I know a guy who does not like me. I ‘m sure there are lots of such people, but this one is vocal about it. He told me once over the glass of beer that my blogs are useless. He said, “Instead of doing some serious research of a particular subject, you just write whatever comes to your mind about what you see at the moment “. To make his statement more solid, he added, “You are like akyns who just sing songs about whatever they see in front of them at this very moment. ”

To some extent, he ‘s right. In my personal blog I just quickly type when a seldom though comes to my mind. BTW, let me tell you a joke (see, I was not planning to write this joke 10 seconds ago, but now I do ’cause it seems relevant in this context). OK, here ‘s the joke:

One woman ‘s thought somehow got into a man ‘s head. She could not find any thoughts there. Finally she found one in the far end of man ‘s brain. She asked, “Where ‘s everyone? “. And the only thought answered, “All ours are downstairs “.

A couple of years ago, someone has invented Twitter.com – a site that allows you to write a very short statement about what are you doing at this moment. You are allowed to type up to 140 charaters as an answer to “What are you doing? ” question. On twitter you can follow other people and other people can follow you.

For a while, I did not pay attention to Twitter, but then I realized, that I have too many random thoughts in my head (hmmm, does it mean that nobody ‘s downstairs? ” and can ‘t possibly write a blog elaborating on each of them.

I wonder if Twitter can fit the bill? I do not know, but will try.

Hence I ‘ll see if twitting won ‘t be boring for me, and I ‘ve also added a widget on the right side of this blog – sort of near-real-time updates.

If you are interested, follow me on twitter.

OK, some women are concerned about sexism in IT. Here “s what I think.

First, I do not like when people curse in public . Not just because that there are women in the audience, but it “s just plain wrong.

Second, there is very small number of women programmers. Is this because some bad guy do not let them in? I doubt it. For some reason, women decided to abandon this profession. Are there some idiots that believe that men are superior? Yes, there are, but they are minority. I “ve never heard that a woman was denied employment in IT because of her gender.

Do women earn less money than men? Most likely. Is it because their priorities are taking care of kids and husbands/boyfriends? Most likely.

Is it wrong?

IT managers need go-getters. Most of the women need to take care of kids and us. They can ‘t stay late. Of course, there are exceptions. But mediocre managers do not want to take chances, and the vast majority on enterprise managers are mediocre.

I “d love to see more women in IT and wrote a section about it in my e-book “Enterprise software without the BS rdquo; (look for “S/he or cherchez la femme “) .

On the other hand, I think it “s wrong that people in the USA are AFRAID to say a compliment to a woman, because they might get sued. My friend had to watch a video during her orientation day in a major corporation. They were showing several episodes. Here “s one of them.

Two men are sitting in a corp. cafeteria. A woman in a short skirt stops by a vending machine. She bends to pick whatever she purchased. The men “s heads automatically turn to see her yes indeed. She files a sexual harassment suit.

Here “s another episode. A secretary makes a compliment to her boss about his neck tie. He can sue her for sexual harassment.

Is this insane or what?

I think that enterprises that force people to maintain gender-less relations are doomed. This is not healthy and not productive. I ‘ve been working with lots of women that were great programmers. Mary, you look so good today, but please do not put me in trouble for saying this!

My next week is a mix of business and sightseeing in India. I “ll be delivering two talks and one workshop at the Great Indian Developers Summit .

First Jesse James Garrett, who fathered the term AJAX, most likely will tell the audience that his baby is in great shape, and in my talk I “ll compare various RIA offerings suggesting to stay away from Jesse “s baby in the enterprise environment. I did a rehearsal of this speech at the AJAXWorld in New York City earlier this month explaining AJAX developers that they are going in the wrong direction.

I “m used to speaking in front of large audiences, but I always ran hands-on workshops for small groups of people. But the conference organizers told me that my workshop “Developing RIA with Flex and Java rdquo; will be attended by 60 people with laptops. This is a bit too much for a hands-on class, but India likes it big.

Yet another talk is not technical ndash; it “s about American culture of enterprise software development. Most of the materials for this talk are taken from my e-book “Enterprise Software without the BS rdquo;. It “s not a not politically correct presentation where among other things I “ll be talking about the outsourcing as I see it. These are a couple of bullets from this talk:

-What “s wrong with these Indians?

– What “s wrong with these Americans?

– Are you underpaid?

-What “s the difference between contractors and employees

– Political stuff and more

I “ll take my camera with me and will take notes ndash; expect a couple of blogs titled “Me went to India rdquo;

After returning back I “ll teach a small public Flex class in New York City, and then back to software development.

In June, I “ll deliver one more talk on facelifting SOA with RIA at the SOA World conference and will immerse into the Summer “08.