Sylvia's Journal

My Indian friends picked me up at the hotel in Navi Mumbai and we set out to the Reliance company’s headquarters. It is not just a headquarter building, as I had imagined, but countless buildings, including two new skyscrapers for start-ups. There is tight security – requiring advance registration, IDs and visitor badges. A comparison suggests that the Reliance office park is about the same acreage (26 acres) as Googleplex. We were received in gleaming, light and airy building I, with it’s 40 meter long koi pool in the five story lobby. Along the walls was the Creation story of Reliance, which was started by the father of the current Chairman and Managing Director, with dealing in spices and then yarn. 

We met with one of Reliance’s VPs to discuss a design event that is to take place in the near future to align some 300+ senior leaders around an ambitious new venture. My friends’ company is in charge of  lining up the crew to pull off this event. They put me on the ticket and figured it would help if the VP had a chance to get to know me up close.

After our very animated meeting the VP took us to the all vegetarian company cafeteria where he tested my ability to handle spicy street food (there is a a highly sanitized street food station, with servers/cooks clad in traditional chef’s garb, including the tall white pleated hats). I liked the snacks but promptly broke out in a coughing fit, to be followed by another after another dish. Both were extinguished with a dish of American ice cream. And so I failed terribly in this department. I can only hope, that, not being hired to eat local food, it will not affect my chances to return to Mumbai early next year on a paid gig.

We left late afternoon for the ride to Pune which is about 120 kilometers and takes 3 hours and change (provided there are not accidents on the road). Halfway we stopped at a roadside food court which had Ronald McDonald sitting unperturbed on a bench at the entrance, not different from anywhere else in the world. Starbucks was there as well as some other US fast food chains, but also the Indian response to Starbucks (a chai chain), where we drank small cups of very sweet masala chai. 

The road took us into the mountains, through tunnels and finally into Pune, also an IT hub that is competing with Hyderabad for second place after Bangalore. I had some idea that this was a small town but it is another Asian megacity (nr 31 on the list of Asian megacities according to data from 2014 and 2015), after Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bangalore but before Jaipur and Lucknow.)

My friends live on the eastern side of Pune in what the Brits would call a ‘hill station,’ where they occupy a flat on the second floor of tower 6 of a complex that currently has 8 towers (each 10 floors high) with more under construction.

They have a fairly spacious 3 bed and 3 bathroom flat with a large balcony looking out over the valley where Pune lies with its noise and traffic congestion. Up here I only hear crickets and occasionally dogs and the laughter of children playing in the mostly empty garage on the ground floor.

I could tell there was a grandiose vision for this development (there are sport courts, horse riding facilities, a soccer field, playground, trails further up the mountain, a clubhouse/restaurant with swimming pool and gym. But the occupancy rate is about 20% and 3 BR flats can be rented for less than 300 dollars. Fire sales are happening frequently and most of the shops in the attractive looking shopping center are shuttered, never having been occupied. It looks like this was a giant miscalculation, yet they keep on building the next towers.

Some of the dark flats are owned by NRIs (nonresident Indians) who like to have a piece of Indian real estate. Maybe they too thought it was an investment. Or a weekend place for city folks. I can see why: the nights are cool, the days are pleasantly warm (upper 70s), the air is clean and nature all around. We arrived too late to cook and had dinner in the clubhouse/restaurant higher up the hill, sitting on the terrace with a wonderful view and eating, what else, great Indian food.  I slept like a baby in their comfy guestroom, Today I didn’t do a thing. I am served three home-cooked Indian meals a day, lounged around in my pajamas till 10, read, watched SNL’s NATO cafeteria spoof with my hosts, wished Axel and Sita a safe trip home from Paris, met R’s cousin and husband, had great conversations all through the day and went for an early evening walk under a nearly full moon. What’s not to like.