Jet Lagged in Delhi

It's Thursday morning and I write this from my desk in the Rhythm NewMedia office in Gurgaon, India. Gurgaon is a city of some 1.3 million that was simply a small village less than 10 years ago. For the class of high-tech workers that I am traveling with, there are gated apartment communities, large luxury malls, and large office towers that could just as well be in France, the UK or the US. Right beside all of this in Gurgaon is a great deal of poverty. This is the constant paradox of India as it rises into the global economy. And infrastructure is pretty bad-- the traffic jams to get around between places here and in nearby Delhi are pretty wacky.

I went with an American colleague and an Indian Colleague on some sightseeing yesterday. We went to a brand new Hindu temple, which was a sort of religious-themed Disneyland, and we went to New Delhi, which is the part of the city that was built by the British, and so has broad avenues and a beautiful colonial feel to it. The head of Rhythm's India office hired a car for us to do this. For the first time in my life I am in a place where I genuinely feel that I would crack if I had to do something as simple as find a place to eat lunch or hire a taxi. The cultural gap is wide for me.

But things are interesting, and I am working in a large, airy office with colleagues through next week. On Saturday we will go as a group to Agra and the Taj Mahal.