Law, Partially

All six of my regular readers are probably wondering how my trip to Jaipur, Agra, and Delhi went. I am, however, flooded at work trying to finish this project in my last week and a half, and I just don't have the luxurious time to be writing these overly-extensive blog entries for which Law, Partially is renowned. But here goes... Jaipur is famous for its handicrafts. In Jaipur I spent the whole day hanging out with some middle age Indian men who took me workshops for all these handicrafts. This definitely is not on the normal tourist itinerary. I saw a jeweler make a ruby pendant. I saw rugs being knotted. I went to a private art gallery and an art college. I went to a cloth manufacturer. And I kind of missed out on exploring too much of the ancient walled city, but there just wasn't time for everything. I took an overnight bus to Agra and didn't sleep much because the ride was so rough. I man also got into bed with me, and I was like fine, there's enough room, but the...

A recurring theme of this blog has been the bourgeois wave washing over India. Indians are learning how to spend money on things they didn’t use to spend on. And Indians are now learning to drink wine. Nasik, a town about 180km from Mumbai, is nearby India’s most famous winery, Sula. Sula has been making wines for about ten years. Nasik itself is a holy pilgrimage town for Hindus. Jingyi, Christine, Alvin, and I made the pilgrimage to Sula Vineyards last weekend. During our long and arduous journey to the foreign land of Nasik my fellow pilgrims and I were hindered by pestilence, catastrophic weather, death-defying mountain passages, numerous incidences of stranding, filth, and greasy food, only to make it to Nasik where I, the white man, was worshiped as a god. Advice given to me in Mumbai was to take the Mumbai suburban railroad as far as possible, and then catch a bus to Nasik from there. There is a stunted mountain range that separates Nasik from Mumbai, and the road that passe...

The South Korean Supreme Court has ruled that it is a violation of "human dignity" to force someone to drink . In South Korea, like Japan, men drink obscene amounts after work and then go to karaoke bars. This gives the salarymen a chance to be more honest with their bosses and it helps the workers to bond in hopes of brining about the harmonious society that is so honored over there. Now that women have begun working more, they sometimes feel uncomfortable in this binge drinking culture. It was a woman who filed the lawsuit upon being forced to drink by her boss. All you college kids out there just remember your right to human dignity when peer pressure is squeezing you to drink when you don't want to.

I made a solo voyage into South Mumbai. I went to the CRY offices and met my new friend Melissa, a CRY employee. She’s arranging my visit into Maharashtra. She and I talked for quite a while about CRY, India, and all India’s problems. This is interesting stuff. I went to some art galleries and wished I had enough money. I contemplated what a cruel irony it was to talk about people starving in the countryside and peasants flocking to Mumbai to live on the sidewalks, and then to waste a leisurely Saturday afternoon perusing expensive artworks. This is just the way the world works. Then I sat here and read a book. This is Marine Drive, and it’s lined with some of Mumbai’s fanciest hotels. At night these lights are called the Queen’s necklace. When it started to get dark, I went to one of these fancy hotels -- the Intercontinental -- that cater to the young international jet set, and had some beers and read the newspaper on the painfully stylish rooftop bar. There really is such a thing as...

We worked till 8:45 tonight, and around then we got food from Karachi. An executive guy – I forget his name, these Indian names are usually hard for me to remember – said, “Do they make steel in Pittsburgh?” Yes. “And your stomach must be made of steel too.” This is because I eat everything put in front of me. Indians are always worried I can’t handle the spice and fiber – but no bowel problems yet. I got the steel stomach, yo. Anyway, I was thinking to myself that I would go home and skip dinner. As usual, Vinod rode to Juhu with me and my boss, and my boss took us for a Formula-1 race car ride through the slow crush of traffic, but Mritunjay came with us too. I saw two cows pulling a rickety cart in rush hour traffic on Linking Road, which is the hottest shopping street in Bandra – Bandra being probably Mumbai’s hottest shopping district. (Rach, I’ll be going back there to buy you something) My coworkers all do a lot of discussion in Hindi, so I miss out on a lot of what they say. I ...

