curry gurry

I went to the Bannerghatta Zoo today with a few colleagues. Prepare for pictures of animals and hippos. (Hippos are not animals. They are gods.)

Oh, and this sign was near one of the cages. I believe it suggests the feeding of white men to hungry animals.

A typical Monday in Bangalore.

Today I woke up just like any other day. I didn’t feel much like eating, so I prepared for work and left my apartment around 10AM. I had no problem getting a rickshaw to the office (for the white-guy bargain of meter-plus-twenty, a special treatment to which I’ve grown quite accustomed).

The driver sped off in the wrong direction. Who would have thought there were multiple IBM offices in Bangalore? Funny thing is I don’t even work for IBM, it’s just that mentioning the company is usually the quickest way to get a driver to acknowledge where I need to go. We corrected our direction and continued onward.

What is usually a ten-minute ride soon became a 15-minute wait on a small side street connecting to 100 Feet Road. The driver waited patiently, sighing on occasion, and talking something in Kannada to adjacent rickshaw drivers. In the twenty minutes we waited there, I was approached by two hookers. All before 10:30AM.

The first one tiptoed toward me, garnering the sultry sashay of a catwalk, and tenderly gripped the rickshaw. Her voice was about three octaves lower than mine when she spoke. Whatever she said, I didn’t understand, but I couldn’t help but laugh — especially since the driver now had his head on the handlebars and was silently chuckling to himself.

I her, or, him, to go away by shyly muttering some Kannada, and thought I was in the clear. A minute later, another woman, or maybe another man, approached me, smiled coyly, and walked away after softly running her fingers across my trembling knee.

The driver looked up, still laughing, and I asked him, “The first one was man, right?” He didn’t understand a word I said, but I think the sentiment got across.

Traffic started to move, and we slowly crawled across 100 Feet Road, which we would usually take to the flyover, except there were half a dozen police officers in their starched white shirts and cowboy hats forcing us directly across the street. It was probably best that way, especially since 100 Feet Road was backed with cars like vomit trickling out of its gaping mouth.

We began slithering through more side streets, trying to find a way back to 100 Feet Road, but they were just as congested. Cars were going the opposite way down one-way streets, which didn’t help. People were, like always, everywhere, which also didn’t help.

We came to another corner of a small street and 100 Feet Road where I saw a familiar face, a ghostly white guy with bright red hair who I believe works in the Microsoft office in the same building as mine. He looked a little lost. I’m not sure if he was looking for a rickshaw, but we drove by him too quickly for me to ask him to hop in.

Back on 100 Feet Road, heading south (directions don’t exist in Bangalore, by the way, only landmarks, like malls, police stations, statues, fire hydrants, dirt piles, holes in the ground, etc.), we found that traffic was still completely stuck. It had now been about 45 minutes since I first got in. The meter was slightly over 20 rupees.

We crept along a little bit more, and finally came to a complete standstill. Nothing moved. The rickshaws were silent. People’s cars were turned off. There wasn’t a horn to be heard. The driver tried to tell me something about the route, and, again, I really don’t know what he said, but I knew the quickest route to work that didn’t involve the fly over, so I thought I would just have to wait this out.

After we went back and forth a bit, he made it quite clear by offering to find me another rickshaw (to sit in traffic, presumably). When his search turned up no other drivers, he politely kicked me out of the rickshaw — after I paid him, of course.

I wasn’t too far from my office, but I was slightly disoriented being on my feet in this area for the first time. I knew how to navigate to work by driving, but walking was totally foreign to me. I should mention now that walking in Bangalore is similar to a precarious trek up an untrodden mountainside.

Due south of me was the flyover, and I’d be damned if I walked over it. I would have been as red as a tomato by the time I reached the other side, not to mention drenched from head to toe, which was inevitable at this point as my body refuses to get adjusted to the heat. What can I say? I sweat a little bit, and it just so happens to gather in my hair like a sponge.

I began walking, but opted to take the lower roads, hoping to find a way under the flyover, maybe through the mud field I see every day, the one with the blue tarp tents lined up perfectly in the shade. I quickly found myself on what I can only call a highway off-ramp. Fearing my life, I called my office and said something along the lines of, “I know where I am, and I’m trying to get to work, but I might die, and I just wanted you to know.”

