happy ramnavami!

It is currently Navratri, a Hindu festival of worship lasting 9 nights and 10 days, celebrating the incarnations of Shakti. Shakti is meant to be the personification of divine feminine creative power, which is a cool idea...today was Rama Navami, the birthday of Lord Rama and a part of Navratri! People from work told me they couldn't sleep last night with all of the fireworks and celebrations, but it was quiet here in Jayanagar.

This morning was something like episode #980 in a long series of rickshaw drama. I hailed an auto early and gave the driver clear directions to my workplace. He insisted on taking me via a route I knew didn't make sense, and literally trailed me through the outskirts of Bengaluru, places that were beginning to look almost rural. I kept him on track, continually asking him to return to my route, and finally made him stop for directions. All in all, the journey that should have been 20 minutes costing 100 Rs, was 1.5 hours costing 250 Rs. I was not pleased when I arrived at work.

But then I was reflecting, and decided in the grand scheme of things, why does it matter? I got to see parts of Bangalore I haven't seen before, I arrived safely and who am I to begrudge someone an extra US dollar. One of my colleagues is a girl who moved from the US, where she studied at UCLA. When she got to work, I recounted my tale and we talked for a while about the difference between an American mindset and an Indian one.

When I came here, I was careful to be consciously oblivious to class. That is, I made huge efforts to be respectful to auto drivers, laundry-wallah's, etc. I let it slide when the drivers never had change, and tolerated every refusal to listen to my directions, every insistence on a longer route. I let one driver take me all the way around Lalbagh twice to run up the meter because I kind of liked seeing the murals.

And now, a few weeks in, I almost feel like things are starting to change. Of course, I'm still just as respectful. But I get frustrated with drivers denying change or running up the meter, or charging inappropriately. Whereas before, I let it slide because when converted to American money, it's really small change, now it seems like it should be about the principle of the thing. So I talked to my friend at work about it, and she offered a really enlightened perspective.

Indians seem unwilling to trust anyone. All drivers are cheats, all men are bottom-pinchers, you can't trust the police or the woman walking next to you. Keep your bags close, keep yourself closed off. Coming from the West, it seems rude not to willingly offer some degree of trust to people. After all, not everyone is mal-intentioned. In fact, those are probably the minority.

We decided there is a time and place for both opinions. That is, there are times when it is perfectly acceptable to fight for your change and insist upon a route, and times when you should check your rising blood pressure and look at it all as an adventure. Understanding the distinction between the two comes with time and is termed something like pragmatism.

She urged me not to lose my faith in humanity and turn into a hardened cynic. I can't do that, and reassured her of this. It is nice to be reminded though, that to let things go and appreciate small joys can do wonders for killing that stress bug. This topic is raised, by the way, in India Calling. The author talks about his growing impatience with servants and drivers, his increased unwillingness to let them 'get away with things'. I remind myself to be patient while not being stupid...

I forgot I had brought my lunch today, and ordered from a local place so I had double helpings of roti and sabzi! Nani had also packed some kesari, also called poori halwa (recipe in an earlier post). I couldn't figure out why she had made it but then remembered it is Rama Navami. I brought the extra rotis home so it wasn't all a waste!

I reached home early and found my camera charger, skyped my father, caught up on some reading and did a lot of small 'ordering' tasks in life. Nani and I had a wonderful long talk about religion, the new ruling in France outlawing face-covering hijabs, festivals and the importance of families. I always relish the chance to hear her perspective on things as her tolerance is inspiring. She is so understanding of differences between people and cultures. A pleasant, calm evening! Joanna got home from the climbing wall around 7 and after a lovely dinner thanks to Nani, we are settled in for the night. 

11 april-my adventurous ride home

The entire office was buzzing all day about an office party hosted at Rohini Nilekani's house in the evening. We were much less productive than usual! The organization is Rohini's brainchild and she generously throws a yearly party, welcoming every employee to her house for dinner. Who knows where the time went, but before I knew it it was 5:30 PM and we were all very excited.

