Wow! If only I were at the receiving end of the prenuptial agreement. I hope this won't set a precedent for marriages .....

Just like the WorldCom shareholders, Porter has lost everything, too. "I've been wiped out," he says. "And it is not so easy to go and find at job at 61. I am not sure what I will do right now."

Porter can perhaps count on Willa, 43, his fourth wife, to pay for groceries. When they married six years ago, they entered into a prenup agreement that was supposed to pay her four annual payments of $2.5 million just for being married to him. She's only collected two, and is listed among the creditors. It is likely assets belonging to Willa will be off-limits to her husband's other creditors. She has already received millions in cash and valuable artwork, cars and other items that Porter transferred, according to the bankruptcy filing.

Chinatown

Tangra. Otherwise known as Chinatown.

I am told that no Indian in Calcutta would be able to tell that I am a foreigner. They would think I'm from Chinatown. Besides, the people who live in northeastern India, in places such as Assam or Manipur have Mongoloid features like the Chinese. They can only tell I'm a foreigner from my English accent. During most of the trip, whenever I see someone who looks like a Chinese, I would always ask them where they were from. They would always tell me some place like Assam, Manipur, Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet etc, but never China. Despite what I was told about Calcutta having many Chinese people, I guess I'm not fated to meet any Chinese at all.

I am told that the Chinese who live in Calcutta migrated from China several centuries ago. They have also taken up Indian citizenship since then. It makes sense actually. I seriously doubt any modern day Chinese would choose Calcutta as a home.

I had gone to Chinatown hoping to see my own kind, but all I saw was more Indians. It also was not the Chinatown I was accustomed to see, the kind with lots of shops selling trinkets or joss sticks, bustling with people. Instead all I saw was dirty roads with full of pot holes, and lots of rubbish dumped on the side. Most of what I saw were leather factories and Chinese restaurants. I saw like only three people who looked like Chinese, and that was after walking for about an hour around Chinatown.

After Chinatown, Elton and I wandered into what appeared to be a slum. In some ways, I'm glad I came here, because this gave me an opportunity to photograph the authentic life of the people of Calcutta. I'm sure it is not the poorest place in Calcutta (I have seen worse when we were enroute to the Temple of Kali), but it was better than nothing.

After that, we went to a tourist attraction called Swabhumi in Salt Lake City (it was named as such because the water there is salty, so I am told). The tourist attraction itself was not that interesting, but Salt Lake City is. It was the first time I felt closer to home. At last, here you can find decent looking terrace houses that look like they have been built and painted in the last twenty years. It appears to be the place where the professionals of Calcutta live. IBM and the Wipro headquarters are located here, and I'm told many other multi-nationals will be going there too.

Conned By a $%(&!#)(&%)@#$ Cabby!

I know it's a Saturday today, but I have to return to work. The customer apparently wanted Elton (who is more senior than I am) to conduct some sort of a demonstration to his big bosses, so I had to come in as well. It won't look too cool if Elton were at work and I were by some beach sipping pina colada, would it?

After that, I went to run on the treadmill, determined to get rid of the fats I had acquired this trip. Final result: I lost about 100 grams of water. Looks like I have a looooooooong way to go.

After the workout, it was already about 6pm. Elton and I took a cab to a place called College Street. When we boarded the cab, I had noticed the cabby adjusting the meter (he was using those mechanical meters), but I thought he was just resetting the fare, so I didn't think much of it. Halfway through the journey, I glanced at the meter again. To my horror, it had seemed very high although we had only covered a short distance. I had the sinking feeling that we were about to be conned, big time.

"Ta ma de, this idiot is going to con us," I said to Elton in Mandarin.
"Maybe what the meter is showing us is the correct fare," Elton said.
"Maybe. We'll know soon," I replied.

When we reached our destination, the mechanical meter was showing 50 rupees.

"For this distance, it should only be 70 or 80 rupees," I said to Elton.
"How much?" Elton asked.
"Hundred fifty," said the cabby.

He took out a meter chart, the very first time I saw a cabby doing so in Calcutta, as if that would prove his point. He pointed at a figure which said 50 rupees on the left column, and 150 rupees on the right column.

"Hundred fifty," he repeated with his minimal command of English.
"Are you sure?" asked Elton.
"Not possible. We come before. Always less than hundred. No hundred fifty.", I said, trying to be as English friendly to him as possible.
"Hundred fifty," he pointed at the meter chart again.
"Yeah, we have been here before, don't try to lie to us." said Elton.
"We come before. We know how much. You no cheat us.", I said.

After several minutes of pointless arguing we got out of the cab, our pockets a hundred and fifty rupees lesser. I was quite pissed with the cabby, and I had a good mind to just walk out of the cab without even paying him a single rupee.