I kept on, doing my best to stay close to the rails (on the inside, of course), and kept my arms closely at my side every time a car, rickshaw, or truck drove passed. I made it safely, eventually, but found myself in an entirely new predicament — crossing Old Airport Road, a road typically busy with a heavy flow of traffic only now augmented by other cars seeking an alternate route.

A quick dash brought me to the median, where I surveyed the oncoming traffic. A car stopped, trying to make a u-turn, and the bus behind it appeared to be slowing down. It was my chance, but was also risky, as I couldn’t see what was waiting for me on the other side of the bus, since, well, it was a bus. But I had no choice — I didn’t know how long it would take to find another break in traffic, and the sweat was already trickling down my cheeks.

I hopped out in front of the bus, but instead of slowing down, it sped up. I had no choice but to continue on. As soon as I cleared the bus, I was met by another bus.

Imagine a waffle stuck in a toaster oven, rigidly frozen at full attention, basking in the heat of the oven, the sweat of melting ice dribbling down its entire body. That was me.

When I opened my eyes, they had both passed, and I had become a human obstacle for the other drives, all of which were expressing their consternation with my existence with a cacophony of horn-honking. I wriggled to the other side, took a breath of relief, of victory, and — an empty auto!

I flagged him down and said, “Please, just take me down Inner Ring Road.” I didn’t even want to bargain with him, but my desperation must have spoken loudly enough, because once I crumbled in the back seat he flipped on the meter without me even asking. Didn’t even tell me plus-ten, or plus-twenty.

The rest of the ride was typically calm — bumper-to-bumper traffic, symphonic horn-honking, blistering heat. I arrived at the office campus around 11, and entered good ol’ Pebble Beach Block B, and — what the hell?

The Irish-looking Microsoft guy was hanging out at the elevators. I didn’t bother asking, but every time I see him, I’ll now wonder how in the world he made it to the office before me, and in such dry and tidy condition.

Sankey Tank - Bangalore, India

Thoughts on my return to Bangalore.

A woman nearly died on my flight from Philly to Paris. At least, I thought she nearly died. She was incapacitated for over an hour, lying in the middle of the aisle, with a flight attendant holding her legs above her head, a doctor-passenger (paged, just like on the television!) inserting an IV into her arm, and an entire airplane of turned heads keeping a steady vigil. She eventually pulled through. I don’t know how I would have felt if she died on the plane, but it certainly felt awkward enough flying around with a potentially dead body.

I was disappointed that Charles de Gaulle didn’t have smoking incubators. I thought if any airport in the world would have smoking incubators, it would be one in Paris, or France. I’ll try to go through Frankfurt next time.

Speaking of smoking, they always tell you that it’s a federal offense to smoke on an aircraft, yet they are all equipped with ashtrays. Are these just remnants of a previous civilization, or do flights actually exist during which one can smoke? Not that I particularly want to be on a smoking flight. In fact, it sounds kind of gross. Besides, I’ve slept through the majority of all of my recent flights, and I haven’t yet mastered the art of smoking while sleeping.

Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll quit one day soon.

My flight landed an hour late in Bangalore. Immigration took an hour, and customs took another hour, and was just as exciting as I imagined it would be. When I took the suitcase off the carousel, it was covered in large circled X’s drawn in white chalk. I sighed, knowing that I would be soon raped by customs, just as I was last time.

A mustached man asked if I had a laptop in my suitcase. Of course I did. Can’t you see all of the X’s on my bag? I was half tempted to say no, there’s nothing in my suitcase, but I had one in my carry on, in addition to some camera equipment. But I couldn’t lie. I didn’t like the prospect of being thrown in jail, or having to pay a ludicrous amount of duty/bribes for my personal belongings. Unfortunately, this was inevitable.

I was slightly wiser this time, but not nearly as brazen as I wanted to be. I took out my Dell laptop, as it was a big chunk of black plastic and looked less expensive in comparison to my shiny silver Macbook. I was told that the duty would be 36.6% of the cost of the laptop to import, which is pretty ridiculous, but having no proof of the laptop’s worth, I was able to negotiate this pretty handsomely.