The company had arranged for cars to take us from the office to the party (beginning at 7 PM), but of course, we needed to look nice! All of my jeans need to be washed and our clothing doesn't come back from the tailor until Wednesday, so I borrowed one of Shruthi's churidars. It was a little bit too long but otherwise worked well.

The other intern, a girl from Delhi, is staying in a PG near our office. A PG is a paying guest house, in case I haven't explained it before. Single men or women can opt for this instead of searching for a lonely flat, and they will live with others around their age group. Many PGs, including hers, even provide three square meals a day. The downside is that guests in the PG are privy to the rules of the family in charge. This includes curfews, no male visitor policies, no late night television, etc. Still, as a single girl working in a city where you have no family, it is a fun safe option and a good way to meet friends.

My fellow intern loves hers, and I accompanied her there today so we could get ready for this party. She lined my eyes with kajal and had a lot of fun primping me up, whereas I had thought I looked fine having put on the churidar and washed my face.

She had a small bottle of liquid eyeliner and couldn't figure out how to use it, so we went downstairs to another flat in the building, and this girl she had never met before offered to do it for her. That would be the advantage of PG life- lots of great instant girl friends always willing to help you through life's small challenges.

By the time we set out for the office, we were cutting it pretty close on time. We couldn't find an auto willing to take us such a short distance but finally stumbled upon one driver who would settle for a price of 20 rupees. When we got to office, the lights were off and the guards told us everyone had already left. Luckily there was still one cab lagging behind and so we were assured a ride.

The house was spectacular, I've truly never seen anything like it. The backyard was gigantic, with softly lit statues, beautiful flowers and walls that coupled with thick foliage, entirely blocked out the sounds of Bangalore so that we could have been anywhere. Black banquet tables were set up and there was an impossibly long buffet table.

After some speeches and the presentation of a few gifts, we tucked into dinner. One of the things I love about this organization is how unobtrusive the hierarchy is. One may be CEO and one may be chai-wallah but all speak as equals and listen as equals. Tonight, everyone rotated constantly between tables, joking and exchanging stories.

Every single person made an effort to know everyone else and to make the rest feel comfortable. It is a really welcoming environment of talented people, truly incredible!

But the best and most memorable part of the night was how I left it. So the party went from 7:30 pm to 11:00 pm in Koramangala, quite a distance from Jayanagar. I was obviously not going to find an auto, and my plan had been to hail a cab. But I didn't know what time to hail the cab for, and no one knew the address beforehand since cars had been hired to drive us to the party. Additionally, the cab services have in my experience been reliably unreliable when it comes to timing.

There is a sweet-tempered man who works for the organization and lives very close to our apartment, and he offered to bring me home, so I agreed. He has a motorbike...

I was petrified! I've been on a motorbike before, obviously, but not in a very, very long time. Everyone had a great time scaring me senseless with nonsense about 'how I would know when I had to stand up' and 'what I should do when I inevitably fell off'. Eventually, however, they stopped roaring with laughter long enough to actually assure me that I would be fine. This guy has a reputation around office for being the most careful driver possible, and pretty much the entire office looked on while I secured myself on his bike.

Up until Christ College I clung so tightly to the back of the bike I'm sure my knuckles were white. The first turn, the first speed bump were heart-jolting and stomach-turning. But then I relaxed slightly, and enjoyed the night breeze. The roads were traffic-free and the ride was short and easy. It was fun! I got to see a side of Bengaluru I'm not normally able to access, and felt perfectly safe the entire way home.

It was a wonderful adventure and a great end to a fun night. Pictures to come soon, hopefully!

10 April- Chamundi!

This post was jointly written by Joanna and I, extensively chronicling our weekend adventures in Mysore, Karnataka! The pictures are all Jo's, as my camera died ON the bus ride over...tragic. All photographic genius is credited to her! :)

EXPLANATION: WE USED 'WE', BUT SPECIFIED 'DIMPY' or 'JOANNA' OTHERWISE. APOLOGIES IF IT IS CONFUSING. 

