Photos from my visit to Sun’s Bangalore IEC campus.
Category Archives: India
Rajdhani Thali: Great Food, Great Price
Last day of shopping in Delhi, Ross and I still had presents to buy, and it had been impossible to get the neo-graduates out of bed at a reasonable hour. So we found ourselves facing a line of state emporiums that were mostly closed for lunch. After a few minutes’ glance around one or two that were still open, we decided to head to Connaught Place to find some lunch for ourselves.
We struck it lucky: right on the corner was Rajdhani Thali, which looked clean and appealing, and proved to be very good.
It’s a set meal (which I suppose varies with the day and season), at a fixed lunchtime price of Rs. 168 (about $4) each. After you sit down, a man comes around with a ewer and washbasin so you can wash your hands (because you’re going to be eating with them!).
Then the thali – a big, stainless-steel tray – is brought out, empty, with some empty little bowls which are soon filled up by waiters making constant rounds. And they just keep coming, offering various dishes, seconds of whatever you want, and a variety of Indian breads fresh off the griddle. The style is Gujarathi and Rajasthani, not too spicy for most Western palates. I had no idea what most of it was, but it was all delicious (and strictly vegetarian).
As is usual for Indian restaurants, service was excellent.
Rajdhani Thali is a chain throughout India (and in Dubai). Highly recommended, wherever you happen to find one!
Bollywood, Bangalore
One of my reasons for coming to Bangalore was to work with the Sun Cluster team here on some short films. They had great ideas (no, I’m not going to tell you what they were – don’t want to spoil the fun before the films are edited and released), loads of enthusiasm, and the talent to back it all up.
This was my first attempt to direct anything: usually I just film what’s in front of me as best I can. I’m not sure they really needed me to do it, either, except perhaps as a catalyst. Now that the ball is rolling, I suspect the team will find inspiration to make plenty more films on their own.
Just call me Farah Khan, without the choreographic talents.
It was a privilege and a blast to work with these folks. Once we release these films, we’ll issue a company-wide challenge: I’d like to see whether any other team at Sun can do as well!
The Streets of Bangalore
I did not get a chance to see any of Bangalore’s tourist sights this trip (I vaguely remember having seen them back in 1980, when I went on Woodstock’s Winter Tour all over India). But I did get out and about a bit, sadly on my own since I didn’t have any travelling companions this time. What I mostly observed was traffic and street life. Which, as usual, had its own interests…
I saw a number of these elaborately airbrush-painted buses, which I guess to be privately-owned lines running fixed routes to the suburbs. “Air Bus” means air-conditioned.
The scenes painted on some invoked coolness, including one (that I did not manage to photograph) incongruously featuring penguins.
^ I assume this bus is reserved for women passengers only.
^ This is a trend I did not see in Delhi: elaborate advertising on auto rickshaws.
^ A family of three on one moped, all sans helmets.
^ These construction workers did have helmets, which wouldn’t help much if they got mowed down by a bus when crossing a busy intersection against the light.
^ Many women in Bangalore wear jasmine in their hair, a charming custom. Many of them ride motorcycles without helmets, perhaps for fear of having helmet-jasmine.
^ “Precaution is better than treatment”, indeed.
^Trying to direct all the mayhem: traffic police in jaunty white hats.
^ Ignoring it all: street dogs who’ve found an uncommonly soft spot for themselves.
Inside Sun IEC
In my visits to various Sun campuses, I enjoy comparing and contrasting Sun lifestyles worldwide.
Sun’s India Engineering Center (IEC) occupies most of the Divya Shree Chambers building off Langford Road in Bangalore. Lunch (always a major preoccupation with me) is provided at the 5th-floor canteen, which gets very crowded around 12:45. There’s a buffet of Indian food for Rs. 25 (about 60 cents US)…
or you can order a wide selection of vegetarian sandwiches and fresh fruit, including a fruit chaat plate – diced seasonal fruit lightly seasoned with spices (so lightly, in fact, that I couldn’t really detect the spices over the amazing flavors of the fruit itself).
This is mango season, so I’ve been eating mangoes every chance I get. The poor, pale things we get in the US and Europe are only very distant reminders of what a really good mango can be. Makes coming to India in the hot season worthwhile!
To give you an idea, this is a selection of three different types of mangoes that I bought in Delhi, including the famous Alfonsos (yellow, in front). The large yellow thing on the right is a papaya, the stripey things are melons.
The Sun break rooms have a great selection of teas, including elaichi (cardamom), masala (what Americans call chai spice), and ginger. Plus a selection of other hot drinks – cocoa, instant coffee, and flavored mixes that I haven’t quite understood yet.
There’s a machine dispensing hot water and hot milk to mix these with. There is also brewed coffee, brewed south Indian style. Umm… Sorry, I’m not a coffee snob, but i just can’t get used to this stuff. I’ll make do with instant.
As with most establishments of any sort in India, Sun’s offices have a lot of support staff – labor is cheap here, and people need jobs. There are men in the break rooms to brew the coffee, ensure constant supplies of everything, and wash the cups (a much more eco-friendly practice than the disposable ones used at US offices). They also come around periodically to collect cups that people have carried back to their desks. All the work areas get thoroughly dusted every morning before people arrive (I know because I arrived early yesterday). This is in sharp contrast to Broomfield, where I have to dust my desk every time I go back there.
