Super Paper Boy

Since the hotel only has one desk, which is dominated by my hubby's laptop, etc, I am using a glass coffee table as my desk. And, I moved it close to the window, so that I can do people watching while I wait for Farmville to load up, etc :)
Anyway, throughout the day, I was hearing several people passing by on bicycles calling "Paper, paper" (well, actually it sounds more like peeeehpat, but anyway...  I thought they were selling papers at first, but the closer I looked the more I realized that they were up to something else.

So, one day I decided to watch one boy more closely. Luckily someone from the house opposite from our hotel called him over. Apparently those are the people collecting the unneeded paper goods. This particular boy, who looked like he might be 14 or something, went into the gate. The guy started to drag lots of cardboard from the house onto the ground in front of him. He very efficiently started to fold them. There were at least 20 or so boxes, but this boy accomplished the folding in less than 3 mins. I know how hard it is to fold cardboard, but I could tell that he was professional!

He also separated the plastic bags very efficiently. He loaded a pile of plastic bags first to his bike and put them into one of the bags that were hanging on the side of his bike. Then he loaded a pile of folded cardboard on the backside of his bike - again very efficiently tied them down on the bike. The whole thing only took him about 5-6 minutes.  And he paid some money to the guy (or at least I think he was) and took off.  I guess he will go somewhere and sell the cardboard for more money. I wonder what the margin is like :)

I felt like a paparacci, but I had to capture this super paper boy. :-)
I was SOOOO impressed. I think some IT companies can definitely hire someone like that to streamline some of the processes :)

Food cheap, Alcohol EXPENSIVE!

There seem to be a bunch of cheap restaurants here, which unfortunately I have not been to yet, but even at fancy restaurants on 100ft Road in Indiranagar, food dishes are relatively cheap compared to alcohol. Yesterday we went to a restaurant called Sunny's, which we thought was one of the best restaurants so far in Bangalore. Ambiance was good, service was better than usual, and food was excellent. Anyway, even at famous restaurant like Sunny's, most of the dishes range between 150 and 400 Rupees (maybe except some seafood dishes). It means, you can fill yourself up with nice meal for $3 to $8!  BUT, if you drink, it is another story. Alcohol is expensive. An imported glass of red was approx 500 Rupees (like $10). So, if you drink two glasses of wine, you end up adding $20 to your bill.  Boom!

On the topic of alcohol, till I came to India, I always thought the alcohol was a big no-no here. But, I found out that quite many people actually drink. According to this article, nearly 30-35% of adult men and 5% of women are regular consumers of alcohol in India. And, the youngest age allowed to consume alcohol has changed from 28 in 1980 to 18 in 2010. And, according to this article, in the state of Kerala, it was 14 in 1994!  

Sidewalks that people cannnot walk

Here in Bangalore, you would immediately notice that lots of sidewalks are either torn up or dug up. It looks as if a massive earthquake hit only the sidewalks. It's sad since the sidewalks are there, but people cannot use them. Most people end up walking 10cm away from the running car on the street... :(

We are currently staying in the area called Indiranagar, which is a hip and up-coming part of Bangalore. If I would map Bangalore to LA, Indiranagar is like Melrose of Bangalore. There are lots of hip and nice restaurants and stores (and rather youngish).

BUT!!.... What's significantly different from Melrose is that the scenery in front of stores is not that nice. All the sidewalks are torn up, and there is garbage here and there.

Only If, ONLY IF the government can spend a little bit more effort to fix the sidewalks and do something about the garbage, Indiranagar would become perfectly beautiful. I wonder if there are any foundations or organizations supporting such efforts here in Bangalore.