Chamundi Hills was our first visit for Sunday, and we set out around 7:15 am after a nice cup of chai. Dimpy’s parents have often called her Chamundi or Chamundeshwari when she misbehaved, and she was excited to see the hills dedicated to the goddess by this name. There is a temple on top of the hill with 1000 granite steps leading to it, but we drove up the winding roads instead (in the interest of time, avoiding the heat, and sparing Reva Auntie’s leg!).

At the top of the hill there were a few tourist stalls. Joanna bought some bangles, and we took a picture in front of a painted statue of a demon. 

We walked barefoot (having left our shoes in the car) through dark narrow alleys lined with tourist stalls, and emerged to see crowds and crowds of people at the temple. 

The wait to go in was more than an hour long, so we decided it wouldn’t be worthwhile. Salespeople berated us to buy pictures of Gods, bracelets and fans while hungry cows looked balefully around for grass. Not our kind of scene, and we were glad to leave.

On the way down we stopped at a viewpoint to take in Mysore from an aerial perspective. 

Kumar pointed out the racetrack and the distant turrets of Mysore palace. The city looked sprawling and peaceful, and the view was a definite highlight of an otherwise fruitless excursion. At the viewpoint, there were several wild bonnet monkeys scavenging through the trash, one happily devouring a watermelon slice. They were fearless, and while Dimpy sat on the stone wall, one even ran across her legs!

We next visited another bull statue, the third largest. It seemed smaller than the one in the Bull Temple in Bengaluru, but was still impressive. 

Dimpy and Sapna walked around it once and drank the obligatory holy water. They then explored higher, where there was a cave Shiva temple. The shrine was inside a cave with an opening so small that only one person could crawl through at a time. This was Dimpy’s favourite because it reminded her of another cave temple in Goa, and because the prasad given (the food given by the Priest ‘from God’) was cachita (little sugar cubes). Dimpy and Sapna climbed still higher, and Dimpy finally climbed on top of a large rock, a vantage point from which she could see the entire area.

The next stop was breakfast. Reva Auntie invited the driver to eat as well, and when Dimpy asked if we needed another chair, Reva Auntie explained that all of the drivers usually ate together at another table. Dimpy could not get used to this idea, and insisted that Kumar eat with us, ignoring the driver’s hesitation.

Our final major stop before the bus stop was Mysore Palace, where again we met different fares for Indians and foreign tourists. 

A man selling payal (anklets) outside the gate warned us that there would be three separate checkpoints inside the gate and that if we wanted to claim Jo as a resident of India, we would have to provide evidence. This man then badgered us until Dimpy agreed to buy a pair of anklets (after negotiating the price down). It wasn’t much of a sacrifice, as she had wanted a pair anyways. So, after some hesitation, we decided we would have to deal with the unequal prices because it wasn’t worth missing out. It was searing hot again, and we had to leave our shoes in a locker area because they weren’t allowed in the palace. Neither were cameras. We opted against a tour guide, and just appreciated the beauty of each room we walked through, consulting the informational TV screens placed throughout for relevant facts.

The building displayed clear Hindu, Muslim and Christian influences at once, ceilings painted with obviously Hindu warrior angels shooting arrows through the clouds- a simultaneous Cupid and Kshatriya (warrior).  Everything was ornate and very colourful- lots of light and dark greens and pinks.

The palace grounds were immense and beautiful, but not all was available for viewing because the king still resides in the building. We visited the temple associated with the palace and then, again exhausted by the heat, sought a fruit juice stand. We ordered fruit juices without ice or water, and then tried sugarcane juice from the stand next door, which had an extractor. Long stalks of sugarcane are fed through two rollers of a steel machine, and the juice is squeezed out from the stalks into a bucket with ice in it, and then served in a tall glass. It was sickly sweet with a strange aftertaste, but quite good.

At this point we were still trying to kill time before going to the bus stop, so we went to a nearby sweet shop to hopefully pick out some snacks for our journey. Joanna sampled a delicious coconut sugar treat, a disgustingly orange colour. She bought one of those and an extremely appetizing chocolate cake. The chocolate cake turned out to be a weird fruit cake that taste rotten. As we were leaving the sweet shop, a fight broke out. A man, his wife and their two kids got into some sort of altercation with one of the sweet shop workers. We couldn’t understand a word, since all words exchanged were in Kannada, but it certainly looked dramatic. The man and the employee traded some very nasty sounding words and shoved each other around while a curious crowd gathered. Then just as suddenly as it had begun, it ended. The man and his family walked away, and the glowering employee served his next customers.

