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Thread started by ideasculptor at 04.18.08 - 7:15 am
My company wants me to move to India. Prior to coming here, I'd have jumped at the chance. Now, I'm not so sure. Bicycling really isn't happening here. The fumes from the traffic are just too much and it is outrageously dangerous. It isn't a matter of if I'll get badly injured or killed, but when. Also, this city has really got nothing much to recommend it other than being cheap. The weather stinks - like Arizona, only hotter (it was 110 today) and with 3 months of torrential rain thrown in during monsoon season.
The adventure seeker in me says "hell yes!" The side of me that really enjoys hanging with you folks and riding bicycles every day says "what the hell are you thinking?" My motorcyclist side says that there's an awful lot of unexplored territory to ride through.
I'm pretty conflicted on it. Surprisingly so. If you'd asked me before I'd ever been here, I wouldn't have hesitated for a moment, but I really can't claim to like this place, as much as I tried to keep an open mind about it. Sadly, shithole is really the first word that comes to mind when I want to describe it, both literally and figuratively. The worst neighbourhoods in LA are cleaner than the best neighbourhoods here. It's kind of a perfect example of what happens when a government spends no money on infrastructure. The rich people have nice places that end at the front gate and everywhere else might as well be the 3rd world. Oh, wait. It is the 3rd world.
Can you stand in the door way of your apt. and also stand in the doorway of your Office/company and take a POV photograph and post them here? Let's see what the first thing you see when you open your front door every morning looks like.
Sam,
it sounds like you don't want be there but we need a place to crash when we visit India. So shut up and stay.
Ok the chances of us visiting India are slim. Too far too ride and tickets are too expensive but your house in West Hollywood is close enough. What's you address again? Is the key still under the mat? We'll water your plants (and ours).
Sounds like you need new friends. Start the Hyderabad Bad Ass Critical Mass. Show these people that these little scooters they are driving are bad for the environment. Cuz... I dunno... think of something. They also look ridiculous in these robes. Start a fixie and tight pants shop in Hyderabad. Also buy some property around it. The fixie shop will gentrify the area and you'll make millions!!!!!
Place a listing on couchsurfing.com You'll get an endless parade of rich Europeans and Australians (who can afford the tickets) parade through your pad. You'll become famous around the world and your myspace will have like a billion friends!
I took notice of something yesterday, there is not many people that go on these rides that have a problem with depression. Why? Could be that we are having constant fun. I know this has been talked about before, the fun, mixed with the exercise, mixed with the rich social interaction, makes this whole thing we have going on so appealing, that most of us can't get enough, and when we are not on rides, we are on this board looking to connect with one another.
The reason I bring this up is that there is lots of unhappy people around us, who's lives has very little meaning and all most no social interaction.
They are either living for their families (which sucks everything out of you) or just working and existing doing something on there free time because once it gave them a good time(that good time might and mostly likely isn't the case for them anymore)
Flip a coin.
Imagine that the coin toss really will determine where you wind up.
What won?
Gauge your initial reaction.
Are you happy about it, or disappointed?
This was my mom's advice to me, when I was figuring out college. So imagine all of the below delivered in an Irish accent, and with boiled potatoes.
So why not go to India, I'm sure the third world nature of life there, really isn't what is stopping you. I reality is most likely, you don't want to leave this. What we have here is precious and special. I know people think it is corny and cheesey to say such a thing, but it true, and everybody knows it (and might feel it kills or ruins it to say it out loud). Why else would you not jump on the opportunity to work and live in foreign country with the best baby food ever. You ain't that prissy to say it is how dirty it is, and it is.
Remember this about life, once you know how to do something, you can do it again somewhere else or at another time. Yes you may miss the future of this, by being over in India, but you will get to experience something new. The experiences will enrich your life and you will walk away with that much more life experiences.
This has probably not helped one i-o-da.
So how do you answer this question, Will you have fun checking out and experiencing a new country that it is worth it to put aside something that brings you much richness and pleasure?
This is just a stab in the dark, and statement that probably isn't true in all cases. I think many people do lots of travel to look for something they don't have. Maybe looking for something to fill up their lives, I don't know for sure. Probably wrong.
Either way you go, you will still be with Sam, here or there.
Suck it up Sam! We need a place to stay when we become rock stars and need our souls cleansed. Become the next Gandhi, we'll say we used to roll with that dude!
Don't worry about MR, as you can see, it's well documented here.
It all depends on what you like better.
If you enjoy a chance of getting on your motorcycle, or bicycle and winding through open desert, prairie land, or pine-forest land, then come back to the states.
If you actually enjoy whatever they got going over there, then stay a little while.
From what you're describing, the lifestyle in India sounds similar to what my mom's always telling me about Malaysia.
I myself like the urban setting, but getting out into the great, wide, open-country is cool every, once in a while.
I have pretty much been MIA around here, accept for the occasional every 3rd weekend. I have miss going on these rides to do something different. I miss going out and riding whenever I wanted, but it has given me an experience of life that I wouldn't have gotten if I said, "I don't want to give up something I love so much, to do something different:" I would have never experienced what I got going on right now. I'm a better person for it.
When I looked at picture of the Heavy Metal rides which I had to miss both of them. I see what a wonderful experience people where having on the GLO RIDE (which was verbally later confirmed to me it was a great vibe), I feel a sadness, that I couldn't have been there. Does it kill me? No. Am I still, a happy person and getting the most I can out of the current experience I have chosen to do instead of choosing to go on ride at will. Sure Am.
