i send this smile over to you

This morning, we took an official picture of the whole office. This turned out to be an amazingly complex procedure. We had to all stand in the atrium, and a photographer stood on the balcony on the floor above ground level (they call it the first floor, but Americans would call it the second floor) to snap the picture. However, this wasn't just a photographer--he had two assistants, one to hold the camera bag and one to do some pre-focusing before the real photographer took the camera and did the rest of the focusing. They all tried to focus for about fifteen minutes, which is a lifetime in India, since the atrium is five stories tall and made completely of glass, which turns it into a furnace rather quickly. In fact, the panes of glass in the atrium are about 4' x 5', and they're constantly replacing them because they eventually shatter in the heat. Well, shatter isn't the right word--it's like the webbed shattering done by shatter-proof glass. Anyway, the atrium was stifling, and the photographer finally realized that the group was too big to be able to snap from the first floor. Rather than go up to the second floor, he had one assistant bring out a table for him to stand on. This still wasn't quite enough, and he ended up balancing one leg on the balcony railing. Then, the other assistant's sole job was to hold the photographer's thigh while he took the picture, presumably so that the photographer wouldn't fall.

After this process was finally done (~20 minutes), we discovered that we had to go outside, where they had set up an extremely rickety set of risers. I prudently chose the lowest riser, and we waited for another ten minutes while the same pre-focus and focus ritual took place outside. As we all sat there looking stupid, all of the workmen who are building a new office building across the street stared at us and laughed. The photographer tried to be artistic, and at one point went so far as to lie down on the ground, but this just looked silly since he was in his fifties and most certainly couldn't pull of the 'work it for the camera' vibe that he was trying for.

The rest of the day was busy but uneventful, and I went out for dinner afterwards at a new restaurant that we wanted to try. It was a pseudo-success--the place was hilarious, but that's not always what you want in a restaurant. The ratio of service staff to clientele was about 6:1, and at any given time we had four people hovering over us trying to make sure that everything was okay. We confused them terribly by ordering a really random combination of stuff and asking for it to come all at once; they really wanted to bring the stuff that was classified as a starter first, but we finally coerced them into bringing everything. It was a really strange mix, which was our fault--onion rings, chicken nuggets (weird, but tasty), veg chow mein, veg dim sum (which was really just a spinach patty), french fries, the 'Indian sizzler' platter (which was funny only because it was the first dish listed in the 'continental' portion of the menu), and a bunch of naan. The waiter didn't want to let us place an order for naan without getting some type of curry, but we eventually prevailed. It was a fun place, despite the fact that the service was almost oppressive and the food was only average. Best of all, it's about five minutes from the apartment, rather than 25 or 30 like all of the restaurants in Banjara Hills.

I really really really have to go to bed; we're going to Srisailam tomorrow, and we're leaving at six a.m. I really hope that I can sleep in the car, since I'm going to get about five and a half hours of sleep tonight. It should be fun--and we're coming back pretty early on Sunday, so I'll have Sunday to catch up on sleep and do all the work that has to get done this weekend. So, don't expect a post tomorrow, but I'll give some type of update when I get back.