After the trippy wild-west dinner from last night, Joanna and I discussed our mutual feeling that it was off-putting to try to do America while in India. We're not yet sick of street noise and spicy food, of haggling and auto drivers. Air-conditioned cars and fancy Western restaurants are a luxury to be saved for the future. But our weekend wasn't over.
I slept in until a glorious 7:30 AM! Joanna suggested we go to Fitness One, a local gym. Joanna had been to this gym before and she warned me that no one she saw there was wearing shorts. I certainly was not going to go work out in pants. So I compromised with long shorts and a t-shirt, and Joanna decided she would embrace the whole tank=n=shorts rebel foreigner look. We covered up our scandalous attire with respectable street clothes. Once more, sort of expressly against orders, we left the apartment alone.
Jayanagar was peaceful and pretty in early Sunday morning light. There were a few fruit sellers unpacking wares and the sounds of the day lazily beginning in multiple households at once. To avoid the metro construction, Joanna led by an alternate route and somehow we got lost. We traced back our steps and tried again and finally, hot enough from just the walk, we found the gym. I was hoping to get the same deal Joanna got for a 15 day pass but her 'man on the inside' wasn't at work and the employees present made a show of calling the manager and stating the official, inflated price to me. I bargained for a free trial day and we headed off to the locker rooms.
I did my best to keep up with Joanna and it was a lot of fun to go 'gymming' as the employees called it. Women were definitely in the minority there. Pleasantly tired, we walked back to the apartment. While Joanna showered, I stood and stared at the gas stove.
I would hazard a guess and say that 60% of the warnings I have been given about India concern the gas stove. I knew how to work it in theory- turn the valve on the tank, turn on the gas, light it, turn down the heat, turn it off properly once done...but that very moment, as I stood there staring at the stove, my mother called and warned me about 5 more times.
So I called Shruthi to come supervise while I boiled the milk. At night, we leave a bucket outside the door with coupons inside for milk and curds. the dudh-wallah (milk-seller) comes and leaves plastic packets of milk and curds corresponding to the number of coupons. Before we can drink it, the milk must be boiled and for that I needed the stove. Everything went without a hitch - cut open the packet, pour the milk in the vessel, heat, turn off, badabing badaboom...
Oatmeal was glorious. Shruthi's parents treated us to lunch again, this time at a Chinese restaurant. Chinese food in India is Indo-Chinese, consisting of much spicier versions of typical Chinese dishes. Joanna and I split a vegetable fried rice and some odd-tasting vegetable tempura. We even indulged in a mousse cake dessert with ice cream.
After lunch, we went with Shruthi to Forum, a large and popular mall in Bangalore. To enter the mall we had to pass through metal detectors and a bag search station: measures taken after recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Interestingly I walked right through the metal detectors without removing any jewelry or metal from my purse. I'm not entirely sure what they detect.
It gave me a headache to be in a shopping mall again. It was funny to look around and see signs in Kannada, and to note that the majority of stores sold Indian clothing. But the confined spaces and crowds of shoppers just didn't appeal to me and I longed to get back outside. We met Atul and the four of us (a true gang now!) browsed Hindi movies, reminiscing fondly, before heading back out.
They took us to Mocha, another popular hookah hangout in the city. It was even cooler than Java City. We went to the roof, which looked almost Arabian with swaths of bright colours and secluded couches surrounded by curtains.
The masala chai was great and we talked for the majority of the time about relationships.
This is one area where there are stark differences between India and America. According to Shruthi and Atul, in India it is still not acceptable for two teenagers to date. To sleep in the same bed, even innocently, would be irreversibly damaging to one's reputation. They regaled us with horror stories about police brutality turned on young couples caught in public places. In some cases, the offending couple would be forced to marry immediately. In other cases, they were beaten or killed.
There is a big case in the Indian news now about a 15 year old girl who reportedly had an affair with one of the servants near her house. Both daughter and lover were murdered at the father's behest- an honour killing to prevent damage to the family reputation from a daughter pursuing someone of a lower station in life. In Shruthi's college, there are separate staircases for boys and girls. If a girl is caught going up the boy's staircase, the punishment is for her to stand at the bottom of the staircase for two hours each day where everyone can see her. The reasoning behind this is that she must have been seeking male attention to choose that staircase. (I'll go in to more detail about schools and punishments at the end of this post).
It is always so disappointing to me that even as India takes massive strides towards development and technology and economic growth, we lag so far behind in some basic social areas. Only 3-4 years ago in Bangalore people would beat up couples they found in public places. It is unreal.
