Story: Two employees of fraud loan firm held

I've missed racketeering. This is the e-paper version, so just scroll over to page six.

Story: Can Delhi become a caffeinated capital?

My first HT business story. Also the first in a series I'm considering pitching titled "Things I like to consume."

And I helped Michelle Stockman with videos. She gave me producer credits:

Video 1
Video 2

Multimedia is somewhat new here, and sometimes the videos struggle to load. But there are YouTube versions. Second one here.

At the Golden Temple

Our visit to Amritsar last weekend was as smooth as our previous trip to Agra was needlessly complicated. Indian Railways, it turns out, is stunningly efficient -- the trains leave right on time, and the departure is followed by a steady sequence of tea and snacks. After the five-and-a-half hour train ride, we arrived at 1:30, giving us just enough time for a quick lunch of Punjabi food before visiting the Harmandir Sahib, or Golden Temple.

The difference between visiting the Taj Mahal and the Golden Temple is the difference between being part of the spectacle and being a mere spectator. At the Golden Temple, even Westerners with only a rudimentary knowledge of Sikhism (like myself) understand that they are visiting a shrine of immense spritual significance to the religion's followers. Were it not for the welcoming nature of the Sikhs present, I would've felt uncomfortable, like an intruder. At the Taj, on the other hand, tourism is largely the point -- most of the people there have made the trip so they can cross it off their list of must-see Indian landmarks.

Unfortunately, we did not have time to go to Wagah, on the Indo-Pak border, to see the flag-lowering ceremony. That will definitely be one of my stops when I take a week or two off in the fall to see more of the country.

Pictures from the trip can be seen here. No trip this coming weekend. I am going to take Sunday to explore more of Delhi.

Farewell, Harpaul

Our favorite driver, Harpaul, whose love for the U.S. was eclipsed only by his love for the gerund, quit his job on Monday to go work for a "surgical instruments factory." This was devastating for everyone -- among his many kind gestures, Harpaul happily drove us to the wine shop after stressful days and placed jasmine bought from the street vendors over the car vents to make the drive more soothing. He also tried to teach us Hindi.





Some vital statistics:

Age: 22
Married: Yes
Kids: 2
Likes: When ma'ams our happy
Dislikes: When ma'ams are sad, pedestrians
Favorite Movie: Titanic

On his last day, we gave him money and a picture of the four of us with our signatures on the back. We also gave him this framed picture (above) of himself, which he loved. We will be missing you, Harpaul-Ji.

Story: Sparkle murder case trial begins

A brief story from Sunday's paper. The Internet situation at our house is currently touch-and-go, so I have had trouble getting photos and other posts up. But they are coming.

Gawker India?

At the end of last week, I noticed the reporter next to me scanning a blog titled "Don't trust the Indian Media! Riding the Indian media boom and removing skeletons from closets for three years straight!" The reporter did not strike me as subversive enough to divulge industry secrets from the inside, so I assumed she was not the author. I asked if she knew who was, and I was told that the blog belongs to a reporter at another daily and that its content consists mostly of media gossip. "Oh, like Gawker," I said. This, naturally, was met with a blank stare. After reading some posts, though, I've concluded that the comparison isn't particularly apt, anyway.

Some of the posts, including one from earlier this month titled "Trouble at HT Media?", vaguely resemble something that might appear on Gawker -- in this example, speculation on where top media executives might be heading. But many posts simply outline the author's reactions to the news of the day, and others are decidedly more personal: "I will admit to anyone who cares to listen to me, that I hardly ever studied in college, I was far too stoned or too drunk, but I still pulled off some rather good grades, won enough quizzes and even a debate or two to have a decent life and enjoy the company of some great people."

