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India diary: Day two - Getting settled in Mumbai
Technical troubles crop up and I'm scouted to model for an advert

By Andy McCue

Published: Thursday 27 May 2004

silicon.com reporter Andy McCue was on assignment in India from 14 to 23 April investigating offshoring efforts in Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and New Delhi. This is his diary. Articles and commentary on IT offshoring and BPO in India and elsewhere will be appearing on silicon.com over the coming weeks. You can find them all here.

15/4/04: Jet lag means I wake late, sleeping through breakfast. I draw back the curtains on my 'sea view' room at the Holiday Inn on Juhu Beach, which is, so I'm told, playground to the rich and famous stars of Bollywood. Sounds glamorous but I'm advised by the hotel staff not to swim there as raw waste from a slum further round the coast drifts by.

On closer inspection the beach is litter-strewn, with stray dogs running around and a horse tied to a tree. Playful kids rush around in the sand kicking a football and in the distance as my eyes follow the coastline downtown I can just make out the high-rise Mumbai skyline through the late morning hazy and smog.

Communicating in India isn't actually the big problem that many people would believe it is. Most people have mobile phones, although they don't always roam in different regions, and internet access is easily available in most business centres. I'll be using a CDMA wireless data card kindly supplied by Reliance Infocomm for my laptop while I'm out here.

However, it's not due to arrive for another day so in the meantime I'm reduced to using a cumbersome and at times just plain useless pre-paid roaming GSM card from Dubai airport for my mobile and what seems like the slowest internet connection in the world in the hotel business centre.

Virgin Mobile messing up roaming on my SIM means I'm left without access to my own mobile, which adds a few logistical problems. Despite that I'm still able to co-ordinate with various companies in Bangalore, Hyderabad and New Delhi to finalise plans for the rest of the trip.

Still jet-lagged and hungry I venture no further than the hotel restaurant where the historic India v Pakistan cricket test is drawing to a nail-biting finale on a big screen.

A view of the fairground from my Juhu Beach hotel.

I'm left gobsmacked when a young Indian woman from an advertising agency approaches me saying they are looking for a European model for a jeans advert and they think I'd fit the bill. My first reaction - and I'm not just being modest here – is that it has to be a scam. But they say there'll be an all night shoot in downtown Mumbai on Friday and take a couple of shots with a digital camera to show the director, saying they'll let me know.

In the hot late afternoon sun the beach outside has been transformed into a hive of activity. A makeshift – and I mean truly makeshift – fairground has sprung up on the sand with the most perilous looking ferris wheels I've ever seen.

Families start to descend on the beach after work and the air is filled with the shouts of children splashing around in the filthy sea.

My Reliance/Qualcomm data card finally arrives in the evening. But the software is missing a driver so it doesn't work yet. I give up for the day and head down to The Pub – the actual name of the hotel bar, decked out in a bizarre mock-Tudor style with an Indian guitarist churning out muzak versions of chart hits and John Lennon songs.

The overly attentive bar staff spend most of their time trying to get a view of the India-Pakistan test on the TV with India on the verge of a huge victory in Pakistan.