After the IBM Extreme Blue Expo in Bangalore on July 26^th, I’ll be homeless for the next few weeks. I plan on exploring Bangalore for a few days along with my coworker Vikas. Afterwards, Vikas and I are flying up to Delhi. He’s heading back to his college near Rishikesh. I am keen on purchasing a sitar while in Delhi. If I could somehow afford a Rikhi Ram sitar, like the ones The Beatles purchased while touring India, I would be thrilled. This would be my present from India for myself! I spent the other day in Pune wandering around MG Road and found a small music shop on East Road and spent an hour playing their sitars. What can I say, I’m a sucker for musical instruments. I purchased a how to play sitar book and a Ravi Shankar – “A creative Genius” cd at another store. I’m hooked on sitar!

After Delhi, I’ll head to Agra to see the Taj and then on to Mathura-Brindavan. I’m then going to tour the Valley of the Flowers, starting first in Rishikesh which is on the Ganges River. From there I’ll head to Joshimath, Govindghat, and Ghangariya before entering the Valley of the Flowers. I’ll finish up my tour by heading to Hemkund, Auli, and Hardiwar. Once back in Delhi, I’ll head up to the Himalayas and see Manali’s Rohtang Pass, Manikaran, and then back to Chandigarh to catch a flight to Mumbai. From Mumbai, it’s onwards to London to see my parents for a week and I’ll head back to New York a week later. After getting back home in Pennsylvania, I’ll drive up to Cleveland, Ohio to see Kathryn (who I miss) and then I’ll start school two days later. I’m bracing myself for quite a journey.

Blue SLadgets took first place in “Innovation Wiz” the other week. Many teams, mostly fulltime employees, presented their work to a panel of judges. We have been putting an extraordinary amount of work into our project. As of this week, we have well over 7,000 lines of code which the three of us have completed in less than a month and a half. Adding to this achievement is that we all were working with technologies and languages none of us have ever used before and we are submitting a second possible patent disclosure this week. We have been putting a lot of time into the project lately.

Our presentation was great. We showcased both the technical and business achievements our project has achieved and then went on to show a live working demo. The demo was to connect some embedded prototype hardware boards over the network and have them be controlled by Second Life objects through our Blue SLadgets framework. That is, we had light switches in Second Life controlling light bulbs in real life and vice versa. It was very impressive and received many questions and compliments! We received first place overall and was the only team to receive two awards, the second award was for the “most innovative idea.”

Between our team, the most impressive “innovation” was in our presentation setup. We rigged up a projector on top of a spare trash can, a server, and a stack of papers and projected onto some white papers taped to the wall. The wires, switches, and blinking LEDS from the hardware setup were sprayed everywhere…it was quite a site.

We’re all excited to head to Bangalore this week. We will be presenting our project to many executives and demoing the hardware setup again as well. This will mark the conclusion of our summer and we’re proud of what we have accomplished.

My coworkers, Debdutta and Harish, both headed back to Hyderbad two weekends ago and I tagged along for the ride. It was a 10 hour ride from Pune, but I can’t say I remember any part of it other than waking up to find the bus had run off the road and then falling back asleep again. We arrived in Hyderabad on Saturday morning around 10am and Deb and Harish found a rickshaw driver for me and headed on their way. Harish was heading back to his college, IIT, to find a job. Deb was home to visit his parents.

My rickshaw driver found me a cheap hotel just south of the Abids district – Hotel Pearl City – for only 400 rupees a night (about $10 USD). I then went over to Salarjung Museum. The artifacts span many centuries of Indian history and various mediums and include some rare items from around the world. The ivory carvings were simply unbelievable in their intricate detail. The “Veiled Rebecca” marble statue was remarkable. Never has a rock looked so lifelike. The main attraction was actually a large clock. Over a half an hour before each hour, a large crowd of Indians – both young and old, begins to gather around in a large atrium area. Three minutes to each hour, a small man pops out of a door and then right before the hour he strikes the hours on a gong. I was fortunate to catch this performance at noon. Minutes afterwards, the crowd filed back into the various rooms and the woodsman inside the clock continued to beat the anvil announcing every second.

After exploring the museum for some time, I walked over to Charminar. It is a beautiful building that reminded me much of the styles Kathryn and I saw in Cairo as it was constructed in an Islamic style. Hyderbad’s building architectures struck me as much different than most of what I have seen in India. I wandered throughout Laad Bazaar until I was lost in the bangles and found my way into various shops. I met the artists who created the tiny necklaces and earrings that filled all the shops. The speed at which they worked was astounding, and never ending.

Later that night, I took my first Indian bus ride. This is no New York City bus stop system. In fact, my bus didn’t really stop at all. It slowed down and a group of five of us began chasing it and jumping onboard. The bus was half full when I got on, but minutes later it was packed. A man gave me a ticket and I gave him my 5 rupees fare. I asked around if anyone knew where the Tank Bund road stop was and a man next told me he would let me know when to get off. When my stop arrived, I had to fight to the front of the bus and jump off. It was fun!