The reporter who introduced me to the blog also mentioned that it had been blocked from the servers of several newspapers, either because reporters were spending too much time on it or because it was considered too controversial. Both reasons seem ridiculous: It is neither controversial (what little gossip I've seen has merely
compiled information that has been reported elsewhere) nor, I assume,
all that entertaining to people who do not know the author directly (a lot like my blog!). I am still looking for an Indian blog that, like Gawker when I lived in New York, could consistently entertain me during a 30-minute lunch break taken at the desk.

In other news, there was a company party at QBA last night, at which staffers were treated to an open bar for a mere Rs 300. Except they did not let the Americans pay ("You are guests!'). Is it possible to be too accommodating? When it comes to open bars on Monday evenings, no I don't suppose it is.

Of touts and the Taj

In my childhood home there hung in a guest room a silk-embroidered print of the Taj Mahal. My grandfather, Warren Corey, had been stationed in India during World War II, and, I was told, he described visiting the structure as the only activity that gave him any sort of peace during his tour.

For this reason, I was very much looking forward to the second day trip arranged by HT: a visit to Agra, which is about a four-hour drive southeast from New Delhi. As far as I know, I am the only member of my family to visit India since my grandfather, who died when I was very young, and I was eager to take in his favorite sight.

Photos from the trip can be seen in this Facebook album. Quite a few things went wrong during the course of the day: it rained; the drive took longer than we expected, forcing us to pass on the other attractions in Agra; the driver and the guide, not to mention the many touts who pestered us incessantly, kept trying to get us to buy tacky things; men kept trying to take pictures surreptitiously of Karyn and Michelle; and the grounds were far from peaceful -- swarming with tourists, actually, even during one of the weaker parts of India's tourism calendar. Despite all that, I felt genuinely spoiled the entire day, and pictures like the one posted above may offer some suggestion as to why.

Sex and the developing city

I considered it a mixed blessing that my flight to India left May 30, the same day that “Sex and the City” premiered in the U.S. There was a part of me that wanted to see the movie -- I have seen most every episode of the series, after all. On the other hand, 148 minutes seemed an inordinately long time for a movie featuring story lines that, as far as I was concerned, had been wrapped up four years ago.

Then, not long after my arrival, the movie premiered in India, and I went to see it on opening night.

The two-and-a-half hour screening was the only block of time in which I have felt even a tiny bit homesick for the U.S. Quite understandably, nobody laughed at the New York jokes (Miranda’s line about needing to follow “the white guy with the baby” as she seeks out a new apartment in a gentrifying neighborhood is one of the funniest in the movie, I think). Instead, the audience played right into the hands of Samantha Jones, who I still consider to be the show’s least redeeming character.

For those of you who didn’t watch the show, all you really need to know about Samantha is that she likes to sleep with strangers. Or at least she did. Now she dates a movie star and talks a lot about sleeping with strangers.

It was all this talk that had everyone in the theater rolling in the aisles. Because I didn’t see it in the U.S., I have no means of comparing the manner in which the movie was received by the Indian audience to how it played back home. But I imagine the reactions have been similar – sex is strangely funny, or at least talking about sex is funny, and that holds true no matter where you are.

I count myself among those who appreciate a society’s ability to appreciate sexual humor, even when taken to extremes. While I don’t much care for Samantha, her popularity with the Indian audience in and of itself didn’t bother me. Rather, I viewed it as connoting a commendable refusal to allow outdated value systems to prevail over contemporary impulses.

This interpretation was quickly and significantly undermined by the following:

First: Any scene in which Miranda referenced the fact that Steve cheated on her provoked exasperated outbursts from the man sitting behind me -- It’s her fault! She drove him to do it! By which he presumably meant that Miranda was not having sex with Steve often enough to justify her expectation of fidelity.

And second: When two obviously gay men (I was sitting behind them, and they were very flamboyant) saw a scene in a montage of two men kissing, they thrust their hands high in the air and clapped their hands. Curiously, they also bent their heads downward. The position seemed awfully uncomfortable, and I wondered for a moment what exactly prompted it. Until, that is, I saw handfuls of popcorn flying in their direction.

