Today we mark our sixth weekend past landing Kolkata. Things have certainly cooled down a lot. We did NOT have to get up get ready and go somewhere to complete some job. Although we still don't have a gas connection and managing to cook in 2 induction heaters (see what is an induction heater here) quite efficiently. Pramod is even taking a nap right now because we discovered that most of the shops remain closed during after noon hours in Kolkata.In any case, it just feels good that we are self sufficient now after working through it for almost 6 weeks now. We have so far got some utensils for induction cooking, managed to get good drinking water delivered, a maid clean our house every day morning, a milk man deliver milk, a paper wallah for news papers, an istriwallh (man who irons the cloths) press our clothes, electrician, plumber to take care of daily complaints, watchmen for miscellaneous jobs.
For house, we have either already got the furniture or ordered the furniture that are at various stages of delivery. Here, the problem with furniture is, you have to go and order it one day and they will deliver it atleast after 15 days. But the assembly will take place some other time. So, it takes 3 sessions minimum to get a furniture to your home. It is another thing if your furniture is not what you saw in the showroom. Same thing happened with our bed. For the second time after assembly we realized that the bed is of smaller size. In this case, you call them after assembly, they will send someone to dismantle it. That weill happen on one day and another person will come another day to pick that up. So, altogether 5 iterations for a faulty furniture. For our bed, we have this done twice already - meas we still have 0 bed status but have gone through 10 iterations. Cutting short my cribbing, let me tell you now what we have got so far. We have got a table, a chaste with drawers, a bookself, a dining table, a living room furniture, center table, dining table, a ward robe and a mattress in our house. Two chairs for office are delivered but not assembled yet. So, that makes it already 25 +10=35 sessions for these. The remaining things like a sofa set, a bed, another ward robe is what we are waiting for now. We also have a refrigerator, washing machine, induction heaters purchased. I forgot to mention, the mother of all, that is a Tata Indigo car is bought yesterday!! Waiting for a driver. So, looks like not bad at all. We came to this house on August 8th and in about 23 days all these incredible amount of work has been done by Pramod. Our gas is also approved, we only have to go pay and collect it. The last things in this lot is to get our shipping (cargo that we packed from US) handed us over soon. That is a very complicated procedure, I will write about it in my next blog post.
In my office front also a lot has been done. May be some people will laugh if I detail all that, because we all assume that everything should have been done by the appropriate people before I even landed, but sadly that is not how it works here. You have to struggle and get things done all by yourself. Here is what I consider a great feet that has been done in my lab in last 6 weeks:
1. Got my official id
2. Set up my email id
3. Set up my personal web page up.
4. Got my start up money approved by director.
5. Started placing quotations.
6. Already bought a microscope and got the payment paper work done for it.
7. Got my medical card.
8. Got a data card for browsing.
9. Got an office to sit.
10. Got my medical test done.
11. Got some furnitures via donation(I am not entitled to furnitures here since we are moving to salt lake office soon)
12. Got a printer.
13. This weekend actually they are painting my room.
14. Co-wrote 2 grant proposals.
15. Participated in CSIR networking projects.
16. Interviewed Ph.D students
17. Inducted for teaching bioinformatics to graduate students.
18. Started getting emails from a number prospective students.
19. Working on another major grant.
20. Working on remaining set of start up budget.
21. Got my DBT money released(spoke to meenakshi munshi and her PA couple of times already)
22. Opened an account in a public sector bank (It is a big deal if you are dealing with State Bank of India - they are all paranoid about address proof).
There may be many more things that I did and don't remember right now to include. So, this looks to me as super productivity. Although there are hindrances, I am actually making progress!! Now I am feeling good that I have summarized all these as it goes.
The system may be complicated and difficult to follow, but once you get a hang of it, it is a piece of cake. Now, the canteen man does not give a scornful look. He actually chooses the bowl with more curry and puts in my plate:-)
To work, I used to take a taxi before, but now we take a cycle ricksaw till the main road and from there I walk about half kilometers and get a shared auto and then get down about 1/2 km from office and walk on the pedestrian path to office. When I compare the day we landed and today, I feel a lot of difference in our perspective. First day the road seemed crammed with pedestrians, auto, taxi, cars, old buses. But now they don't appear as such. They appear as people whom you may know. Even the roads sometimes appear empty(If you are there before 9 AM). I think space and cleanliness is a relative term. If you come from USA and land in Kolkata, it may appear very dirty, crowded, but if you come from say Mumbai, this may appear as a piece of cake (Sorry can't give a better example because don't know a place dirtier than t his). Now, I am at peace with the crowd, the dust, smoke and have adapted to carrying a handkerchief on my nose and walk. Even the homeless people staying on the pavements appear very familiar since I see them everyday. One of them stays near the auto ricksaw stop. He is actually a very clean guy and has a very healthy street dog as his companion. Many times I have seen him keeping a nice clean bowl of water for his companion and buying some biscuits. One day even I saw him sitting by his dog that was taking a deep carefree sleep on the pavement . The homeless man covered his dog very carefully with his only belonging - a bedsheet. A perfectly harmonious relationship they shared....