The laptop, I convinced him, was a company hand-me-down well over three years old, and could be worth no more than, hm, $800? He pulled out his calculator and told me that my duty would be $288. I quickly told him I wouldn’t be paying that much to import a company laptop, and he explained my other option would be to detain the laptop at the airport until I bring proof in letter form that it is property of an Indian company (which it wasn’t). Clearly, even if I was able to get the proof, the laptop would have been long gone by the time I returned. I chuckled at the thought.

I’m not leaving it here, and I’m not paying $288, so what are our other options? He gave me a shady look, and said, “Okay, a hundred then.” No, I told him, fifty. He said seventy. I knew I had a healthy amount of USD on me, left overs from Christmas gifts, and maybe Rs. 2000 which I never removed from my wallet after leaving India in October, but just to double check, I took out my wallet. The man nearly jumped over the counter to prevent me from doing this. “No, sir, no no no. Not here.”

Across the way were two adjacent offices, one containing a shady Indian boy-man, who could either have been 18 or 46, I have no idea; the other containing a legit-looking Indian teller sitting behind a desk, accompanied in his office by a cot stripped of sheets but covered in plastic shrink wrap. He pointed to the left office, and followed me in.

I opened my wallet and said, “I can only pay fifty. I need to have cash for my cab ride home.” I handed him fifty, and he asked for twenty more. I sighed, and pleaded with my conscience to hand it to him and get it over with. It would be so much easier this way. And so I did. He counted it, handed it to the boy-man, and asked me to return with him to the customs counter. I flipped the lid on the whole operation when I asked, “Do I get a receipt for that?”

“No, no receipt.” He turned around and walked away.

“Oh hell, no. I need a receipt.”

“I’m sorry, sir, no receipt.” He kept walking, leaving me with the boy-man.

I told him to give me a receipt, or give me my money back. I definitely raised my voice. He turned around, spooked, looking over his shoulders to see if any of the other guards were paying attention.

“Please sir, calm down, calm down. Come with me.”

As we walked back to my belongings at the counter, I ranted aloud about thieves and crime and whatever else came to my head. It was close to 3AM, and I was delirious. I realized that I was now in control of the situation and that I could have a little fun being loud and angry. The more attention I garnered from other people, the more likely he was to crack, and let me walk away duty free. I kept ranting.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get away duty free. In fact, I still ended up paying around $70. After he wrote up the receipt for the transaction, I walked it over the legit teller with the plastic-covered cot, paid the price, and got my copy. I wouldn’t call this a victory at all. In fact, it was an absolute failure on my part, but at least I got my receipt.

During this entire charade, I overheard another woman being hassled at customs — probably legitimately. She worked for Microsoft, and had around six red plastic containers filled to the top with computer peripherals and gadgetry. The customs officers’ heads were spinning. As I dragged my luggage passed her, I wished her good luck. She was going to be there for a long time.

The ride to my hotel was peaceful. I arrived, unpacked, and started my Lost marathon.

Experimenting with HDR photography.

Yesterday was officially my first adventure in this brand new world.

After breakfast (dosa with potato masala, chicken sausage), I threw on my backpack and journeyed out into the wild, heading westward on Mahatma Gandhi Road, setting out to find two bookstores that had been pointed out to me previously — Gangarams, and Higginbothams — and to explore, in a very general sense. The sense that has no particular destination.

MG Road could be the busiest street I’ve ever seen. It’s currently divided by the construction of an above-ground Metro, supported by massive concrete columns. The construction is barricaded off, making freely crossing the street more or less impossible other than a small break in the barricade, which you have to turn sideways to actually squeeze through.

Adding to the impossibility, cars, rickshaws, and two-wheelers are lined up, bumper-to-bumper for the majority of the day. In fact, the only time I’d seen MG Road freely navigable was after 1AM. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to capture the essence of MG Road in photographs, but I will shortly.

Walking to the bookstores was an adventure, as the sidewalks are mostly nonexistent. Where they do exist, they are often broken, fragmented, and swarming with people. People simply walk on the road, right alongside traffic. Honking is incessant, and necessary, as drivers use the horn to alert pedestrians and other motorists of their presence. Unlike America, the horn is not the noise of frustration, but a sign of proximity.

I found the selection at Gangarams surprisingly rich. The first floor was filled with stationary, notebooks, binders, and trinkets. The second floor had a wide selection of reading, ranging from children’s books, to classics, to modern fiction, and even a few niche genres. I was able to pick up a map book of Bangalore for Rs. 200.

