Idol Worship

Just a quick scene a few days ago on our trip to Jaipur.

*Family (my cousin Rumi, his wife (Deepsi), kids, Stacy and I) eating dinner in living room. Sick child watching TV in bedroom*

*Roar of crowd on TV*

Rumi - "Did Abhijeet get out?"
Anuj (thinking child is watching cricket) - "Who is playing in the cricket match?"
Rumi - "Actually, it's Indian Idol. Do you know the show?"

*We quickly move to bedroom with dinner to watch remainder of show. * (!)

The show has exactly the same format as the UK and American Idol. It's on the first season and is wildly successful. Even the font of the show title is the same! We had managed to watch one episode the week before so Stacy and I comfortably joined the conversation on who deserved to get kicked off, who was our favorite, etc. Just a totally unexpected pop culture link.

This being the first season, my cousins didn't realized that it might return season after season and was surprised to learn how many years it had been on in the US. I couldn't understand a lot of what the judges said since it used vocabulary that I was unfamiliar with but they had the same mix of people (including someone to take Simon's place as the truth speaking ass).

The Auto-rickshaw

I have been throwing out terms like rickshaw and auto-rickshaw in some posts and I don't think I have accurately conveyed the shear thrill and excitement of using these vehicles in traffic. Traffic in India involves using every single square foot of road space for some type of moving vehicle. Of course, this desire to maximize road usage leads the existence of a much larger variety of vehicles than you would find in the US. It also leads to vehicles traveling right next to each other at amazing speeds.

Here are some websites with good introductory information on the auto-rickshaw:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_rickshaw - A dealer with the line of auto-rickshaws
http://www.auto-rickshaw.com/product-category.html - A great wikipedia entry (I haven't reviewed it yet).
These auto-rickshaws are basically high-speed lawnmowers with passenger seats. Tiny wheels with minimal shock absorption gives the rider a real connected-to-the-road feeling. The 3-wheel design allows them to turn on a dime and squeeze into impossibly small spaces. They are also extremely simple machines since no one wants something that requires more than simple tools to fix and maintain. Unfortunately, the driver is sitting right on top of the front wheel. Thus, when driving, he will manuever to avoid potholes and bumps on the front wheel. This invariably means that the said potholes and bumps are then perfectly lined up with one of the two rear-wheels (giving the passengers their bumpy ride).

In Banaglore, my parents, Stacy and I were traveling in two separate auto-rickshaws to get somewhere. In younger days, I think we would have stuffed the four of us in one auto-rickshaw but my mother and Stacy just wouldn't allow it again. I guess the first time we stuffed four in one rickshaw had been quite enough for the two of them.

So we're hurtling down the street at 15-25 miles/hour (maybe?). I''m with Stacy and my parents are in another rickshaw. I suddenly realize that we have both cell phones and we would have no way of contacting my parents if the auto-rickshaws were to get separated. What to do? I simply grabbed one cell phone and waited. As soon as my parents came by in their rickshaw, I calmly reached across the divide and placed the second cell phone in mother's hand (much to her surprise). As we separated again, I realized that they didn't have our number in the cell phone I had given them. When I saw them again, I just grabbed the phone back out of my mother's hand, put in the number, and then handed it back over.

Please keep in mind that we are still traveling in separate motor vehicles, in traffic and at speed. I love it! Auto-rickshaws also server many other purposes. We saw a lot of them being used as school buses in the morning and afternoon. It''s amzing how many small kids can stuff into one vehicle. It's especially cute when they all hang their schoolbags on the outside of vehicle. You're treated to a multi-colored auto-rickshaw running by with stray arms, legs and heads sticking out of every opening.

The Modern Mall in Bangalore

Some of you may have read earlier about the huge and modern mall in Bangalore that we saw (The Forum). My parents, Stacy and I went there for some shopping during our time in Bangalore. As happens, the ladies went off for a good time of shopping and my dad and I walked around the shops a bit, astonished at how nice the mall was and just enjoying the setting.

