As you can see, there have been major changes in the Realm. Unfortunately, all were unanticipated, and more importantly, undesired. I tried adding a new link the other day to a great new site of a colleague currently studying at the Foreign Service Institute. When I republished, somehow my entire template vanished and I was unable to reconstruct it. It was a major crash, and the whole site vanished. Sinosplice John came to the rescue and this is what you see for now. He's come through for me a number of times, and I've never even met the guy. Eventually I'll have to knight him or something. The problem is that I have very little time to maintain the Realm during the week, and weekends are out because I have no Internet at home. Hopefully I will rectify that soon after we move into our new digs this weekend. I was very happy with the look and feel of my former template and I'll do my best to get it back. Things are going well otherwise. Princess Roy is conducting a Sichuan cooking class for expat spouses and significant others today at our house. I think even the manager of a Chinese restaurant at one of the local five-star hotels may show up too. As far as life in India goes, one of the preconceived images I had was that of the ubiquitous cow roaming through the streets at will and blocking traffic for miles on end. But apparently the city of Chennai banned cattle within city limits sometime before we arrived, so that bit of fun has yet to transpire. I have seen about five cattle now plodding through the neighborhood, so maybe the rule isn't enforced too heavily. I have yet to spy an elephant, unfortunately, but I did spot a monkey the other day while passing by a temple near our house. And the crows. I thought Japan was the crow capital of the world, but it has nothing on India. There is a colony of crows that inhabits our backyard and our neighbor's which numbers in the scores. I'm talking maybe a hundred or more birds. Unlike in the US, they do not fear people. And the buggers are early risers as well. I don't even use my alarm clock any more because one persistent fellow with a very distinctive call (even for a crow) sees to it that I wake up every morning at 5:30am whether I want to or not. Crows are very inauspicious in China, but in India they are supposed to be returning souls. At least that is what I read in a local magazine. Maybe that belief is peculiar to Tamil Nadu? Anyway, stay tuned, and I'll try to iron out the kinks ASAP.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 5/20/2004 10:16:00 AM| |

 
Hey everyone. Sorry it's been so long since you've seen me in the Realm, but I'd like to thank all of you who have stopped by regularly. We mark our first month in India this week, and are slowly getting settled in. Home Internet access is still just a dream at this point and will likely remain so for perhaps another month, since we are going to switch housing. More about that in a future post. The good news is that DSL is available here, though it has a really odd price scheme. We purchased the car of a departing expat this week and so finally have our own transport, which should improve things considerably. We were a bit overwhelmed by the heat at first---we left New York where it was 40F and when we got off the plane it was 40C! But we got lucky with a week's worth of unseasonal rains that cooled the place down. Water shortage and drought is a serious problem here. First impressions are often the most telling, and what has struck me the most thus far is how similar India is to late 1980s China. I'll go more into that later as well. Right now I better skedaddle on to work. Please keep checking back---the Realm lives!!! ...p.s. Is the Old English font on my title still displaying properly? Maybe this machine I am using doesn't have it installed, but for whatever reason it isn't showing up.
- posted by Prince Roy @ 5/12/2004 10:48:00 AM| |