The best part was I was able to find several books that I had packed with me, and also several that didn’t quite make the cut, and others that I didn’t even consider, however would like to read, should I find the time over the next year.

Higginbothams had more of a university selection. The upstairs was mostly textbooks, and the downstairs had small sections for other genres, including what seemed to be a section containing specifically sex books, and also a section devoted solely to modern Indian authors, the latter of which I hope to make good use in the future.

Once my goal had been achieved, I continued westward toward Cubbon Park, where I was eventually hassled by a rickshaw driver insistent on taking me on a tour of Bangalore. I crossed several precarious intersections, and eventually took a southbound street, finding myself away from the more commercial area, or so it seemed.

A lot of school children were out and about. I got looks from just about everyone I passed, but I can’t really discern what kind of looks. A furrowed brown doesn’t always mean distaste. Maybe confusion, or maybe it was from the heat, because it was definitely hot.

I was, however, able to sit down for a few minutes, have a cigarette, and do a little people watching.

By the time I winded my way through the side streets, and back to the hotel, a journey which led me to Brigade Road, which is apparently a hot spot of Bangalore, as it’s packed with more stores and pubs, I was fully saturated in sweat.

To summarize my initial impression of the city, Bangalore is hot and under construction, but by no means disenchanting. This impression was later augmented by the latter half of my day.

A Canadian coworker of mine, Steffanie, had invited me to go sightseeing with her and two Indian friends, one of whose name I can remember, but cannot spell, the other whose name eludes me to this moment.

(Aside from undoubtedly being aware of my aural learning disability, the difficulty in remembering Indian names of both people, places, and things is compacted by the combination of letters that, until now, I’ve never actually had to pronounce in conjunction with one another. Plus, there seems to be for me a mental disconnect between the spelling and the phonetics of any given Indian word. Despite the obstacles, I will conquer this.)

Around 3PM, we had a quick lunch of Hara Bhara kebabs, and Manchurian vegetables, both of which were delicious, and then set out to on our sightseeing journey with our Indian comrades.

When thinking of ‘sightseeing,’ your mind often conjures up miracles of nature and architecture, places and people of ancient historical relevance, and those subliminal creations of man that can never be grasped in their entirety. While our sightseeing journey included such sights, it was the unexpected cultural nuances found along the way that left the deeper impressions in my mind.

Our first destination was Tipu’s Palace, which I can only assume is located in Chamarajpet, a short ways south west of MG Road.

The ride was filled with more traffic, which at one point involved a traffic jam with a cow. We parked at Vanivilas, a free hospital (a picture of a mural found on one of the walls is above). Dozens of people were gathered around it, sitting outside, possibly waiting for a doctor, or hanging their laundry on the fences. Of course, there were cows grazing in the open fields before the hospital. As I passed one man, he asked me which country I was from. I didn’t answer, but this seemingly insignificant event foreshadowed what would happen later at the Iskcon Temple.

Walking toward Tipu’s Palace, we passed outdoor urinal stalls, placed right on the side of the street, where any man can walk up and pee freely. At first, there was something unsettling about this, but I shortly recalled all of the times I was stumbling around LA or NYC with a full bladder, looking for dark spot on a quiet street to relieve myself. Sure, neither of these situations are sanitary, but at least in India one is legal.

As we passed the stalls, all heads turned towards Steffanie, or the white people. I couldn’t really figure out which it was, or if it was both. Standing on the corner, a small child sitting between his mother and father on a moped pointed at me. (Yes, I’ve seen up to four people riding on one moped or motorcycle.) We were previously warned that this trip might garner some unwanted attention.

I’ll let the pictures of the palace do the talking. It was very quiet and very serene compared to the boisterous bustle of our travels, and everywhere else in the city.

We started making our way by car toward Iskcon Temple, but had to make several pit stops along the way, all of which provided more details for the illustration of Bangalore forming in my mind. We passed through a market area I believe was in a neighborhood called Chikpete. I’ll have to do a little asking around in order to find it again. The traffic was so dense, and the unfamiliarity with the city caused the streets to blend together in my mind. Still, I’m trying to extract and place them properly.

