Many apologies for the delays in posting. I have thus far really enjoyed the blogging experience, because it encourages me to look at the world a little more closely! I remember details that I don't think I would pick up on, because I want to mention them here and it's a good way to process and analyze all of these experiences. Trends become apparent and initial biases are filtered out when asked to report to an audience (like anyone who reads this...)
That being said...I hit a sot of halfway hump and just plain got tired of blogging. So, I cranked out a couple of lazy posts, but here I am, one week later and ready to pick up that slack. I've just returned from a lovely vacation in Konkan and Goa (for which there shall be blog posts...) and decided I need to stay dedicated to my purpose here, and expand on my few feeble blog posts.
So let's try this one again.
Shwetha, my friend from work, had her last day on Friday. As I've spoken about earlier, she's off to Vipassana, the ten day silent meditation retreat (that I keep mistakenly referring to as a yoga retreat! whoops). Everyone was very sorry to see her go, she is so dynamic and friendly. I am personally sad as she has been my cultural bridge, understanding of my somewhat American perspective and always willing to translate Indian cultural foibles, to offer advice on how to navigate Bangalore as a single woman...
I have been looking for a blank sketchbook with a good cover (for a secret purpose...) and people on my team directed me to a local bookstore. I think it was Odyssey but I'm not sure, so don't hold me to that. It was on the main road, and I walked for about 15 minutes alone to get there. I enjoyed the solitary walk, and it felt like quite the adventure! With time, it is becoming more natural for me to gauge the difference between caution and paranoia here. I obviously wouldn't walk anywhere alone at night, but as I become more comfortable on Bangalore streets, it feels more normal to walk places alone in the daylight.
The bookstore was, like Crossword, sterile and disappointing. The selection was wider but everything was too expensive for me. On the floor with the stationary and sketchbooks, there were at least 4 service personnel standing around in the aisles ready to help customers. Creating jobs is great, but the excess of people everywhere (like six waiters at a restaurant just loitering about waiting for something to do) seems like such a waste of labor potential. I browsed for a while, then walked back, glad for the jaunt outdoors. I'm increasingly fond of little outdoors walks as breaks during the work day. The fresh air (albeit a constant tinge of pollution) is, well, refreshing.
In the afternoon, the office hosted a going away party for Shwetha and Suresh Babu, a man on another team who is also leaving the organization.
The office hosted a going away party for her and Suresh Babu, a colleague from another team who is also leaving the organization. The entire office gathered in an upstairs room, and people spoke up about both of the departing colleagues, recalling anecdotes or praising their work ethic. It was really moving, and there was a lot of talk regarding the importance of preserving the organization's 'family feel'. I don't know how possible it is to maintain such a tightly-knit community once an organization grows beyond a certain point, but it is a worthwhile goal.
As refreshments at the party, there were personal tubs of chaat (a sweet-spicy Indian sort of version of chex-mix) more chai and jalebi so of course I was wholly satisfied.
After work, a few people from the office were going out to celebrate Shwetha's last day. It had started to rain and the city had cooled down tremendously. We walked through puddling streets to Highnote, a rooftop bar in the neighborhood. The ambience was totally mind-blowing, a thatched-roof dimly lit bar overlooking Bangalore. Traffic on one side, hurricane-like gusts blowing palm trees in another direction, it was a tremendous view.
About ten of us from the office gathered and ate dinner and chatted.Amidst the usual jokes and small talk, I had a wonderful conversation with two men from the office about education and the school system. This time, instead of focusing on the beatings and narrowness, we talked about the sense of discipline and focus it instills in Indian children. India Calling comes to mind again, as the author addresses this side of the complex education topic. Both of these men were so grateful for their education (one IIT and then graduate school in America, the other completed his undergraduate degree in America). IIT, or Indian Institute of Technology, is supposed to be harder to gain admission to than Harvard, and annually produces some of the world's best engineering minds. Both men recounted instances when they had been hit in school, or made to stand in a corner, or to endure taunts by teachers. But both, looking back on schooling in India and in the States concluded that they were very thankful to have been exposed to the Indian system. They maintained that it gave them a great work ethic and an ability to process large amounts of information with very little instruction, and that it encouraged them to remain focused in all tasks. They assured me the Indian system isn't all mug-and-chug memorization as I've been fearing, but that lately there have been conscious tendencies towards demanding analysis and even introspection by students.
I also had a long discussion with Shwetha about introspection, people, relationships and values. It was actually one of the best conversations of my life and prompted a lot of thought...
Before I knew it, it was past 11:00 pm. My colleagues called a cab on my behalf, handling the necessary Kannada for me. Then, very kindly, one of the men offered to share the cab, so that he could see me home safely before heading off 40 minutes in the opposite direction to his home!!
On the drive home, I didn't see a single woman out on the streets. I have been wondering about this unigender night scene for a while now. What if the women of India just took to nightlife en masse? How creepy could the men really be? These same men who were normal in the daylight turned to animals? Why was it so unsafe and why did no one challenge it? The colleague I shared the cab with offered some information. He told me that when he first came to Bangalore, its nightlife had been active, wild like Mumbai's, and both men and women freely participated. Then, after terrorist attacks and temple bombings, the city government established a stringent curfew, demanding shops close at 11:00 pm. Making it illegal to roam the streets after 11 simply means less people roam, not that no one does. Naturally, the people who choose to skirt this law are generally shadier characters and their presence makes it unsafe for others, and as a result women avoid the streets. It is an endless vicious cycle and perhaps another instance of city government not handling something as well as they could have (see: hookah).
