Geoff Arnold's Blog – Page 175 – Blogging on and off since 2003

Touring Hyderabad

I spent six hours today seeing some of the sights of Hyderabad. I have to say that I was blown away: it’s a fabulous city. (This will seem unfair to my colleagues in Pune; after all, I never had an opportunity to get a similar tour of their city. Next time, I hope.) Everywhere you turn are broad avenues, elegant domes, and statuary.

The highlights follow; unfortunately in some places photography was not permitted:

Sri Venkateshwara Temple. A symphony in white marble, providing a wonderful view over the city as well as a moment of peaceful – albeit alien – ritual.
A drive through the Bergum Bazaar and the old city to see the Chaminar, an exquisitely-proportioned four-square tower.
The Salar Jung Museum. This is a huge, rambling, eclectic, confusing, and ultimately wonderful museum, based on the private collector of a former Prime Minister who devoted himself to art during the first half of the 20th century. There’s something for everyone there. Obviously there’s Indian art: painting, carvings, ivory, jade, manuscripts, fabrics, metalwork, pottery, bronze sculpture, furniture, weapons, toys, and even wildlife (stuffed). But there are also collections of art from around the world. There’s a French room, with one of the nicest Bouguereau’s I’ve ever seen, entitled Biblis. There’s a wonderful collection of (mostly French) clocks. There are excellent collections of Japanese and Chinese art and artefacts. It’s fantastic, it’s overwhelming – after 75 minutes my head was full, so I bought a VCD (video CD) film about the collection, and fled.
Golconda. The name itself sounds magical. As soon as I knew I was visiting Hyderabad, I was determined to see the ruins of this legendary fortress and palace. Here’s my guide, showing the map of the complex.

We went up the main path to the pavilion at the top of the fortress, then descended the steep King’s Path into the palace complex. We spent about an hour altogether, stopping to hydrate and take in the details. I took lots of pictures; eventually I’ll put together a decent gallery. For now, here’s a view from the top looking down on the palace.
From Golconda we drove 3 kilometres to the Grand Qutub Shaha Tombs complex, where the kings and queens that ruled Hyderabad and Golconda in the 16th and 17th centuries are buried. I was starting to feel the heat a little (around 90F), so rather than exploring the whole site I asked my guide to show me around the tomb of Hayat Bakshi Begum (that’s me in front of it),

and then we just sat and talked for half an hour, about the tombs around us, and about each other. He was a nice guy, a college student, aspiring to be a Chartered Accountant.

And at that point I was ready for a shower and a long cold drink, so we returned to the hotel. Of course as soon as I entered my room, the power went off, so rather than showering in the dark I started work on this blog entry. Since the power is now restored, I shall post it and head off to get clean.

A final note on traffic

I’ve uploaded some pictures, and a short (1.1MB) video clip, of my commute to the office in Pune and a little bit of the ride from Hyderabad Airport to my hotel respectively. Quality is lousy – this is from the camera in my Treo – but never mind. Enjoy.

Day 6

Travel day. My original itinerary would have meant that I spent all day at Mumbai Airport, but thanks to colleagues in Pune I found myself booked on a direct flight to Hyderabad. This represented yet another “first”: my first flight on Air Sahara. The equipment was a Canadair CRJ, ex-Midway and now VT-SAO. Security at Pune was tight: my checked bag was X-rayed and then sealed; I was “wanded” twice, and my carry-on was X-rayed and then inspected.

Pune is actually a huge Indian Air Force base; the civilian terminal is just a tiny part of the whole. We walked out to the CRJ following a Jet Airways 737-800 that was taxiing out, and we were close enough to the departing aircraft for the jet blast to make some passengers cringe. As we taxiied out, following a very circuitous route, I could see at least a dozen Sukhoi Flankers and SEPECAT Jaguars on the military ramp.

I was in seat 4A, but of course the low-mounted windows of the CRJ meant that I didn’t have a very good view. Never mind, I was busy: even though it was only a one-hour flight, we were served a hot “snack” (vegetarian or non-veg) that any US airline would have called a full lunch.

After an on-time arrival, I met the hotel’s representative at Hyderabad airport. I had phoned that morning to alert the hotel of my change of plan, but somehow the message hadn’t got through: he was still expecting me at 7:30pm. Never mind: he rustled up a car, and we crawled through the traffic to the Begumpet district.