From the sweet shop we went to another temple, where after walking around the deity we were caught unawares, and the priest threw water all over us. Reva Auntie explained it was a tactic to ward off the evil spirits and regardless; it was a nice way to cool off, albeit unexpected. Then while Reva Auntie and Sapna visited yet another temple, we gave up and sat on a bench.

At last, we went to the bus station. The Mysore side of things was just as disorganized as the Bengaluru side had been, and we could not figure out what bus we should board. Reva Auntie gave our ticket (one ticket for the two of us together) to a ticket checker, who darted off through the crowds, nearly giving Dimpy a heart attack as she thought she would never see the ticket again. But he returned with 10 minutes to spare and we boarded, thanking Reva Auntie and Sapna for their hospitality.

When we reached Bengaluru, we hailed an auto to take us home. The first driver promised to take us for 150 rupees, about thrice the appropriate fare. So, Dimpy laughed and we tried again. It took four attempts before we found an auto that was willing to take us for 70 (still more than appropriate). We bumped through the familiar Bengaluru streets with Kannada music blaring in our ears. The driver had fitted his rickshaw with large speakers behind the heads of passengers! A pleasant touch.

We were tired from our long weekend and glad to be home with Nani and chai and our familiar routines. 

9 April-Mysore, Mysore!

This post was jointly written by Joanna and I, extensively chronicling our weekend adventures in Mysore, Karnataka! The pictures are all Jo's, as my camera died ON the bus ride over...tragic. All photographic genius is credited to her! :)


EXPLANATION: WE USED 'WE', BUT SPECIFIED 'DIMPY' or 'JOANNA' OTHERWISE. APOLOGIES IF IT IS CONFUSING.  



Saturday morning we woke up early to pack, shower and take an auto to the bus stop. Peer Khan drove us and Nani came along, which was a blessing because the bus stop was so unimaginably disorganized. We got out and Peer Khan asked the auto drivers standing nearby where our bus would be. They gestured vaguely off to the side and we set off in that general direction.

Our bus was supposed to be at platform 18 but the only platforms we could see were 5A, 1A, 1B and 16. We wandered in the heat through a honking mess of buses in the parking lot, and heard someone cry Mysore, Mysore! We stepped hopefully towards him, and then became aware that everyone was yelling Mysore, Mysore. There was a jumble of buses in one corner of a parking lot, well away from any sort of platform, and all of them with the same destination. Nani questioned a few different officials, emphasizing that we were looking for an Airavat (AC Volvo) bus that would take us via a city called Mandya.

Finally, we located our bus and boarded. We slept for a bit, and then while Joanna read A Fine Balance, Dimpy watched the countryside go by. The route from Bangalore to Mysore is predominantly rural and showcases small Karnatak villages between brief spurts of heavy traffic and crowded urban life. The road was paved and smooth, a product of one of the government schemes Dimpy has been researching for work. While we have seen instances of stark poverty within Bengaluru, there is something still more desperate about rural hardship. As the landscape became greener, with forests of palm trees and some rice fields, men’s loose button downs and frayed slacks were traded for turbans and lunghis (sort of a white towel wrapped around the waist, for South Indians). There were bullock carts, and men plowing the field with tools, or with starved bullocks. In several of the villages there were these long dwellings, just a triangular thatched roof on a few sticks, under which several families slept. It was literally the crudest dwelling you could imagine. We passed two men working to trade the thatched roof of one for sheets of corrugated aluminum- the only improvement imaginable.

One interesting thing about these tiny villages was the obvious strength of their community bonds. People were always gathered in common open spaces, talking or working side by side, and there was no quiet even as the population tapered off. Closer to Mysore we began to see more ‘institutional’ houses, standard size and all identical. These were again, the product of a government scheme to house the rural poor and every single house had an identical satellite dish on top, while the children in front roamed without shoes.