Close to Iskcon, there were several houses that seemed to be demolished. I’m not sure if they were being rebuilt, or paved over to make room for something else. Cows were abound, either hanging around on the side (or in the middle) of the road, helping move various cargo, or simply munching on a pile of gruel.

By this point, it was nearing nighttime, and a golden light bathed the city. The smog from the traffic started to become unbearable, and I breathed through a handkerchief. You’d think being a smoker for eight years would have made me resilient to this kind of air. Let this be a testament to the heaviness of the smog is in this city. LA smog has nothing on BLR smog. Surprisingly, nobody had warned me of this.

We arrived at the Iskcon Temple (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) and parked. I had to leave my camera inside the car, but I provided a shot of the outside of the temple at nighttime above. It was truly a sight to see. Like most churches and temples of such size and stature, you have to marvel at how such a thing could even be built, especially with such detail.

The Hare Krishna mantra was being played out of unseen loudspeakers. The length of the day was starting to weigh down on me, and the onset of delirium made this experience all the more enjoyable. The word of the day is “serenity.”

We had to check our shoes at the entrance, and also wash our feet, requiring we trek the temple (consisting of three ascending altars) barefoot. Unfortunately, I know next to nothing of Vishnu and the rituals being performed at the temple, however I do plan on researching, and possibly participating. There’s something incredible about such a large amount of devout worshippers — especially when the ceremonies are not a structured snooze-fests proctored by pedobears. Sorry, Catholicism, you’re just not the one for me.

(However, I admittedly do not know enough about Hinduism and its many variations and idiosyncrasies to form any sort of educated opinion. It’s possible, and likely, that it possesses its own internal negative nuances on par with those of Catholicism. Note to self: let us be more cautious in our leaps and bounds.)

While the temple and the practice was tranquil, the real highlight for me was the labyrinth of shops and stands on your way out, most of which were peddling religiously oriented wares — trinkets, posters, jewelry, calendars, and food.

As we were perusing, three Indian boys walked up to us. Having been forewarned of beggars, and having a natural American inclination to ignoring strangers, as they could potentially be some sort of con artists or pickpockets (the latter of the two we were warned about on our way into the temple), I wasn’t sure how to immediately react, but I ultimately decided to give them my attention. It’s hard anywhere to differentiate between a genuinely nice person, and someone who is out to get you, but these three were teenagers and seemed polite enough.

The one boy asked me what country I was from, and I told him the USA. He simply put out his hand and told me his name, that he was from Bangalore, and was pleased to meet me. Shortly following him, his two friends stepped forward and did the same. Then they asked Steffanie as well. They asked us what how we felt about the temple, and after a brief conversation, albeit a broken one, they said goodbye and walked away.

The more I think about it, I cannot find anything disingenuous about the meeting. I felt like I didn’t even have to check my pockets. Trust is given such limited quantities these days, but for a valid reason. I’d still much rather be cautious and careful than be conned or cuckolded. (Yes, I was strictly aiming for an alliteration.) Despite this, it was the most surreal moment in my day.

After weaving our way through the shops, we were given small bowls of laddu, a sweet rice treat, which we ate with our fingers (…when in Rome). Aside from this dish traditionally being served similarly to a Catholic Eucharist, Iskcon also sponsors “Food for Life,” which is a global charity designed to feed the poor.

We finally made it back to the car and started heading toward the hotel. By this point, delirium had fully set it, and I was nodding in and out of consciousness. Or maybe I was high. We had noticed at some points in the ride we could scarcely see the other side of the road as the smog was so thick. It was a good thing I passed out.

I woke up outside the hotel, carried myself up to the room, and fell asleep after a shower, and a small glass of Signature. I hadn’t smoked a cigarette in about eight hours, but there wasn’t really a point in doing so.

Last night was the first time I slept through the night, and ended up sleeping an entire eight hours. I like to think I’ve adjusted, but we’ll find out tomorrow when I have my official first day of work.

Here is a picture of me crossing the street in Bangalore.

Courtesy of Amy, my sister.

Goodbye, America!

(EDIT: Please allow me to clear up some confusion. My sister created the picture of the cows and me, and had it put on a cake for my going away party in PA. No, Jeff, I didn’t take this picture in Bangalore, have it put on a cake, and sent to my family to eat. That would just be stupid.)