So now I’m ensconced in the ITC Kakatiya Sheraton in Hyderabad, where I’ll be until Wednesday. Tomorrow I’m planning to get an all-day guided tour of the city, including Golconda. Then if all goes according to plan I’ll be rendezvousing with a colleague for dinner tomorrow night. (Right now he should be at Heathrow, enjoying a 9 hour layover!)

My thoughts on Indian traffic

Suppose that you’re driving down a four lane, non-divided suburban street in the USA, with a sidewalk on each side. In decreasing order of frequency, you’d expect to encounter:
– cars
– trucks
– buses
– pedestrians
– motorcycles
– bicycles

In India, the corresponding list would be something like:
– bicycles
– pedestrians (with or without pushcarts)
– motor scooters
– motorcycles (with up to four people on board)
– ultrasmall cars
– auto-rickshaws (passenger and goods versions)
– trucks (huge slab-sided things)
– regular cars
– buses
– cows
– luxury/sports cars
– ox-carts
– goats (in herds)

In the USA, the different types of traffic would be logically segregated: pedestrians on the sidewalk, slower vehicles in the right-most lane, and so forth. Furthermore traffic tends to keep to the right, only crossing the centre line for occasional overtaking.

In India, approaching vehicles keep left when passing each other. That’s pretty much the only rule. Any of the types of traffic listed above may be encountered anywhere on the road, including the sidewalk. “Lanes” are a polite fiction, an occasional decoration on the tarmac; road signs are everywhere; traffic lights are so rare that they actually seem to command respect, possibly because they’re such exotic creatures. Traffic may be moving at any speed from zero to 50 MPH – and occasionally in reverse! – in any “lane”. The sidewalk is simply another space to be occupied by any vehicle, and pedestrians may be encountered anywhere – even in the fast lane of a divided intercity highway. Overtaking takes place on either side; if space is limited, the horn is used incessantly until the gap opens up. At an intersection, nobody stops: they just proceed straight into the flow and somehow they’re absorbed (usually with more horn blasts).

[Amusing touch: Trucks and auto-rickshaws have crudely painted signs on the back, saying “HORN PLEASE”.]

And it all works. Dammit, the traffic in Pune works better than the traffic in Boston, or San Francisco. Even though it looks chaotic, it keeps flowing almost all the time. (On those rare moments when it doesn’t, volunteers step up to direct traffic and sort out the mess.)

Why does it work? There seem to be two related reasons. First, there is no prescribed “right of way”. You can’t assume, or insist on your right of way where none exists. All interactions – overtaking, merging, giving way to crossing traffic – seem to be based on instantaneous negotiations between the various parties, with the “body language” of the vehicles conveying the necessary cues.

The second reason is that nobody pushes 100%. Everybody seems to drive at about 60% intensity. That may seem odd, when you see vehicles packing into a space with scant inches between them, but I think it’s true. When in doubt, yield – if it’s the wrong decision, you’ll be able to make it up later. If you lose a merge, don’t fight it, relax – even if that opens space for someone else. And there’s a rhythm to it, a kind of balancing that reminds me of the women walking by with bundles of goods on their heads. When a car comes up to pass a bicycle, the rider sways out of the way, just enough to allow the car to pass. It’s not a manoeuvre, it’s a dance step. It’s what the AI guys call “swarm intelligence” of a very high order: self-organization rather than rules-based.

And of course at night it gets even crazier, because half the vehicles have no, or defective, lights. But it still works.

[Another amusing touch. High-end cars have door mirrors that fold out of the way at the touch of a button. When the spacing between vehicles is measured in a few inches, this is more than a luxury.]

What does it feel like? This morning as I was being driven to Pune airport, there was one perfect moment when the car I was in was overtaking an auto-rickshaw, which was overtaking a bicycle, which was swerving round a cow. As we did this, a large SUV overtook all of us. Between us, we occupied the entire width of the street, and not far ahead there were two or three “lanes” of traffic approaching us at speed. Somehow it all just flowed together and past.

