Nirenjan’s Space

Kartik was talking about traveling in the big bad city of Mumbai. His post prompted me to write a post about traveling in metropolitan cities in USA.

Basically, the public transportation infrastructure in most cities will make seasoned Chennai/Mumbai travelers cringe in horror. (Well, not really, but I’ve seen more frequent 29C buses in Chennai than a 500 bus out here in Pittsburgh). You really need to have a car to get anywhere important.

Having said that, I must still comment that Pittsburgh has one of the best bus networks across the US. Like the Mumbai trains, the buses here follow a rigid schedule (well, mostly). You can pick up a schedule free of cost from any bus, the University Center on the Carnegie Mellon campus also has a number of bus schedules of all buses that pass in the vicinity of the university. These schedules give daily timings, along with major stop points and a map of the route. You can also go online to the website of the Port Authority of Allegheny County and enter your starting location and destination intersections, and the website will automatically give you a few routes which you can follow, along with the timings.

When I left India, I had to go through Immigration, get a stamp in my passport and all that stuff. When I left the US, I just had to surrender my I-94, and that too at the airline check-in counter.

On my flight home from Brussels to Chennai, I find a safety manual for a Boeing 777-300ER. I was flying in an Airbus A330-200.

As my living in USA series continues, I bring to you the perils of bringing a mobile handset from India.

First of all, a brief background on the technology behind GSM. The simplest way to put it is that your mobile handset is a glorified two-way radio. As you would use a radio to listen to an FM channel on a particular frequency, your mobile phone also listens on a specific frequency (to be precise, a set of frequencies). The GSM standard has allocated 4 bands worldwide, namely the 850 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz and 1900 MHz bands. All operators in India use the 900 MHz and 1800 MHz bands, while operators in the US use the 850 MHz and 1900 MHz bands. GSM World has some good information regarding the usage of the bands and coverage sorted by operator.

From my perspective, if you are going anywhere on the east coast or in Silicon Valley, you are well off with a decent tri-band phone like the Nokia 6681. Basically, you want to make sure that your phone supports the 1900 MHz band also, since a lot of operators here seem to use that particular band. You are even better off with a quad-band phone. One such phone is the Sony Ericsson W300i.

It is possible to get a phone here. Operators usually bundle a phone free of charge when you buy a plan. Or you can get a phone of your choice, at a discounted rate. The disadvantages that I see with this model are as follows:

• Your phone is tied to the operator. You cannot take your phone from, say AT&T and use it on T-Mobile. This is because there is something called a network lock that is placed on the phone, and usually only the operator can deactivate the lock. However, there exist sites where you can get the phone unlocked, usually for a fee.
• You are tied into a contract for a specified period of time, usually one or two years. If you decide to terminate your contract, you have to pay an early termination fee. From the point of view of the operator, this is normal, since they subsidize the costs of the phone and recover those by having a two year plan or whatever.
• If you are going to be in the US for only a short trip, it is usually not worth getting into a contract. However, there are some pre-paid plans, although I have seen it is not as popular as it is in India. Post-paid is usually the way to go.

I hope this should be enough information for you to make a choice.

This is the first of a series of posts about living on your own. I guess this post would be more useful to a student in the US, but really, anybody could adapt the guidelines that I give to their own needs.

First and foremost, when you are coming to the USA, I have seen people, myself included, pack a whole lot of clothes, foodstuff, cooking utensils, etc., thereby increasing their luggage weight and running the risk of getting charged for overweight luggage.

Let me list the essential stuff required.

• Formal clothes - From what I have seen, formal wear is relatively costly here in the US. So when you come here, do bring a suit and a good pair of formal leather shoes. Don’t forget a matching leather belt, ties, etc.
• Casual wear - As a student, I find myself wearing T-shirts and jeans 99% of the time. And that’s what you’ll find other folks - read Americans - wearing also. Even my advisor can be seen in nothing more than a T-shirt and shorts. The point of this is that you can pick up casual wear here pretty cheaply, and good quality stuff too, at rates somewhere of around 50% or even less of what you might find in India. So cut down on the number of T-shirts that you bring.
• Cooking Utensils - I’m still wondering why I brought enough to stock a restaurant here. Apart from the pressure cooker, you can get almost anything else that you need at a WalMart store.
• Other Utensils - You can again pick them up here for a song.
• Foodstuff - Don’t bother even thinking about bringing 20 kg of rice or dal or whatever. My recommendation is to get spices - although you can also get those here at Indian stores. The only thing that I find missing is the curry leaves (karuveppalai/karipattha). I haven’t found them here yet, although I have heard that they are pretty expensive. If you are new to cooking and don’t know the different types of dals, get some small samples in sealed plastic pouches. You don’t need more than a few grams per sample. You can’t bring any perishables into the USA, and you can pretty much get what you need in any grocery store. Regardless of what you are bringing, make sure it is doubly sealed, to prevent any leaks from ruining your good clothes.
• Electronic Stuff - The problem is that the US decides to do everything different from how India does it. Rather than me trying to explain something in technical terms, I’ll leave that job to this website.
• Mobile Phones - This is yet another problem. You might want to consider buying a phone in the US itself. The problem is that the US has primarily CDMA providers, versus a few GSM providers (GSM is the dominant mobile technology in the Indian market). I have no clue about CDMA phones now, but if I get some information, I will update this page. GSM phones are a different story altogether, and warrant a whole new blog post.

I guess that covers my list for now. If I get any further information, I will update this post.

My previous post had a couple of snapshots of SSN Institutions campus from Google Earth. Now, I’ve created a KMZ file that you can open in Google Earth to see all the different buildings.

Download the KMZ.

Photos reposted…

I’ve taken to surfing the earth from the skies. Google Earth. Now that they have a fairly detailed aerial photograph of Chennai, I’ve become addicted to locating famous landmarks in the city just by their aerial view.

So far, I’ve identified the airport, Kathipara junction, Ashok Pillar and the two nearby theatres, Gemini flyover, Shastri Bhavan, to mention a few. Unfortunately, the hi-res map is available only for a limited area of Chennai, bounded by Adyar Depot and Music Academy in the east and by Sterling Road junction and CMBT in the north. The map however, extends south a fair distance, and by my reckoning, covers Perungudi, almost upto Shozhinganallur. In the west, it seems to terminate outside the city limits, but I’m not too familiar with that region.

Download the KMZ file

I’m beginning to see Chennai in a new light now. After two days of Bangalore and it’s crazy traffic, I’m ready to come back home for some rest and relaxation. But not before visiting Madhu’s restaurant…

The Hanuman temple in Mulbagal (locally called Mulabagilu) is a standard visit whenever we drive from Chennai to Bangalore and back. Sadly, the temple’s maintenance isn’t quite what I expected. Apart from the main two shrines, which are amazingly beautiful, the rest of the temple is pretty much in stark contrast. I went around for the usual pradhakshanam and was pretty stunned. Overgrown weeds, people walking around with slippers inside the premises, dirty footpaths, and even a guy peeing inside the compound. Sad, isn’t it?

I came back this morning from Ooty, with fond memories, and with a nasty sunburn as well. And unfortunately or fortunately (as one professor used to put it), I had to attend office today. I’ll put the photos up online whenever I get the chance.

I’m off to Ooty on a trip organized by my office and will be back on Monday morning. Updates as they come…