For house, we have either already got the furniture or ordered the furniture that are at various stages of delivery. Here, the problem with furniture is, you have to go and order it one day and they will deliver it atleast after 15 days. But the assembly will take place some other time. So, it takes 3 sessions minimum to get a furniture to your home. It is another thing if your furniture is not what you saw in the showroom. Same thing happened with our bed. For the second time after assembly we realized that the bed is of smaller size. In this case, you call them after assembly, they will send someone to dismantle it. That weill happen on one day and another person will come another day to pick that up. So, altogether 5 iterations for a faulty furniture. For our bed, we have this done twice already - meas we still have 0 bed status but have gone through 10 iterations. Cutting short my cribbing, let me tell you now what we have got so far. We have got a table, a chaste with drawers, a bookself, a dining table, a living room furniture, center table, dining table, a ward robe and a mattress in our house. Two chairs for office are delivered but not assembled yet. So, that makes it already 25 +10=35 sessions for these. The remaining things like a sofa set, a bed, another ward robe is what we are waiting for now. We also have a refrigerator, washing machine, induction heaters purchased. I forgot to mention, the mother of all, that is a Tata Indigo car is bought yesterday!! Waiting for a driver. So, looks like not bad at all. We came to this house on August 8th and in about 23 days all these incredible amount of work has been done by Pramod. Our gas is also approved, we only have to go pay and collect it. The last things in this lot is to get our shipping (cargo that we packed from US) handed us over soon. That is a very complicated procedure, I will write about it in my next blog post.
In my office front also a lot has been done. May be some people will laugh if I detail all that, because we all assume that everything should have been done by the appropriate people before I even landed, but sadly that is not how it works here. You have to struggle and get things done all by yourself. Here is what I consider a great feet that has been done in my lab in last 6 weeks:
1. Got my official id
2. Set up my email id
3. Set up my personal web page up.
4. Got my start up money approved by director.
5. Started placing quotations.
6. Already bought a microscope and got the payment paper work done for it.
7. Got my medical card.
8. Got a data card for browsing.
9. Got an office to sit.
10. Got my medical test done.
11. Got some furnitures via donation(I am not entitled to furnitures here since we are moving to salt lake office soon)
12. Got a printer.
13. This weekend actually they are painting my room.
14. Co-wrote 2 grant proposals.
15. Participated in CSIR networking projects.
16. Interviewed Ph.D students
17. Inducted for teaching bioinformatics to graduate students.
18. Started getting emails from a number prospective students.
19. Working on another major grant.
20. Working on remaining set of start up budget.
21. Got my DBT money released(spoke to meenakshi munshi and her PA couple of times already)
22. Opened an account in a public sector bank (It is a big deal if you are dealing with State Bank of India - they are all paranoid about address proof).
There may be many more things that I did and don't remember right now to include. So, this looks to me as super productivity. Although there are hindrances, I am actually making progress!! Now I am feeling good that I have summarized all these as it goes.
The system may be complicated and difficult to follow, but once you get a hang of it, it is a piece of cake. Now, the canteen man does not give a scornful look. He actually chooses the bowl with more curry and puts in my plate:-)
To work, I used to take a taxi before, but now we take a cycle ricksaw till the main road and from there I walk about half kilometers and get a shared auto and then get down about 1/2 km from office and walk on the pedestrian path to office. When I compare the day we landed and today, I feel a lot of difference in our perspective. First day the road seemed crammed with pedestrians, auto, taxi, cars, old buses. But now they don't appear as such. They appear as people whom you may know. Even the roads sometimes appear empty(If you are there before 9 AM). I think space and cleanliness is a relative term. If you come from USA and land in Kolkata, it may appear very dirty, crowded, but if you come from say Mumbai, this may appear as a piece of cake (Sorry can't give a better example because don't know a place dirtier than t his). Now, I am at peace with the crowd, the dust, smoke and have adapted to carrying a handkerchief on my nose and walk. Even the homeless people staying on the pavements appear very familiar since I see them everyday. One of them stays near the auto ricksaw stop. He is actually a very clean guy and has a very healthy street dog as his companion. Many times I have seen him keeping a nice clean bowl of water for his companion and buying some biscuits. One day even I saw him sitting by his dog that was taking a deep carefree sleep on the pavement . The homeless man covered his dog very carefully with his only belonging - a bedsheet. A perfectly harmonious relationship they shared....
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