Nani thought the indication of Mandya as a halfway point meant the bus would stop for a chai break, and we were looking forward to this. Unfortunately, Mandya came and went with no pause for chai, and soon every billboard we passed mentioned Mysore. It was a little hard to figure out where the city actually started, but eventually we passed the official “Welcome to Mysore” sign.

As soon as we got to the outskirts of the city, people began getting up from their seats, pulling their bags out of the overhead compartments, crowding the aisles, hovering near the front of the bus. It was only 20 minutes later that we pulled into the bus stop. We couldn’t figure out why everyone was so impatient to get off the bus!

Dimpy called Reva Auntie, a faraway relative on her mom’s side who lives in Mysore and kindly offered to host us over the weekend. Reva Auntie was at work, and told us her husband would be at the bus stop to meet us. Neither one of us had any idea what he looked like, nor how he would find us, but as we stood in the heat by a crowded sweet shop, a man in a brightly coloured striped shirt approached us. He introduced himself and encouraged us to follow him to his car.

Crossing the busy street in front of the bus stop was difficult, and about halfway a tiny girl came up to Dimpy begging. Dimpy told her she didn’t have change, but the girl followed her all the way across the street tugging at her arm until she finally believed it. This is the first time since arriving that Dimpy had been approached by a child begging during this trip, and she found it heartbreaking.

On the drive to Reva Auntie’s house, we passed a complex of government buildings, including the Deputy Commissioner’s office, and finally got a glimpse of Mysore Palace. The city appeared less crowded than Bengaluru- less traffic and less pollution, but we weren’t sure how much of that could be attributed simply to weekend quiet. Mysore Palace looked beautiful, although there was a lot of construction surrounding. We wound through narrow streets in a well-kept neighborhood to arrive at their house, a pink building next to a boy’s hostel. 

Srinivas Uncle brought us upstairs and kindly offered us apple juice. We met Sapna, their daughter, who is just about to graduate from Engineering College and had not seen Dimpy in many years. She told us she was busy studying for her last exam (before finals) and assured us we could meet up later. They were in the process of redoing their house, and the new tile floors looked beautiful. Srinivas Uncle apologized for the ‘mess’ but we thought it looked great and super clean, especially in comparison to our room in Bengaluru after the chaos of packing.

Srinivas Uncle had made rice and bindi sabzi, which we usually love, but it was a little too spicy for Joanna, who managed to fill herself with rice and a banana. Dimpy tried to pretend it wasn’t spicy but finally succumbed to it and cooled her seared taste buds with a plate of curds and rice (Joanna does not like curds. This is the only thing distinguishing Joanna from a real Indian).

After lunch, Srinivas Uncle gave us a list of popular tourist spots in Mysore and urged us to visit the zoo first. We had actually thought the palace would be a good place to begin, but steady prompting encouraged us to change our minds. Our hosts had kindly arranged for an air-conditioned cab to take us around the city and it wasn’t long before the car arrived. Our handsome driver Kumar introduced himself and we proceeded to our first destination, St. Philomena Church.

Accustomed by now to traveling in autos, we weren’t expecting the luxury of the cab, and it seemed like it would detract from us really experiencing the city. For the time being, we were grateful for the air conditioning. 

The cathedral was absolutely beautiful, all colourful stained glass and pointed turrets. It was strange to see Western architecture in the middle of India. The majority of tourists were Indians, and all took family portraits in the same spot in front of the cathedral. We entered, and Dimpy could not figure out whether to take off her shoes or not. Some people had, and others had not. So Joanna kept them on, and Dimpy walked barefoot on the cool marble floors.  

The interior of the church was dark. Tourists sat in the wooden pews and took in the majestic altar and the stained glass windows. The church was constructed in 1936 in Neo Gothic style, but unlike other similarly influenced churches that we have seen in the West, St Philomena’s grace was overpowered by the somewhat flashy and decidedly tasteless decorations. But we’ll get to that once we go downstairs.

First we explored the first floor. Prostrate before the statue of Mary to the right of the main altar, was a woman praying in a sort of Pentecostal fashion. She wiggled and moaned and crawled closer and closer to Mary while her young child clung to her. We have never seen anyone pray like that before, and it was certainly different.