I can’t imagine driving here myself. I think you’d have to grow up here to learn the music of the street. If you can’t sing it, if you’re not note-perfect, it must be miserable. But watching the performance is totally absorbing – initially frightening, then exhilarating. I guess it could become almost mundane over time, which would be a shame.

Day 5

My last full day in Pune. The highlights were:

Beating the traffic! I asked for the driver to come at 8am: he arrived at 7:50, and we made it out to the office in 20 minutes. (Yesterday it took over an hour.) I arrived ahead of most of the regulars; fortunately I had a badge that worked. (To maximise the overlap with the rest of the team in Massachusetts, the Pune group tend to start work late and end very late.)
Speaking at an all-hands meeting for the engineering team here in Pune. My subject was engineering culture and practices in Sun. The group seemed pretty enthusiastic, so I wasn’t too worried about running over by a few minutes.
Having my travel rearranged, so that instead of having a 6 hour layover at Mumbai airport I shall now be flying direct to Hyderabad tomorrow. Thanks, Monish and Ulka for arranging this.
And finally, giving an invited talk to the Pune chapter* of the Computer Society of India. The subject was “The Future of Distributed Computing” – and no, you can’t have my slides! They only make sense when I’m talking – maybe not even then. Anyway, there was a good sized audience, and they seemed to enjoy it. (I know that I did.)

So tomorrow I leave Pune and head for Hyderabad. I’ve enjoyed myself here: the ex-Storability team are a really great bunch of engineers. I’m looking forward to returning.

—
* Memo to the CSI Pune chapter organizers: lots of pages link to you as http://csipune.com, but that URL seems to be parked.

On standing up against those who oppose reason

More and more ordinary people – not pundits, columnists or politicians – are speaking up in defence of the values of the Enlightenment. This time it’s Adam Bosworth: “It is time to say that facts are what matter, not faith, that human progress is accomplished through unfettered use of reason and inquiry and tolerance and discussion and debate, not through intolerant and irrational acts of terror or edicts.”

(Via Loosely Coupled.)

Day 3+4

Just a brief note, as it’s late and I have to be up early tomorrow for a series of meetings. Setting aside the work… and the driving… what’s left? Oh, yes: food. Last night, after checkin in to my second hotel in Pune (The Pride), I ate in the Golden Arch. No, not Golden Arches – the Arch [singular] is one of the restaurants in the hotel. Very pleasant, Kingfisher beer tastes much better in India than whatever they ship to the USA. It has a nice touch of bitterness that most lagers lack.

And yes, the connectivity in the hotel is pretty good: desktop 10Base-T, with only occasionally glitches.
UPDATE (10/22/05): Well, not so good. I finally ran some bandwidth tests, and got figures in the range of 80kbps (that’s kbits, not Kbytes). Surely some mistake….

Today I started late due to traffic – the recent rains have washed out even major roads, and things are a mess. After a meeting with the site director, I went out to lunch with a group of managers. We drove (on the Mumbai-Pune toll highway, and at a really impressive speed) to a hilltop resort in Khandala called The Duke’s Retreat. The Duke in question was Wellington, whose famous nasal profile can be seen in a nearby ridge. After returning to the office for more meetings running in to the evening, a few of us braved potholes and traffic to reach another noted area restaurant, the Ambrosia, which lies about 20 kms. west of the city centre. [Forget the negative reviews on the website: the food was excellent, and service was very prompt and attentive.]

Enough. I must hit the sack. Big day tomorrow.

Day 2+3

I tried to post a day 2 entry from my Treo at Mumbai Airport, but I fumble-fingered the UI and deleted all my typing, so I gave up.

On Monday night I flew from London to Mumbai on Jet Airways. The service was superb: far, far better than on British Airways the night before. Unfortunately the guy sitting next to me was a fidgeter, and my sleep was occasional and fitful. Dawn over Iran was cloudy, but I got a wonderful view (and some pictures) of the bleak landscape in southeast Iran and western Pakistan: brutally bleak, a uniform dusty off-white with only brilliant white salt flats providing relief. And then after we reached the coast we vectored inland, over Karachi, and well to the east before heading south to Mumbai.