I read that Tank Bund Road was an excellent spot at night to catch a glimpse of the Buddha statue erected in Hussain Sagar lake. The huge 24km lake is entirely man made and the Buddha statue was beautifully lit up at night. I sat on the bench and relaxed for an hour.

Finding a rickshaw willing to head over to Banjara Hills was a bit hard, but eventually I made it over. I ate at a nice restaurant and had sushi and a few drinks and then headed back to the hotel. I called Kathryn and then promptly passed out.

I spent Sunday exploring Golconda Fort and Qutub tomb. It is simply amazing to see the rich history India has. I didn’t get to see all of the area around Charminar so I headed back and explored many of the side streets. No big purchases or real reasons for being there other than just exploring. I met some professors while at a mosque and we had conversations about India and the US. Oh, and of course, I made sure to have some Hyderabad Biryani! Very tasty! I met Deb Sunday night and we caught the midnight Volvo back to Pune. We got back and then promptly headed to work that morning.

Up until this last week we would loose power every time it rains. Not just our house, but nearly the entire Kalyani Nagar region. The power outages usually lasted a few minutes but many were for an hour, with a few lasting up to six hours or more. My roommates and I have watched nearly every movie in the theater because it is really the only thing to do when the power goes out! The worst is when there is no power in the morning because that means no hot showers. I have adjusted to cold showers though.

One time we realized the power was out at home so we decided to just camp at the office. We finished a large part of our project by 6am, returned home, slept, and then returned to the office later that afternoon. These past couple days the power has been fairly consistent during the evenings. My roommates told me these lengthy power outages were pretty uncommon while at their colleges and they were surprised how often it was occurring here in Pune.

There were news stories of large floods in Mumbai last weekend and even some deaths here in Pune due to collapsed walls. We have had quite a bit of rain but overall the roads aren’t terribly bad other than being muddy and occasionally slightly flooded. On the way back from work in Hadapsar to Kalyani Nagar the other day, we experienced a slight transportation failure. Our rickshaw’s wheel fell off! It was a new experience for all of us. We heard a loud THUD followed by a scratching sound as our rickshaw skidded to a stop. The axel on the front wheel had literally snapped and cars, bikes, and busses honked as they flew around our disabled rickshaw. The roads were very muddy and it was dark but we decided it would be best to just start walking home. Luckily, we caught a new rickshaw after 10 minutes. Pretty funny!

It has only been a few days since monsoon really has started. We were up in Alibaug last weekend and we saw some really heavy storms while at the beach. Deb and I decide to walk across the sandbar in waste deep water for about a kilometer to an island which had a small fort on it. Unfortunately, the island was surrounded by sharp rocks so we decided to head back. On the trip back, the water was now up to our chests and we saw the sky was darkening because of a storm. We quickened our pace and got out of the water just as it began to rain. We had gola (flavored shaved ice), fresh coconut milk, and roasted corn with lime and chili powder salt. Then, we had a large vegetarian meal at a nearby restaurant. When we got back to the beach, the ocean was choppy and the sky was dark. We learned that a group of five people who had attempted to walk across the sandbar to the island had gotten stuck in the storm. Four were rescued but the fifth, a twenty year old girl, had drowned and her body was missing.

We drove next to Bhushi Dam, where above the dam are a couple beautiful waterfalls. I took many pictures and we all explored the area. Vikas noted that more people were looking at me than the dam. I guess I still stick out a bit. The rain caught up with us and I was caught with my unprotected camera in a fierce rainfall. We made it to a small tin covered outdoor restaurant and had Masala tea and snacks while the wind howled and the rain swept away the tourists. I tried my best to cover my camera, but it was no use. It stopped working and my heart sunk. When we got back to the van, I dried it off and decided to just keep the battery out and hope for the best once it dried. We drove back home, stopping on the way to try the famous Chikki (like peanut brittle) and delicious fudge.

When I got back, the first thing I wanted to do was call Kathryn since I kept missing her calls and she kept missing mine. I fired up my computer, logged in and…no internet? Hmm, the modem must have flaked out during a power outage I’ll reset…where the hell is it? Oh god. It’s gone. I asked our caretaker where it was and he told me the landlord had taken it away because the bill was unpaid. I was upset but it was pretty much all my fault. I paid the bill in cash because they said it was acceptable on the payment form. What I didn’t realize, and I know this was foolish, was that I placed the envelope with the cash in the Airtel bill drop box. My money has gone missing since then, most likely pocketed by a very appreciative drop box mailman. I’m so foolish. If I only had a checking account at the time, none of this would have happened.

I explained the situation to the landlord and made amends with him, but it was a battle with Airtel. I just want my internet back, but it is not so simple as to drop by, pay the bill, and get a modem. No…nothing can be that simple here. It has been days of trying to meet with the Airtel store boss who keeps telling us to come back the next day, only for him to not show up. It was incredibly frustrating, but after a few days it was worked out. I even enabled GPRS on my cellphone which, at only about 30 cents a day, is even fast enough to allow skype conversations on my laptop – without video, of course.

The really good news is my camera started working again. From now on, I will carry a small plastic bag to wrap it in if it starts raining. That should be a lightweight and hopefully somewhat effective solution. I’m still concerned about the high humidity but nothing is going to stop me from taking pictures!