We loved seeing the birds that had made their nests by the stained glass windows high above us. 

Then, while Joanna sat for a while in the pews to absorb the beauty, Dimpy headed down a narrow flight of stairs in pursuit of adventure.

She emerged in a stone alcove. The stairwell was flanked by two paintings and there was faint writing on the walls. The catacombs of the church, where one would expect to find dark austere tombs, held instead a casket on top of which an 11 year old’s birthday party had exploded.

The casket housed a painted plaster figure, and the surroundings were festooned with feathery boas, glittery curtains and flashing lights.  Directly in front of this spiritual debacle was a pit full of money, covered by a mesh screen. Joanna joined Dimpy to gaze in bewilderment at this spectacle. We continued our exploration down narrow tunnels hoping to find a less gaudy and more spiritual haven to satisfy our tourist desires.

Instead, we emerged at the back of the church, facing a boy’s school. So, we asked Kumar to take the obligatory tourist snapshot of us in front of the church (note the man in the back posing for his), and then we headed to the zoo. 

The zoo was a madhouse. Used to our quiet routines as ‘Bengaluru locals’, we had not yet experienced India as tourists. The swarms of people coupled with the sweltering heat made for a chaotic and decidedly unpleasant beginning to any visit to a tourist attraction. We noticed immediately on the signboard that the fare for Indian adults was 20 Rs, while the fare for foreigners was 200. Rude.

So, we devised a plan. Joanna waited inconspicuously by the ice cream-wallah, while Dimpy fought to the front of the ticket line. She purchased two 20 Rs tickets and hoped for the best. When we got to the zoo gate, the ticket checker immediately stopped us. She told us Joanna would need a foreigner’s ticket, and when we protested, she summoned a guard. He demanded an explanation, and Dimpy cleverly ‘explained’ in Hindi that Joanna’s father worked for Sonata Software, and that she lived in Jayanagar 2^ND block. He apologized for the misunderstanding and let us through. Nice.

First, we saw giraffes. 

Then, the birds. 

There were flamingos and regal peacocks, as well as a variety of strange beaked winged things. At the tiger enclosure, the tiny dark prison-like cages distressed us. Reva Auntie called at this point, and we waited for her to join us.

When Reva Auntie arrived, she was jovial, friendly and spoke great English. We proceeded around the circuit of the zoo with her, impressed by the human-like gorilla 

and intimidating rhino. 

The most entertaining animal was the Hamadryas baboon. 

These are the most awkward creatures, with protruding buttocks of a bright pink fleshy colour. Totally hairless and squishy, these behinds are apparently nerveless as well and function as sitting cushions for the baboons. 

There was an entire baboon family- youngsters chasing each other around a tree, 

mother mediating conflicts, father climbing trees and wise old grandfather looking grumpy on the side. It was eerie how human-like their interactions were, and we watched for ages.

We finally tore our eyes away to go in search of the illustrious elephant. On the way, we stopped at the reptile center, where king cobras in various cages all seemed to be consuming other snakes while crowds of fascinated tourists gaped in horror.

The zoo was larger than we had anticipated, and it took a while before we reached an enclosure of Indian elephants. There were men maintaining the area and we were jealous that they had the opportunity to work in such close proximity to the animals. 

One elephant was slinging dirt up on its back with its trunk, while two others butted heads and entangled their trunks affectionately. 

The next enclosure housed a larger elephant; one we figured must be the African variety. This elephant was old, very wrinkly, and quite sad. He had remarkable control over his trunk and wrapped it around tiny clumps of grass, wrenching them loose and throwing them into his mouth. 

It had gotten very hot, and we passed a large coconut stand. 

The promise of cool juice tempted us, so we asked for three. 

With a few hacks from his machete, the man converted three green coconuts into little jugs, and inserted straws through the holes in the top. 

The flavour was surprisingly not coconut-y and definitely not our favourite. We threw the husks into a large pile, and Reva Auntie informed us they would be converted into fuel!