Conversation shifted to American high schools. Atul and Shruthi wanted to know how Mean Girls-esque American schools really were. Were there cliques and popular kids? Were cheerleaders the queens as they were in movies? We answered as best as we could from personal experience and the differences were so interesting. In Indian schools, they assured us, while everyone has their close friends, everyone is comfortable talking to any other kid in their class. That is certainly not something that can be said about American schools.
After Mocha we came home, tired again after a long day. Shruthi's family invited us out to dinner once more and I went while Joanna stayed home to skype her family. This was by far my favourite restaurant for the weekend as (thankfully) it was Indian.
It is called Angeethi and it is on the fourth floor of a hotel, open air with an amazing view out over rooftops of Bangalore. The restaurant is done up in an old dhaba style, so there is a thatched roof with old filmi posters hanging. The plates are wooden and the cups are copper, and menus look old and worn. The food was spicy but fantastic and my favourite was the dahi with boonda in it. (curds with tiny balls of soft dough...it sounds odd when translated but is definitely worth trying).
Conversation at dinner revolved around schools and punishment. Shruthi had told me that in her college, if a student answered a question wrong, they were made to stand for 2 hours either at their desk or in the corner. I told them this would never happen in America, and a long discussion followed. In school, she would be rapped with rulers and in 2nd grade was slapped for not understanding the directions of an assignment.
A teacher in Bangalore threw a wooden eraser at a child's head and the child died. Another student died from heat exhaustion because, late to PE, she had been made to run around the field in the sun for hours. Obviously schools aren't rampant festering hellholes of abuse, but the way students are treated is certainly inconceivable in an American schooling system.
We also spoke about politicians. There are many politicians in India seem to be backed by gundas, or thugs who bully opposition and wrangle votes out of the people. These politicians use the threat of their thugs to get their students into schools, win special favours ad basically manipulate society at their convenience. A sad instance of corruption in India.
Another way to win votes is with bribes, of course. Every rural villager in India has a colour television, though they may lack a steady source of food or income. These colour TVs are gifted by local politicians as a means to guarantee votes. I'll talk about this more in my next post.
Anyways, after Angeethi we went to ice cream and then on home. The weekend ended and after all of the American experiences we had, Joanna and I were glad we could return to mother India.
I slept in until a glorious 7:30 AM! Joanna suggested we go to Fitness One, a local gym. Joanna had been to this gym before and she warned me that no one she saw there was wearing shorts. I certainly was not going to go work out in pants. So I compromised with long shorts and a t-shirt, and Joanna decided she would embrace the whole tank=n=shorts rebel foreigner look. We covered up our scandalous attire with respectable street clothes. Once more, sort of expressly against orders, we left the apartment alone.
Jayanagar was peaceful and pretty in early Sunday morning light. There were a few fruit sellers unpacking wares and the sounds of the day lazily beginning in multiple households at once. To avoid the metro construction, Joanna led by an alternate route and somehow we got lost. We traced back our steps and tried again and finally, hot enough from just the walk, we found the gym. I was hoping to get the same deal Joanna got for a 15 day pass but her 'man on the inside' wasn't at work and the employees present made a show of calling the manager and stating the official, inflated price to me. I bargained for a free trial day and we headed off to the locker rooms.
I did my best to keep up with Joanna and it was a lot of fun to go 'gymming' as the employees called it. Women were definitely in the minority there. Pleasantly tired, we walked back to the apartment. While Joanna showered, I stood and stared at the gas stove.
I would hazard a guess and say that 60% of the warnings I have been given about India concern the gas stove. I knew how to work it in theory- turn the valve on the tank, turn on the gas, light it, turn down the heat, turn it off properly once done...but that very moment, as I stood there staring at the stove, my mother called and warned me about 5 more times.
So I called Shruthi to come supervise while I boiled the milk. At night, we leave a bucket outside the door with coupons inside for milk and curds. the dudh-wallah (milk-seller) comes and leaves plastic packets of milk and curds corresponding to the number of coupons. Before we can drink it, the milk must be boiled and for that I needed the stove. Everything went without a hitch - cut open the packet, pour the milk in the vessel, heat, turn off, badabing badaboom...
Oatmeal was glorious. Shruthi's parents treated us to lunch again, this time at a Chinese restaurant. Chinese food in India is Indo-Chinese, consisting of much spicier versions of typical Chinese dishes. Joanna and I split a vegetable fried rice and some odd-tasting vegetable tempura. We even indulged in a mousse cake dessert with ice cream.