If you choose to stay in Indian, you will grow in ways that you couldn't staying here. If you come home you be as happy as ever, but you might have missed a great (or miserable) opportunity, an opportunity just the same.
but seriously Sam, I say go for it, you don't get an opportunity like this too often, unless you're a bollywood star, but then you'd probably be living in india anyways....maybe you are a bollywood star?
We'll miss you, but you would make a great ambassador for bikedom if you were to bring your act to India. Maybe they could teach us something, since I'm willing to bet that a great percentage of people commute by bike there than here.
I know exactly what you mean, but i wouldn't pass up the opportunity for experience. MR will always be here so when you come back we'll have a HUGE party for you...EVERYDAY!!! But my concern is HOW LONG?? How long are you staying in this place? It's one thing if it was 3 months or some set time...But i don't like thinking that i might be stuck there for longer than i would want to be. It's happened to me before in Haiti (another 3rd world country) and i nearly lost my mind.
do it!! just think of how many times you'll be able to say "when i was living in india..." i'd kill for that opportunity, even if india sucked (which is sounds like it does). do it! do it do it do it!!
The equivalent of Critical Mass-a public demonstration against congestion-in India would be some form of population control. You should start a ride that eliminates EVERYONE, or at least sterilizes them, and in time the streets will be much more safe and neat.
Rules for survivin hyd summers
By hyd_deepthi
May 9th, 2007 @ 11:24 AM Lifestyle
The heat is on…
Summers in our city can really be messy, unless you have a personal AC following you! Here are rules to break even that hot summer morning, noon.
1. There are many hawkers who sell coconut water, like the ones near necklace road, secundrabd station and so on. Make sure you drink one glass everyday.
2. Avoid family outing to ramoji city, sanghi nagar, hi-tech, shilparamam in the morning or noon. These places are pleasant in the evening.so; head out for them at the right time
3. Go for a movie if you want to prasads, pvr or sensation. The cool ac and the Telugu movie can make u sleep for a while.
4. I ask the people of the city to have makeshifts and put an earthen pot of water. Be it outside your gate, office or even a busstop.people can quench their thirst here.
5. Last but not the least, avoid going out in May. If is the hottest month of summer and hyd temperatures will rise above the normal. So, sit at home and read the blog, savor a mango or take a dip in the pool.But, do not take a dip in the sweat, heat and sultry summer
Dude it's an opportunity. You are a foreigner there. People LOVE foreigners no matter what they do. Trust me. I know.
Look at all the lovin & fluffin I get.
Plus it seems like a happenin town. Lots of young english speaking people working for these outsourcing outfits over there.
The thing about asking this question is that everyone I've asked gives me that exact same response I would have given to myself before I actually experienced this place - life's an adventure, only a moron would pass this one up, it'll be fun, etc. Now that I've experienced this place, however, I keep finding myself wanting to respond to those answers with "Yeah, but..."
Sexy really came the closest with his answers because it has been a really long, difficult year finding a bunch of people I like enough to call friends in the wake of the end of my marriage, and the thought of starting that process over in India, where it'll be a thousand times more difficult, does not leave me feeling terribly excited. I love knowing that any day of the week, I can find likeminded people to go for a ride, have a beer at the beach, or dress up like animals and terrorize the population of LA on freak bikes. There are no 'freaks' here and that's what is causing me to hesitate. Being the sole freak is only entertaining a small percentage of the time. I don't even need to dress up or ride a freak bike. Simply riding a bike at all is freaky enough to garner way more attention than any los angelopes/critical mass/C.R.A.N.K. mob ride could ever hope to. In fact, the one thing I'd love to actually see would be a genuine 100+ person C.R.A.N.K. Mob on the streets of Hyderabad. THAT would be a party worth seeing. They'd be talking about it here for months. And it probably would get people riding cause if there's one thing I've noticed about wealthy or educated people in poor countries - it is that they are quick to emulate anything that is perceived as fashionable in 'the west.'
So really, it isn't a question that can be answered by anyone other than myself. I'm still conflicted. I still don't know exactly what I'm going to do. My heart still says stay in LA and my head still says it will be more fun (or at least more interesting) than I think once I'm settled in. I imagine that the decider is really going to be what the company offers to sweeten the deal. If they'll guarantee me trips home and give me indian-style vacation days (5-6 weeks per year) so that I can actually take advantage of being here, that would go a long way toward making the decision easier.
Marino, I'm surprised you found a video of Indian stuntaz. I've only seen one bike over 250cc here, and that was a 1300cc Honda being ridden by a rich fat guy. None of the bikes I've seen could possibly wheelie. In fact, I'm faster than many of them when going up steep hills. The little 125cc engines they are riding just don't want to go uphill. I skitch rides off them, but more often than not, as soon as I grab on, the extra weight just overcomes the motor and it slows to a crawl. I have to listen for the sound of a passing 250 or larger and grab it as it passes me.
I really need to make a video of the traffic here. Itis nothing if not entertaining. My downhill ride to lunch this afternoon was crazy. I just need some duct tape or something so I can attach my camera to my helmet.
Thanks, Eddie. It helps when I see that others who have been here get where I am coming from. I really wanted to be able to see through all the negatives to the 'hidden beauty' that all the hippies and spiritualists want to believe exists here, and I have had some nice experiences here, but honestly, this place kind of sucks ass. The only question is whether it sucks ass enough to make me want to blow off the opportunity for adventure as well as a somewhat lucrative economic opportunity (I can save a lot when a 2 bedroom house with a chef, housecleaner, and a driver costs $700/month). The adventure opportunity is real. There is no question that I'll gain some stories when I start riding a motorcycle around this country and there's no doubt in my mind that I will devote some time to doing exactly that.
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