Adventures in the Dismal Science and Beyond

Philadelphia to Boston and Back on Under $50

I’ve been back in the US for almost three weeks now, and spent close to two weeks staying with friends who live in Inman Square and working part time at the National Bureau of Economics Research/Harvard Center for International Development.  First, shameless plug for the Bolt Bus which runs $1-20 trips between Philadelphia and New York and New York and Boston.  I’m blogging from the NYC-Philadelphia bus right now (the buses have inconsistent wifi and fairly consistent power outlets).  While the lack of a cheap direct bus between Philly and Boston is a little inconvenient, the extended layovers in New York meant that I had time to grab dinner/drinks with friends living in NYC on both legs of the trip.  I can’t think of a better way to break up a long bus trip than coffee, dim sum/diner food, and a chat with Tom Po and Maxim about their various projects.

While I am glad to be heading back — squatting for so long is exhausting (and I overstayed my welcome so long my blockmates entirely forgot I didn’t actually live with them) — being in Boston reminded of how much of my life is still unsettlingly Harvard-Cambridge centric.  There’s the comfort of knowing the best Indian places in Cambridge (Shalimar, Punjabi Dhaba, Tanjore in that order) of course (put briefly, the comfort of familiarity), but there is also the comfort of being surrounded by people you know well and love.  Making the rounds of my Boston based friends, I heard a lot about bizarre/ambitious/exciting projects (a full four of my friends are start up founders), shared a few Aeneid references at the breakfast table, and joked in econ nerd code (revealed preferences, diminishing marginal return, hyperbolic discounting and so on).  It’s not, of course, that such communities don’t exist outside the Harvard bubble.  It’s just that my community in Boston is already so well formed (though still, I think, dynamic), whereas in DC, I’ll be starting from scratch.  So, to keep myself from becoming too reliant on my pre-existing Boston/NYC communities, despite my (insanely) flexible work hours, I’ll be putting a moratorium on weekend travel for the first month or so I am in DC.  Instead, I’ll attempt to blog here about various DC-based projects, ambitious and mundane (i.e. Natalie attempts to buy a bike/ Natalie attempts to attend couchsurfing events/Natalie attempts to go to that Harvard club event at the Saudi Embassy) while hopefully doing some new community building of my own.

I love my India

An unedited email from Vasanth:
My project assistant who came home for lunch was impressed with the new car and decided to take his car out in the evening. He drove through the gully of a slum and hit an old lady. Though the old lady did not sustain much injuries the slum dwellers tried to extort him. They took away his car, his MP3 player and his money purse and made him a hostage and demanded a ransom of Rs.1,00000 as ransom from his parents. He was in that place for 5 hours and he managed to call me at 10 pm. I took a few of my friends with me to karthik ( project assisntants) place, took a duplicate key for his car and we stealthily removed the car from the slum. Before we did this sting operation i had filed a complaint with the local police station that the car was stolen.And then i went to the spot to rescue his parents and him. His parents had already arranged for the money. There were 50 people around and everybody began to yell when i talked. They threatened to hit me but before they did something my fist had landed on three of them!!!! Everybody fled away after the three of them got hit. The police landed by then and they were taken to the station at 2 am and i drove back to mysore at 4 am!!!!

Bangalore is awesome. सच.

So, in a fit of cross country flying madness, I decided to spend the weekend in Bangalore, and stay with Vasanth, erstwhile former SKS project assistant, now long-suffering Sendhil RA.  Theresa, former bosslady extraordinaire, also came up from Chennai for - as Vasanth’s Auntie-Ji made very clear - an all too short trip.  Mark, typically, tagged along for some free food and housing.  The results were awesome. 

Throughout, Vasanth’s family was incredibly kind and affectionate, and Vasanth’s Maataa-Ji, in true South Indian hostess style, filled our plates with delicious dosas and idlys, despite our protests, until I nearly threw up.  

On Saturday, while wandering Bangalore’s famous botanical gardens and cavorting with monkeys, Vasanth took a series of calls from my former Econ 2390 classmate Supreet, once and for all proving the small world hypothesis.  Mark lost his pav baaji virginity South India style, an experience he found so rewarding he demanded a photo with the pav baaji wallah.  And, over infiniTea, Vasanth demonstrated his one and only awesome dance move (it involves moving your finger in a parabolic motion).  Tragically, despite the collective amassing of several in-jokes (सच), Theresa had to leave Saturday night, precluding a night out on the town :(.  

On Sunday, Mark and I saw the Hare Krishna Iskon temple, the Indian version of a mega church, which appears to be half mammoth glass office building, half traditional temple.  We marveled at beautiful ceiling Westernized frescoes of the baby Krishna before making our way through the world’s longest gift shop (featuring Krishna-themed decorations, books, posters, and lots of snacks).  Though we were tempted by marathon showings of the CGI series “Little Krishna” at the temple’s multi-vision theatre, in the end, we left to cap the day off, per tradition, at Cafe Coffee Day.