Saturday night

So now it is Saturday. I am just home from work. And I work at a bank. Does that sound strange? For a Dutch guy it is. We don't work on Saturdays, generally. We don't work after five if it is not necessary. We have 9-5 jobs and the weekend to unwind.

In India however, they thank the British for introducing the weekend to India, because otherwise they would have worked 7 days a week. Of course there is still rush hour here. But there are just no times attached to the rush. It's more generally 'morning rush hour' and 'evening rush hour', which should be a serious deterrent for any Westerner to travel by public transport. I guess it is, because in 5 weeks of traveling the Bombay metro I have seen just 3 white people other than me. I am some sort of anomaly, as I wrote before. People stare at me and I see them thinking "what is he doing here? Is he lost? Is his driver sick? is he a tourist trying to get a whiff of authentic Indian life?" Sometimes I can almost see them dream. I am the white guy from 'over there' where the world is really happening, while they are struggling to keep up.

Anyway. I should get ready for the night. A trainee is leaving our little community which is always a good reason to have dinner with everyone and then go out for drinks. This time we're going down south, to the old city. I'm a bit apprehensive, because that means we're actually traveling an hour and a half by train to go to a club. But I'll go anyway, as I already said, I need the weekend to unwind.