… bangalore IT blues
Last few days I’ve had the Bangalore IT blues. This is what you get when you are in a cramped sweaty cubicle in 100 degree heat, hoping that the power doesn’t cut out, thankful you are on a laptop with full batteries so that when the power does cut all that will happen is that the lights and the fan will turn off, cutting computer code for someone 5 timezones away, losing complete track of time, space, the fullness of your bladder and the emptiness of your stomach.
This all started with what might have been disasterous … or at least embarassing. Someone I’d built a site for last year had fairly urgent requests for a couple of changes/extensions/fixes, and emailed me four days ago.
I’m currently esconced in TVG’s music school, a sedate musical monastery. It took a while to find an internet cafe that would let me plug my own machine in … most cafes won’t, and the reasons you get back are pretty unclear … they range from ‘The machines are fixed down’ (read:’I dont know how’) to ‘The government records each machine and wont let me’ (even though your government registered machine is running an illegal copy of windows) to ‘I think your machine is insecure’ (even though yours dont have any antiviral software or firewalls). India is not a good place to come if you like straight answers. I’ve been enjoying the craziness, and have found a local crew (Elite internet) who will let me plug in. Ah the joys of broadband. It’s like driving a ferrari after a few weeks of using the mobile dialup connection I’ve got (which though slow, should work all the way up to the himalayas). Luxury. Almost as decadent as western coffee.
So the job got done (touch wood), and the new company motto: have mobile connection and laptop, will deliver anywhere in the world. Mobile Zaibatsu Moi!
Actually these are the Chennai IT blues. Chennai is probably the second largest IT and world back office hub in the country after bangalore. If you have a call centre issue or a piece of cheap code written half way round the world, chances are still that it was written or answered in clean, green, clean, and cosmopolitan Bangalore … but Chennai is catching up quick.
