So I’ve been in Mumbai for about 3 months now. They say it takes that long to acclimate to a new job, I think the same can be said about getting used to a new place. Surprisingly, I’ve started to feel at home here. A lot of things that bothered me when I first moved here (pollution, heat, vegetarian food), I’ve pretty much gotten used to (alright I still sweat a lot a crave bacon).

Generally my life is pretty awesome.  I work my ass off (today was my 19th consecutive work day), but I like my job so it’s been cool. I’ve been doing a lot of recruitment flying around the country visiting the top business schools.  It’s great talking to the top students here, but grueling.  We’ve done about 400 interviews in the last 2 weeks and have about 300 more in the next week.  Intense.  Sometime soon I’m gonna write a post on things not to do in an interview (like repeatedly emphasize your dance skills, or force your interviewer to read 3 of your poems – true story).

I’ve met a lot of really good people, and go out whenever I can.  I’ve started pluggin’ into the Yahoo and Facebook Bombay expat groups though I haven’t attended any events yet.  Not sure how I feel about that whole scene (seems kinda weird  to come all the way to India to hang out with other “westerners”).

Sometimes I feel like a minor celebrity.  I went unannounced to the bank last week, introduced myself to the branch manager, his response, “yes I know who you are.”  Kinda creepy, though in my ‘hood there aren’t too many non-Indians around.

Anyone knows me knows my favorite thing is eating, followed closely by playing basketball.  I’ve been playing ball a few times a week and finally made the official Andheri West YMCA team!  We played in a tournament last week, where we won two games but lost in the quarter finals.  My first game we won easily against the Mumbai police (though as my dad warned: “beating the police team may have it’s own dangers”).  We then proceeded to get smoked by the Maharashtra Railway.  Apparently these guys “work” in the sports department, are recruited to the company cause of their athletic skills and get to play ball 8 hours a day (note to self: get a job at the railway).  We had a crowd of 100 or so people which was the biggest crowd I’ve played in front of.  I also got heckled a bit which is awesome (I’ve always wanted to be heckled).

Though I haven’t been studying as much as I should, my hindi is getting better.  I can at least pick out words in conversations and say really basic sentences (Hahm kab party jayenge?  When are we going to the party?)  It’s almost time for another poem…  Any time I try to say anything in Hindi people get a huge kick out of it (probably cause I make at least 3 mistakes).  My goal is to be able to tell a good joke and not only have people understand what I’m saying but also laugh, so far I’ve been wildly unsuccessful.

Finally I’ve decided to give back to the community and get involved in some sort of volunteer work.  I met with a group Atma, and in our conversation they randomly mentioned they want to start an after school basketball program close to where I live.  Perfect!  I can do that.  I’m meeting with some people next week to get it going.

I’ve been super busy but I think my time will free up soon.  I will continue to try and write weekly.  In case you don’t hear from me, you can always follow my alternate persona “the chef” at the other blog and twitter.

Till next time… main snanalay mein gatha hoon (I sing in the bathroom).