We will have to be more careful in future. Stupid cabby!

College Street, I was told was filled with second hand books. When I went there however, all I saw were university textbooks sold by some dodgy looking street-side stall. Being an avid bookworm, I was dissapointed. The only books that seemed to be of any interest to me at all were finance or economics textbooks.

Later, we decided to had dinner in a Bengali restaurant called Kewpies, recommended by the Lonely Planet. It was at Elgin Road, but we didn't know how to get there. This was when I realized that many people in Calcutta could not speak English. I asked several cabbies to bring us to this place, but none of the cabbies seemed to even speak English at all. Elton was less adventurous, and wanted to go back to the hotel for dinner, but I persuaded him to try to find the restaurant. We searched hard for a shopkeeper who could speak English before we finally found one. He told us that we had to take the Metro (Calcutta's version of the subway) to a place called Rabindra Sadan, and then ask the people there.

To cut a long story short, we took the metro, and then we searched and asked, and searched and asked again, until we finally found the Bengali restaurant. We had some puri, the famous Bengali fried fish, chicken, mutton and spinach. The food was ok, although I thought it was too ordinary to have been recommended by Lonely Planet. Then again, maybe it is the best "Bengali" restaurant, and Bengali food is generally bland anyway.

We ended the day by going to a designer coffee house, a little like an Indian version of Coffee Bean. The owner was a very friendly person, and we chatted with him for quite a while, learning more about Calcutta. I learnt from the owner that this was the only coffee house in Calcutta .... I tipped him with 10 rupees (20% of our bill) for his friendliness and we left.

What's with the quality of the air today?

What's with the quality of the air today? There is a heavy smoky smell of soot all over Calcutta. Not that Calcutta isn't already polluted, but today the smell is especially bad. Want to know how bad it is? It is so bad that I think the smell of rubbish (like that huge pile of crap dumped beside my client's office) is better. My nose has now been seasoned to the corrupt, sweet smell of rotting rubbish, but I still haven't quite acquired a taste for heavily polluted air yet. After spending half an hour in a non-air conditioned cab, it sure feels like I have just smoked 20 cigarettes. I'm sure if one were to take the PSI readings, I dare bet it would've been no lesser than 150. The air quality today is so bad that Hong Kong's air would seem like pure oxygen. No way I'm going to get out of the hotel today.

Going to Mumbai?

My client suggested that at the end of our stint with his company, we go to one of his company's branch offices at Mumbai to have a look. I'm not sure if Mumbai will be much fun, but I'm sure it would be a nice change from Calcutta. While I found Calcutta a very unique and interesting city, I am not exactly in a hurry to come here again.

Cabby in Calcutta

I finally understand how the cab fare system in Calcutta works. Apparently, there are two different kinds of meters - the electronic meter, and the older mechanical meter. Unfortunately, changes in cab fare schemes are not programmed into the meters, and the cab driver will have to calculate the fare depending on which meter he has. For the electronic meter, you would take the meter's reading and multiply it by 1.5. For the older mechanical meter, you would take the meter's reading and multiply it by 3. From now on, no cab driver shall overcharge me, unless I allow him to. I promptly put my skills into use.

I was in on a cab today from my customer's place to the Sheraton Sonar Bangla. When I reached the Sheraton, the electronic meter displayed 33. With some quick calculation, I figured that the cab ride should only cost 50 rupees. I handed the cab driver 100 rupees. The bloody cab driver took the 100 rupees and opened the door for me. I decided to amuse myself by taking some of the joy out of his new found wealth. "Are you sure I'm not supposed to get some change?" I asked. He grinned sheepishly and handed me 20 rupees. "Is that all? I thought the cab ride was 50 rupees?" There was a scowl on his face as he handed me another 30 rupees.

Lousy cabby. If you hadn't tried to con me, I would've let you keep the 100 rupees for your honesty. Honesty among cabbies is so hard to come by these days. Serves you right for trying to con me.

FAT!!!

I'm horrified at how unhealthy I have become. For the first time in several months, I went to the weighing machine. It appears that I have gained 6kg in the two months I have joined this company. Just a few weeks ago, I was able to run on the treadmill at a steady pace of 13.6 km/h for about 10 minutes. Today, I could only last 5 minutes. The only explanation for this is that I am tired, or my body is starting to deteriorate. I believe it's the latter, although I sometimes wonder if the poor air quality in Calcutta could have also played a part. This poor state of health really bothers me. I have to start watching what I eat. Gone shall be the days where I would go to various fancy restaurants and fill myself to the brim. I shall try to relive the days I ate simple but healthy food before I joined this company.

It is for this reason that I still prefer the per diem (or allowance) system, for that would help me keep a hold on my spending. Being able to claim for any expense made conditions the mind to make frivolous expenditure.