One of the most interesting parts of the zoo was the violence of the warning signs. ‘Do not enter the enclosure’ was graphically represented as a picture of a zebra ripping apart a man’s chest, blood gushing from the cartoon wounds. The same image was replicated elsewhere, only the offending animal substituted (a bear, a lion). 

There was a sign to warn tourists against feeding the wild bonnet monkeys. 

These monkeys roamed freely around the zoo, hopping from one enclosure to the next, scavenging for tourist trash and probably bothering the other animals. 

We saw the same type of monkey again at Chamundi Hills! It is weird to see wild monkeys, scampering across the paths just like the chipmunks. 

Exhausted from the walk around the perimeter in blazing heat, we suggested a trip to Coffee Day, our favourite Bengaluru coffee spot. We ordered a frappuccino type drink, cake with ice cream, bottled water, and a cappuccino for Reva Auntie. Joanna was very hungry after not having eaten much of the spicy lunch, so she ate a lot of sweets. At the Coffee Day was an Indian wedding magazine that we flipped through while eating. Its pages strongly emphasized a unity between Western and Indian styles, with women wrapping saris in Western ways, or pairing them with a blazer. It was a little strange. Overall, Indian magazines are more blunt and less politically correct- you may very well see a woman’s eyes described as small and beady, or her body type called ‘fat’. Such a magazine would never sell in the States!

From Coffee Day, we went to the engineering university to pick up Sapna from her exam so she could join us for Brindavan Gardens. The drive to Brindavan was surprisingly long, and we seemed to go quite a ways outside Mysore. Given the travel through pretty rural territory, we assumed the Gardens would not be crowded. But we were wrong.

The parking lot was jam-packed with vehicles, and before stepping out of the car, Reva Auntie firmly warned us to beware of the ‘bottom-pinchers’, lecherous men who would pinch any female bottom they saw. We couldn’t resist laughing, but to be safe, made sure we traveled together and kept an eye on each other. We paid the entrance fee and after Dimpy found herself unable to resist giving money to two young begging boys, we entered and were immediately ushered down specific paths by men controlling the crowds. It was off-putting after the serenity of Lalbagh, and we looked frantically around for a quiet wooded grove to escape people in favour of nature.

But Reva Auntie suggested instead that we walk to the musical fountains, the main attraction of the Brindavan Gardens. We passed through a random little market selling touristy knick-knacks and snacks, and followed the general flow of the crowd.

The crowd moved across a long bridge that ended near the fountain. While Reva Auntie and Sapna waited for us, we tried to get in a bit of nature, going off to the side to smell some flowers and admire the landscaping. 

Finally, we climbed a set of stone steps where several rows of stands were filled with people eager to see the dancing fountains. 

Twice every night, this fountain is illuminated and while music plays, bursts of water pulse rhythmically with the beat. The display was impressive, but what Dimpy found most impressive was how the spectacle entranced so many people into awed silence. The first song was a Kannada classic, and the next a cheesy Western song, providing a variety to theoretically appeal to any audience member.

We left the fountain early to avoid the mob, but instead faced more surges of people working their way towards the fountain for the next show, and we ended up fighting our way against the crowd and out of the garden. We drove home and then headed out again with Sapna to a nearby restaurant called Green Leaf for a hopefully less spicy dinner. 

We walked to a brightly lit recessed restaurant, down a small flight of steps. We opted to sit outside in the cool night air, and found the selection on the menu to be totally satisfying.  Joanna ordered paneer manchurian, a new favorite. It is fried Indian cheese (paneer) in a sweet sauce, and goes perfectly with naan. Dimpy had an excessively spicy but totally delicious baby corn manchurian that forced her to order two dishes of curds to save her mouth from erupting in flames.

After a very pleasant meal, we walked home. Sapna’s father rode up beside us on his motorbike at one point, evidently checking to make sure we were safe walking in the dark. We fell asleep prepared to wake up early for more sightseeing…

8 april-we went to see a play

Friday, after a lovely day at work, Joanna and I decided to go see a play at Rangashankara, a theatre in JP Nagar.