Story: Auto lifting gang leader was hired to kill Arun Gupta

I can't find this tiny crime story online, but you can read it -- and also get a good sense of what the print edition looks like each day -- by clicking here and flipping to page 6.

"Auto lifting" = car stealing.

Story: Biggest hurdle for foreigners: how to apply

The first person is necessarily ridiculous. But also sort of great.

Story: Foreign students find DU quite unfriendly

A story on the treatment of foreign students at Delhi University can be read here.

This was an interesting story in that quite a bit of the attribution was edited out, which would not have happened at an American paper. Particularly given that headline.

Story: Indian workers to suspend strike

A new story on the Indian migrant workers demonstrating in DC can be read here.

My first story on the workers, written from New York with Michelle, can be read here.

HT is running these stories under the tag "Mississippi Burning." I'd be lying if I said I completely understood the tag.

What job?

On our first day off, a Sunday, HT arranged for the Americans to be driven around Delhi for a whirlwind sightseeing tour.

The itinerary:

Qutub Minar -- the tallest brick minaret in the world and my favorite stop of the day
Lotus Temple -- a bit overrated and garish, in my opinion
Akshardham -- quite amazing; a shame no cameras were allowed inside
Purana Qila -- lovely open space
Jama Masjid -- pure madness in chandni chowk; and michelle and karyn were the main attraction for everyone inside the mosque; still, stunning
Red Fort -- we didn't get to enter this because it was closing, so i am going back

It was a busy, exhausting day, followed by dinner in Old Delhi with two Columbia grads who just finished up a year here -- one freelancing and one working for Mint, which is in the same building as HT. A Facebook album of photos from sightseeing and from the first week of work (some of which are on the flickr links in the previous post) can be seen, if you have an account, here. If you don't have an account, my favorite picture of the day, of Jama Masjid, is above.

Pics from the first week

Here are the links to two photo streams:

1. From roommate Michelle

2. From roommate Karyn

An admirer!

Received this e-mail from an HT employee after my first piece:

Dear Ms Robbie Corey-Boulet,

I loved to read your story--"Friendship racket busted, six held" in the Hindustan Times of June 5. It was a worth-reading piece. Too good for words.
With best regards.

AYAZ PARWEZ
Sr Copy Re-Writer
HINDUSTAN TIMES
(Patna Edition)
PATNA.

An afternoon in prison

Central Jail No. 1 of Tihar Prisons, Asia’s largest correctional complex, housed 1,330 inmates at the end of 2007, more than double its stated capacity of 565. This fact, combined with all manner of assumptions about correctional facilities in the developing world, led me to anticipate, on my drive out to the complex Thursday afternoon, images of horrific human suffering, of malnourished inmates reaching through steel bars to grab at my clothes as I followed armed guards between rows of cells.

Even if I had expected to tour a model facility, certain elements of my experience at Tihar would have come as a shock. Granted, our press visit was tightly controlled, but nevertheless I came away convinced that inmates who stand a chance of being released from the complex after a speedy trial — a fate that, to be sure, will elude some — might actually emerge unscarred by their stay.

Ravi, a metro reporter at Hindustan Times, invited me to tag along on the visit, during which he hoped to report a feature story on a new policy at the prison regarding the organization of the inmate population.

First, we met with a high-ranking Delhi Prisons officer, who introduced us to the superintendent, who led us on our tour.

Immediately upon stepping onto the grounds, I noticed that the inmates do not wear uniforms. Many of them sport outfits comparable to that of the superintendent, who during our visit wore a green-based plaid short-sleeved collared shirt with dark green pants.

The inmates seemed relatively free to roam the grounds or lounge in the common rooms, airy spaces that include, among other amenities, a television and Ping Pong table. A sign above the television in one of the rooms read, “The best doctors in the world are Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet and Dr. Cheerfulness.”

When we entered another of the rooms, the superintendent stopped the tour to take in a few Ping Pong rallies with one of the inmates. He then let Ravi begin his interviews.

