12.14.06, 1:50pm – CTS Offices, Chennai, India.

I just had lunch with Senthil. He seems nice. He was explaining cricket to me. I managed to get a feel for the game while watching it early this morning (the England vs. Australia Ashes series) but Senthil filled in some of the gaps. We ate at the restaurant on the ground floor of the office building. I had beef marsala. It was pretty good. I regretted getting the beef though. The meat was of questionable quality. At least it was cooked to death. I bit into a pepper at one point that was freakin’ hot. Luckily the heat didn’t last long, but it did make me hiccup. That’s a first. I’ve heard of people hiccupping from hot food but that’s the first time it’s happened to me.

Senthil is nice. He lives in Chennai with his mom and cousin. He commutes by motorcycle (7km to the office). If the traffic is bad it takes him 45 minutes to go 7km. That’s crazy slow. He has a bachelor’s in math and a master’s in computer applications. I guess that’s why he has this cush job as a QA grunt. I wonder if he feels like his talents are being wasted? I’ll try to keep him busy with some technical stuff to keep him occupied.

The elevator in the building is crazy. It’s all old school style with the two sliding doors you have to slide by hand. An outer door that is baffled and an inner door that is the standard metal diamond lattice (I’m sure my wife knows the correct technical name for it) you see in the old movies. Anyway, the elevator is tiny and, um, doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence. The emergency light is just an empty socket. I thought about taking a picture of that. It’s a good example of a pretty typical sight. Everything here seems to be rundown. It’s hard to believe anything was ever new. The buildings look like they’re going to collapse and everything is so dirty. My hotel is really the only exception. I think I will take a break later this afternoon and go snap some pictures outside. Western tourism on display. Screw it.

When I walked past later there was laundry hanging on a line in front of the building.

This place is next door to the one above.

Back to work.

---Eric