I arrived at the rather shabby 1960s-vintage international terminal, endured the bureaucratic tedium of immigration (there always seems to be one more form, or one more signature), rechecked bags for the connecting flight, and took the shuttle bus to the new domestic terminal. Here I made a mistake: I assumed that there would be services (ATM, food, shops) on the far side of the security barrier. Wrong: there was nothing. It was more like a bright airy modern bus station; lots of seats, and TVs, but no services and (apparently) no way back to the rest of the terminal. Without Indian money or liquids, I was stuck for four hours. I dozed, watched TV uncomprehendingly*, and eventually my flight was called.

[Need to speed this up – I have to unplug in 10 minutes.]

The flight to Pune was short and sweet (complimentary fresh lime juice), my bag appeared on cue, and the car to take me and two other passengers to the hotel was there. The journey… well, it was an eye-opener, as in eyeball to eyeball with a cow in the middle of the road. The roads were very bumpy (exacerbated by recent heavy rains), and the traffic was chaotic – but everything kept moving, and we got to the hotel.

At this point I should describe my first dinner in India. Sorry, no – I was falling asleep on my feet, so after a couple of phone calls I just drank a litre of water, fell into bed and slept for 11 hours.

So now I’m at the Pune office of Storability, the company that came to Sun by way of the StorageTek deal. I’ve cleared my email backlog, met a number of the staff, and had a delicious lunch at a nearby restaurant. I’m now preparing to head back to the city to check in to a different hotel, which is supposed to have much better connectivity.

—
*The bilingual aspect of Indian communications is oddly confusing. On the TV, they kept putting up “News Flash” in English, followed by the headline in Hindi. It wasn’t until I reached my hotel room and turned on the BBC World News that I learned that a government minister in Indian-administered Kashmir had been assassinated in his home by an Islamist gunman.

Day 1

Flew BOS-LHR last night on a 100 percent full BA 777. The bad: a middle seat. The good: World Traveller Plus. We reached the Heathrow area 20 min early, the sat in the Ockham hold for 25 minutes because of fog. We were lucky to get in: visibility was around zero.
Eventually I got my bag, picked up a rental car, and drove down to Woking for meetings with StorageTek UK. I felt they went very well. Late in the afternoon I returned to Heathrow and checked in for my Jet Airways flight to Mumbai. I managed to get a window seat, because I want to see dawn over Iran.
And finally I had a hot meal (having missed breakfast, and having had sandwiches for lunch). I’m now waiting to board, composing this on my Treo.

Random preparations

Rather than relying on phones while travelling, I hope to be using iChat AV a fair amount. I picked up an iSight camera for Merry to use with her iBook. Then yesterday and today I spent some time debugging video chat with Merry, Kate, and a colleague of mine who just happened to be in Singapore this weekend. Looks promising.
(There was only one dumb ease-of-use issue: in order to video chat, it’s necessary to open up five ports in the OS X firewall, and for some reason there’s no preset configuration that you can simply check off. Instead you need to define a new profile associated with TCP ports 5060, 5190, 5297, 5298 and 5678. That didn’t feel very Mac-like.)
On Friday I was talking with Jim Waldo (of Jini fame) and I mentioned an iTunes playlist of mine called Music to blow your speakers out. He dragged me back to his office and introduced me to Tool. I was blown away, in more senses than one: I’ve only known Jim as a jazz enthusiast, and Tool’s Ænima was unexpected, to say the least. But I was intrigued, and this lunchtime, while running to the drug store to pick up a few items, I made a detour to Newbury Comics and picked up a copy of the CD. (Oddly it’s not available through ITMS.) I’ve ripped it into iTunes and added it to my iPod; I’ll listen to more of it over the Atlantic tonight.
Checking in. Well, trying to. I logged on to the British Airways website (after finally realizing which of the four or five ticket numbers and record locators to use), changed my seat on the BOM-LHR leg (no more 53J!), and then tried to check in. And tried. And waited, and tried again. After receiving a number of different error messages, I finally received a vaguely catatonic “Unfortunately our systems are not responding at this time.” Oops.
In spite of my earlier intentions, I decided not to get up to watch the Chinese GP. I didn’t even record it. (No, I don’t have a TiVo.) A pity – it would have been interesting to see Montoya’s car being ripped apart by a manhole cover (or grating, whatever), not to mention the delicious schadenfreude of watching Schumacher making a fool of himself twice in a single race (the first time before the race had even started!).