I got home to find Joanna and Shruthi playing cards. Exhausted, I headed off to bed and fell asleep soon after.
That being said...I hit a sot of halfway hump and just plain got tired of blogging. So, I cranked out a couple of lazy posts, but here I am, one week later and ready to pick up that slack. I've just returned from a lovely vacation in Konkan and Goa (for which there shall be blog posts...) and decided I need to stay dedicated to my purpose here, and expand on my few feeble blog posts.
So let's try this one again.
Shwetha, my friend from work, had her last day on Friday. As I've spoken about earlier, she's off to Vipassana, the ten day silent meditation retreat (that I keep mistakenly referring to as a yoga retreat! whoops). Everyone was very sorry to see her go, she is so dynamic and friendly. I am personally sad as she has been my cultural bridge, understanding of my somewhat American perspective and always willing to translate Indian cultural foibles, to offer advice on how to navigate Bangalore as a single woman...
I have been looking for a blank sketchbook with a good cover (for a secret purpose...) and people on my team directed me to a local bookstore. I think it was Odyssey but I'm not sure, so don't hold me to that. It was on the main road, and I walked for about 15 minutes alone to get there. I enjoyed the solitary walk, and it felt like quite the adventure! With time, it is becoming more natural for me to gauge the difference between caution and paranoia here. I obviously wouldn't walk anywhere alone at night, but as I become more comfortable on Bangalore streets, it feels more normal to walk places alone in the daylight.
The bookstore was, like Crossword, sterile and disappointing. The selection was wider but everything was too expensive for me. On the floor with the stationary and sketchbooks, there were at least 4 service personnel standing around in the aisles ready to help customers. Creating jobs is great, but the excess of people everywhere (like six waiters at a restaurant just loitering about waiting for something to do) seems like such a waste of labor potential. I browsed for a while, then walked back, glad for the jaunt outdoors. I'm increasingly fond of little outdoors walks as breaks during the work day. The fresh air (albeit a constant tinge of pollution) is, well, refreshing.
In the afternoon, the office hosted a going away party for Shwetha and Suresh Babu, a man on another team who is also leaving the organization.
The office hosted a going away party for her and Suresh Babu, a colleague from another team who is also leaving the organization. The entire office gathered in an upstairs room, and people spoke up about both of the departing colleagues, recalling anecdotes or praising their work ethic. It was really moving, and there was a lot of talk regarding the importance of preserving the organization's 'family feel'. I don't know how possible it is to maintain such a tightly-knit community once an organization grows beyond a certain point, but it is a worthwhile goal.
As refreshments at the party, there were personal tubs of chaat (a sweet-spicy Indian sort of version of chex-mix) more chai and jalebi so of course I was wholly satisfied.
After work, a few people from the office were going out to celebrate Shwetha's last day. It had started to rain and the city had cooled down tremendously. We walked through puddling streets to Highnote, a rooftop bar in the neighborhood. The ambience was totally mind-blowing, a thatched-roof dimly lit bar overlooking Bangalore. Traffic on one side, hurricane-like gusts blowing palm trees in another direction, it was a tremendous view.
About ten of us from the office gathered and ate dinner and chatted.Amidst the usual jokes and small talk, I had a wonderful conversation with two men from the office about education and the school system. This time, instead of focusing on the beatings and narrowness, we talked about the sense of discipline and focus it instills in Indian children. India Calling comes to mind again, as the author addresses this side of the complex education topic. Both of these men were so grateful for their education (one IIT and then graduate school in America, the other completed his undergraduate degree in America). IIT, or Indian Institute of Technology, is supposed to be harder to gain admission to than Harvard, and annually produces some of the world's best engineering minds. Both men recounted instances when they had been hit in school, or made to stand in a corner, or to endure taunts by teachers. But both, looking back on schooling in India and in the States concluded that they were very thankful to have been exposed to the Indian system. They maintained that it gave them a great work ethic and an ability to process large amounts of information with very little instruction, and that it encouraged them to remain focused in all tasks. They assured me the Indian system isn't all mug-and-chug memorization as I've been fearing, but that lately there have been conscious tendencies towards demanding analysis and even introspection by students.
I also had a long discussion with Shwetha about introspection, people, relationships and values. It was actually one of the best conversations of my life and prompted a lot of thought...
Before I knew it, it was past 11:00 pm. My colleagues called a cab on my behalf, handling the necessary Kannada for me. Then, very kindly, one of the men offered to share the cab, so that he could see me home safely before heading off 40 minutes in the opposite direction to his home!!
On the drive home, I didn't see a single woman out on the streets. I have been wondering about this unigender night scene for a while now. What if the women of India just took to nightlife en masse? How creepy could the men really be? These same men who were normal in the daylight turned to animals? Why was it so unsafe and why did no one challenge it? The colleague I shared the cab with offered some information. He told me that when he first came to Bangalore, its nightlife had been active, wild like Mumbai's, and both men and women freely participated. Then, after terrorist attacks and temple bombings, the city government established a stringent curfew, demanding shops close at 11:00 pm. Making it illegal to roam the streets after 11 simply means less people roam, not that no one does. Naturally, the people who choose to skirt this law are generally shadier characters and their presence makes it unsafe for others, and as a result women avoid the streets. It is an endless vicious cycle and perhaps another instance of city government not handling something as well as they could have (see: hookah).
I got home to find Joanna and Shruthi playing cards. Exhausted, I headed off to bed and fell asleep soon after.
No comments:
Post a Comment