Where I live

I'm living together with 12 other people, and 10 of them are also trainees at Satyam. Here's where everyone is from: Argentina, Spain, Turkey, Bulgaria, India (2), Egypt, UAE, Malaysia, Germany (2), Mexico, Canada (me). We're all sharing 3 apartments located on the same floor so most of the time at home we're cruising between each other's living rooms and kitchens.

From what I've seen, our apartments are comparable to those of typical Indian middle class families (but not upper-middle class). Here are some of their unique features:

* Marble floors. They look a little formal but I know we'll appreciate cold floors once the hot season starts.
* Steel closets/wardrobes in rooms (for clothing or any other stuff) , with locks. Still not sure why!
* No bathtubs - all water goes straight to the floor and then to the drain through an opening in the floor. In my bathroom that hole is actually on the opposite side of the room from the shower. So after a quick shower the water is everywhere (there are no shower curtains either :).
* Doors - everyone uses good old padlocks here.
* No washing machines and laundromats. Middle-class households usually have "servant maids", who take care of laundry. In our case, we can either give our clothes to a "wash guy" in the street, who is not very gentle (so clothes don't last), go to fairly expensive laundry places ($1 CDN/piece), or do all the washing ourselves (which is what I have been doing). Uh.

Oh, and our apartment has a unique home appliance: an ancient toaster without a timer. You operate it the same way as a regular toaster except after you put the bread in, you have to stand by and watch it to make sure it doesn't get burned. But who has patience for that? I think our toasting success rate is about 50%. That's why our apartment is always filled with smoke in the morning.