After lunch, we went with Shruthi to Forum, a large and popular mall in Bangalore. To enter the mall we had to pass through metal detectors and a bag search station: measures taken after recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Interestingly I walked right through the metal detectors without removing any jewelry or metal from my purse. I'm not entirely sure what they detect.
It gave me a headache to be in a shopping mall again. It was funny to look around and see signs in Kannada, and to note that the majority of stores sold Indian clothing. But the confined spaces and crowds of shoppers just didn't appeal to me and I longed to get back outside. We met Atul and the four of us (a true gang now!) browsed Hindi movies, reminiscing fondly, before heading back out.
They took us to Mocha, another popular hookah hangout in the city. It was even cooler than Java City. We went to the roof, which looked almost Arabian with swaths of bright colours and secluded couches surrounded by curtains.
Photo courtesy to Joanna Schneider
The masala chai was great and we talked for the majority of the time about relationships.
This is one area where there are stark differences between India and America. According to Shruthi and Atul, in India it is still not acceptable for two teenagers to date. To sleep in the same bed, even innocently, would be irreversibly damaging to one's reputation. They regaled us with horror stories about police brutality turned on young couples caught in public places. In some cases, the offending couple would be forced to marry immediately. In other cases, they were beaten or killed.
There is a big case in the Indian news now about a 15 year old girl who reportedly had an affair with one of the servants near her house. Both daughter and lover were murdered at the father's behest- an honour killing to prevent damage to the family reputation from a daughter pursuing someone of a lower station in life. In Shruthi's college, there are separate staircases for boys and girls. If a girl is caught going up the boy's staircase, the punishment is for her to stand at the bottom of the staircase for two hours each day where everyone can see her. The reasoning behind this is that she must have been seeking male attention to choose that staircase. (I'll go in to more detail about schools and punishments at the end of this post).
It is always so disappointing to me that even as India takes massive strides towards development and technology and economic growth, we lag so far behind in some basic social areas. Only 3-4 years ago in Bangalore people would beat up couples they found in public places. It is unreal.
Conversation shifted to American high schools. Atul and Shruthi wanted to know how Mean Girls-esque American schools really were. Were there cliques and popular kids? Were cheerleaders the queens as they were in movies? We answered as best as we could from personal experience and the differences were so interesting. In Indian schools, they assured us, while everyone has their close friends, everyone is comfortable talking to any other kid in their class. That is certainly not something that can be said about American schools.
After Mocha we came home, tired again after a long day. Shruthi's family invited us out to dinner once more and I went while Joanna stayed home to skype her family. This was by far my favourite restaurant for the weekend as (thankfully) it was Indian.
Photo source: www.mumbaiker.com
It is called Angeethi and it is on the fourth floor of a hotel, open air with an amazing view out over rooftops of Bangalore. The restaurant is done up in an old dhaba style, so there is a thatched roof with old filmi posters hanging. The plates are wooden and the cups are copper, and menus look old and worn. The food was spicy but fantastic and my favourite was the dahi with boonda in it. (curds with tiny balls of soft dough...it sounds odd when translated but is definitely worth trying).
Conversation at dinner revolved around schools and punishment. Shruthi had told me that in her college, if a student answered a question wrong, they were made to stand for 2 hours either at their desk or in the corner. I told them this would never happen in America, and a long discussion followed. In school, she would be rapped with rulers and in 2nd grade was slapped for not understanding the directions of an assignment.
A teacher in Bangalore threw a wooden eraser at a child's head and the child died. Another student died from heat exhaustion because, late to PE, she had been made to run around the field in the sun for hours. Obviously schools aren't rampant festering hellholes of abuse, but the way students are treated is certainly inconceivable in an American schooling system.
We also spoke about politicians. There are many politicians in India seem to be backed by gundas, or thugs who bully opposition and wrangle votes out of the people. These politicians use the threat of their thugs to get their students into schools, win special favours ad basically manipulate society at their convenience. A sad instance of corruption in India.
Another way to win votes is with bribes, of course. Every rural villager in India has a colour television, though they may lack a steady source of food or income. These colour TVs are gifted by local politicians as a means to guarantee votes. I'll talk about this more in my next post.
Anyways, after Angeethi we went to ice cream and then on home. The weekend ended and after all of the American experiences we had, Joanna and I were glad we could return to mother India.
WOW the stories about school punishments are crazy!!
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