This theatre puts on a play every single day at prices intended to be afforable to a wider public than just Bengaluru's cultural elite. They were performing The 39 Steps, an Alfred Hitchcock farce where four actors perform in multiple roles, switching rapidly from one to the next over the course of the acts.

The only showing we could make was one at 7:30 PM, and then of course the usual nighttime travel concerns were raised. It looked as though we wouldn't be able to go, but we managed to get Shruthi on board and once she invited Atul as well, it was no longer as dangerous! Off we sped in a tiny auto to Ranga Shankara. It is a beautiful venue in a really lively part of Bangalore.

A wedding or some similarly festive function was going on across the street and the entire block was full of lights, the sound of fireworks, and happy people milling about. Tickets were 200 Rs a piece, the equivalent of roughly 5 dollars. It was such an entertaining production!

The stage was minimalist, and actors played a lot with the concept of being consciously in a production (they would show the audience props and stage set ups...in one instance, a character is trying to get through a window represented by a square wooden frame. He can't get through because it is obviously hard to climb through a frame held by another person four feet in the air, so the person holding the frame turned it and slipped it over his head where he stood. This sort of conscious demonstration of the simultaneous existence of actor and character added to the comedy, at least in my opinion).

Many of the characters were British, or French or some other sort of European. Played by Indian actors, the accents were initially indecipherable to Jo and I, used to a more conventional 'British' or 'French' accent. We were used to them by the end of the play, however.

Post-production the actors introduced themselves. This was their first time performing The 39 Steps and they welcomed any feedback audience members should have. I loved that part, it was such a great open approach to theater and a way to acknowledge the importance of the audience.

We came home utterly satisfied and slept a little later than we had intended, excited to depart for Mysore in the morning!

peripateticism

The title of this post is a pretentious-sounding vocabulary word I came across in my readings for work today. Evidently a peripatetic is a person who travels from place to place, living and working in each for a relatively short period of time. I want to be a peripatetic. Even though the word itself sounds arthritic and totally lacking in energy.

I saw all sorts of strange signs on the road today...the first said Donate your eyes so a blind man can see colours also! and mentioned nothing about how the donation of ones eyes does in fact cause blindness in the donor's case...and the specification of colours was totally over my head.

Then there was AIR AVAILABLE! with a nice big arrow pointing to the left, where there was a large empty lot. There did indeed seem to be a lot of air available for the taking. 

The auto driver who brought me to work this morning stopped some 12 times to ask passersby directions, never once asking me. It was actually one of those things that made me fall in love with the country all over again. He just pulled up his little three-wheeler in front of a man on a motorbike, who halted obligingly and gave him detailed directions twice, once in Kannada and once in English for my benefit. People at bus stops, other auto drivers, a woman crossing the street, all stopped in their days to make sure we knew where we were going (which in fact, I did, if he would just have listened to me!). 

Instead of juice at the end of the workday, I went with two colleagues to a little snack stand where they ordered me masala toast, literally the best sandwich I've ever had and I don't even like sandwiches. It was spicy and tangy and sweet, overstuffed and perfect. 

When I got home, Joanna was still at the clinic so Nani and I headed out to Ram Mandhir. When I was only thirty days old I was taken there for my first blessings. It is beautiful and calm, and Nani and I had archana done (specific blessings for the family done by the priest). 

Outside the temple was a shiny new car surrounded by a large family and a chanting priest...

A new car must always be blessed by God, according to Hindus (as is technically the case with all new possessions). The entire family stands around, boredom visible on the faces of younger members, well masked on the older relatives. Flowers and fruit are arranged on the car's hood and at least half an hour of chanting is performed. Seems a little strange, but then you ride in the traffic here and are totally thankful people are getting their new cars protected by a higher authority. 

We're currently trying to arrange our trip to Mysore. And now it is dinnertime! Hope everyone is having a great day... 

fun with words

My friend showed me this great website called www.wordle.com where you can paste in a bunch of text and it creates a representative graphic (the bigger the word the more often it appears in the text). I pasted in the text from this blog to see what would come up!

You can click on the image to view a bigger version!

And then just for fun...this is one of my favourite books.