Meet the coworkers

Today was my first day in the office, and I basically spent it getting to know my coworkers here: Purnima (who I met previously in the US), Sujoy (who I also previously met), Pallavi, Mayuri, Pranita, Hari, Biswaroop, Nitesh, Brijesh, Ashwini, Abu, Indranil, Harshada, and Uma (ha! that was from memory.) In short, they are all fantastic. The day flew by, and I really just got to know them and tried to spend some time with them as they worked to answer some of their pent-up and incidental questions. Tomorrow I will again "play the field," but I will also spend some time giving a training on online data set-up and processing, as most of the studies that they have seen so far have been ones where the interviews were conducted door-to-door, which has a different format than we receive when the interviews are online. Anyway, enough shop talk, but that's the plan.

We went out to lunch together to a nice buffet restaurant, and the highlight for me was not only the authentic naan (just like what I get on Devon, which makes me even happier to live so near to Little India), but also a dish called "Veg. Diana," which nobody else recognized either, but as far as I could tell consisted of mixed veggies (carrots, peas, green beans) in a creamy sauce with rosewater in it. It was fragrant and delicious. Of course, the 4 different desserts I tried weren't bad, either. :) On the way out of the restaurant, I got to try some breath freshening sweets/herbs (not sure what exactly they were, but sort of like a handful of small candy/seeds...Sujoy didn't know what they were either, just that he liked them) -- these were really nice as well. On the way back from lunch, our black & yellow cab took us past Mahalaxmi racecourse, which is situated near Mahalaxmi temple, a landmark of the city and, as Hari told me, what some Hindu faithful believe is the reason why Mumbai is India's financial capital (Mahalaxmi is the goddess of wealth.)

Other interesting tidbits:

• Brijesh informed me today that it's typical for a man to order for both himself and his female companion in a restaurant -- this explains some awkwardness with waithers that I've detected when Mark and I have dined out together
• Hari was interested in why I am a vegetarian because the idea of a vegetarian-by-choice is pretty rare here -- he said that the large number of non-meat-eaters here is mainly accounted for by tradition and culture, not personal conviction
• Among my coworkers, only one, Nitesh, is a native Hindi speaker. He is from Delhi, which is in the northern part of India, where Hindi is spoken most purely. Everyone else teases him that his Hindi is so pure that they can hardly understand it, as they are used to central-to-south Indian Hindi, which is largely mixed with other languages like Marathi, English, etc. The rest are native Marathi, Bengali, Tamil, and Malayalam speakers, although their English is also excellent, as evidenced by their responses of comprehension when I can't help but lapse into a bit of slang.