As you might have gathered from my description of the facility, Central Jail No. 1 is reserved for first-time offenders expected to exhibit model behavior during their stay in the system. (There are 10 facilities, and some of these are reserved for what Ravi termed “hardened criminals.”) However, the fact that an inmate might find himself in one of the less restrictive facilities, such as Central Jail No. 1, does not necessarily mean that the crime he has been accused of committing was minor.

The first inmate Ravi interviewed has been charged for the murder of a man who, improbably, had been a friend of the Hindustan Times photographer accompanying us on the trip. When I questioned why a murderer would be kept in the same place as inmates being held on charges of theft, assault and dowry crimes, Ravi offered the following explanation: “Obviously, it’s a heinous crime. But in his case he was duped out of money. He’s not criminally bent. He is not a habitual offender.”

The second inmate, a rotund 43-year-old wearing a red-and-yellow plaid shirt and khaki pants, was also being held for murder, having been accused of killing a family member over a financial dispute. As Ravi interviewed him, I had my eye on the other inmates crowding around us, hoping, I imagined, for a chance to plead their case in a public forum. The backlog in the courts here means some inmates, once charged, will endure years of incarceration before their case is heard.

After this interview, we headed across the grounds and back to the office of the superintendent. As we strolled down the main walkway, inmates cleared out of our path and stood still alongside it, staring at our somewhat eclectic crew: Ravi, myself, the HT photographer, the superintendent, his attendants and, lastly, a member of the National Human Rights Commission, who conducts regular reviews of the prisons.

There are two images that, it could be argued, wielded undue influence over my perception of the complex as a whole, which was surprisingly positive. The first is that of the human rights commissioner. His presence reminded me that, although the prisoners themselves appeared downtrodden, their surroundings seemed astonishingly livable, even obscurely welcoming.

The second is that of two maps above the television set in one of the common rooms — India on the right and the world on the left. The notion, which the maps underscore, that many of the prisoners at Tihar might leave the complex and go on to lead productive lives in India and elsewhere is comforting, albeit hopeful. It would also be utterly ridiculous had conditions at the prison appeared harsher than they did.

Story: Visa racket busted, four held

A second story from the crime desk. I'm officially on the racketeering beat.

"Four alleged fraudsters operating a phony travel agency that supplied fake foreign visas were arrested on Wednesday after police ensnared two suspects in a trap laid near south Delhi’s Defence Colony market..."

Story: Friendship racket busted, six held

A story from my first night on the desk, my third for the Hindustan Times (I wrote two from New York):

"One man and five women were arrested on Wednesday for their involvement in a fake friendship racket that promised gullible callers seeking a massage and 'complete satisfaction' the opportunity to meet women in exchange for up to Rs 29,000...

Note to self: Get a hindustantimes.com e-mail account so that my gmail account is not printed in a newspaper with a circulation of more than 1.2 million readers. 

The initial crew

I arrived in New Delhi on Saturday night and am still in the process of settling in. The combination of jet lag and the adjustment to a normal work week (it's been awhile) will force me to keep this post short this evening.

The basics, upon which I will elaborate later:

* I am living in a double-room in the Hindustan Times company guest house, located in the Soami Nagar neighborhood of South Delhi.

* I will be reporting for Hindustan Times for at least the next three months and potentially for the next six (my employment visa expires at the end of November).

* I survived the first day of work today with my job fully intact, a particularly easy feat given that our itinerary mostly involved a detailed tour of all 17 floors of the HT building.

Here is a photo from the tour of me with the two other reporters from Columbia and my roommate, Harry, a rising senior at Brown who is interning on the business staff at Hindustan. The woman on my left is a part-time student at Columbia J-School named Karyn, and to my right is Michelle, also a part-timer.

I will soon post a much more in-depth review of the past few days, including a description of my living situation and job duties. But, for now, bed.

Cheers.