My company has offered us employees free tickets to a play: “When God Said Cheers,” “an intelligent comedy that makes you laugh and think at the same time! What happens when the man sitting next to you trying to snatch your drink happens to be God??!! When God Said Cheers!! is all that and a lot more.” The Statesman in New Delhi called it “A very interesting dialogue between Man and God.” The flyer goes on to say that the play “has been performed successfully in Hindi and in English.” I’m telling you, it’s a unique brand of English here. Verdict: I’ll go to the play if my coworkers do.

Wouldn’t you know I’d be holding it down in Mumbai by now? Today: got to work on my first try, fended off beggars, studied the Indian Constitution, kicked it with coworkers, had some Kingfisher beer at a lawyer’s apartment, got toothpaste, now Babu is cooking me dinner. I might not really be holding it down, but at least three different beggars were hitting me up today when I was in the back of rickshaws, and none of them paid me any extra time cause of my pasty face. After work I walked through a busy traffic circle, dodging cars from all sides and them dodging me. I mean, there were cars coming from every which way, and I crossed at least 7 lanes of converging and diverging traffic. This is just how it’s done in India. I’d say walking through traffic like this is manly, but there was a teenage girl walking with me. It was a rush at least. The streets and even the highways always got people walking amongst the traffic. I hadn’t done any shopping on my own yet, but after braving the in...

Hey, yo, I went to Pakistan. My flight couldn’t land in Delhi because there was bad weather, and the airport was too busy anyway. So, our plane circled for a while, but started running out of fuel, so we went and landed in Lahore, Pakistan. We couldn’t get off the plane, however, and the airport at Lahore kind of looks like every other airport I’ve ever seen. Plus, I wasn’t sitting by a window, and it was dark outside. While in Lahore, our plane broke down, and according to our captain, there are lots of legal documents involved with fixing a Dutch airliner in Pakistan. Lots of faxing back and forth of forms. By this point, I had been traveling for, I don’t remember, 20 hours. I was not caring about a whole lot. The Indian dude next to me had just graduated from an LLM program at Vanderbilt Law School. He was throwing back the Chinese beer. I didn’t have the energy to talk to him. I was thinking to myself, “I remember when I used to like drinking beer. Like, 14 hours ago.” Sampling Mul...

I made a whirlwind tour of Missouri and Iowa last week, saying bye to lots of relatives before I go to Bombay for the summer. Fayette My Great Uncle Bob is a 78-year-old retired farmer, still living in his same farm house outside of that small, small town, Fayette, Iowa. He's growing asparagus and rhubarb this summer. He's got bad knees. One of my aunts said to him, "Why don't you pick us some asparagus?" and he said, "You can pick it your god damn self. I 'bout killed myself yesterday out picking some for myself." He wasn't mad. He's just not a delicate man. When there's a lull in conversation, he says "Yup," and then repeats part of what he just said. For instance, had there been a lull in conversation after the asparagus request, he probably would have said something like, "Yup. 'bout killed my back." He's also fond of the mysterious word used by the elderly in Iowa, "pretnear." I think it's a ...

I was feeling very Tucker Max in the evenings. I was feeling very scholarly during the day. In the evenings, I was told I had no filter on the words and sentences that came from my mouth. I drank a lot of alcohol and went to a few bars. (I don't do this very often anymore. I'm over it. I usually drink red wine by myself on my couch and read the newspaper and talk to my roommate.) I am sure there are numerous people in D.C. last weekend who thought I was an idiot, and they were right. In the day I went to some boring, yet also very, very interesting, panel discussions on international law. I heard about arbitration, bilateral investment treaties, the harmonization of food law, what law can do for climate change, et cetera, et cetera. Funny note: arbitrators tend to be "pale, male, and stale." I met an elderly man (I met many men, some women and girls too.), a German who is now a very respected law professor in Germany and was also, I believe, a judge for, I believe, t...