It seemed very sudden when we both got bored and stopped enjoying the scenery and plush settings. We stopped to get some tea and then just talked about the mall. This mall was a big change on the normal Indian mall. Instead of a large number of small proprieter shops, this was a western mall with fewer, larger shops. The shops may have been part of national chains but we didn't have enough experience to know which ones were chains. There was no haggling, no owner coming out to have tea with you, no worries about whether or not you were getting ripped off, and no nasty smells from the street.

Actually, it was kind of boring since it wasn't different from other malls. The novelty of seeing a mall like this in India wore off pretty quick. For my dad, this wasn't the India he grew up with and for me, it wasn't the India I had few memories of. I guess more than an issue of nostalgia or memories, it wasn't the India that we wanted.

Of course, our feelings on this matter were, in the end, completely selfish. The mall was packed. It's obvious that there are plenty of Indians who have been waiting for this kind of shopping experience in a western mall environment. Regardless of our nostalgia, it's just not what people want. Kind of a sobering moment for the two of us.

What Things Cost

Hey all,
I''ve received some questions on what things cost in India. I guess I can give you a brief overview of some costs. I''ll let you all do the math but the current exchange rate is 43 rupees to the dollar. From my brief experience, I think that the purchasing power conversion is probably 10 rupees to the dollar. All the prices are in rupees.

Private Driver (illiterate) - 2000-2400 / month
Maid to clean dishes (twice/day) + sweep (1/day) + bathroom (1/day) - 700 / month
Dude to clean your car inside and out (1/day) - 200 / month
Mehndi on forearm and hand (front and back) - 25 rupees (!)
Driver for day to take you around city - 500-1000 / day
One way travel in private car + full day of usage (200 km) - 2000 rupees
Luxury hotel - 3000-5000 / night
Dinner for two at (super) fancy chinese restaurant - 500 rupees
Quality achkan (Indian style mens suit) - 7000 rupees (! What the hell? !)
Fancy saris and outfits for women - 3000-6000 / outfit
Eyeglasses (including exam, prescription and coating) - 600-1000 each
Petrol - 40 / liter
Auto-rickshaw ride - 5-10 / kilometer (negotiable)
Cellular time (local) - 1 / minute
Internet Cafe - 15-45 / hour

The following items have the same cost (given exchange rate) as the US:
Gold, electronics, cell phones, cars (slight discount for domestic made auto)

I am especially shocked by the cost of mens clothing. I mean, what the hell? We're men. We can''t look that good using our clothes. Not like women can.

The Mythical Creature Tipping Point

Okay, empirical evidence would suggest that the driving behavior and traffic patterns in India are resilient enough to withstand the existence of one mythical creature at a time. There have been no accidents or even near accidents that I have seen. Ah well... it was an interesting theory.

The Help in Patiala

So, we've spent a number of days in a household that had 3 full-time servants. It was fun but my strange american notions of equality took some time to adjust. Take the driver, Vijay. He was helpful at all times. He actually seemed to want to keep us from doing anything that he might be able to provide. Any time we talked about going anywhere, he was ready to drop us off, wait and pick us up. He was visible displeased if we discussed taking an auto-rickshaw or even a bike rickshaw. I'm not sure if this was because he wanted to provide everything he could for us or if he didn't want us to figure out that there were other ways of getting around town without him. :)

It was interesting to find out that Vijay is illiterate. I asked Anubha about this and she said that you only need a driving test to get a drivers license, no written test needed. Seems a bit strange since all the signs are printed. I guess this is balanced by the fact that all the signs are also voluntary. Anyway, Vijay was driving my uncle somewhere before my uncle had figured out he was illiterate. My uncle kept wondering why he was driving so fast in a low-speed zone and asked him why he didn't stay near the speed limit. Vijay asked my uncle to point out the next speed limit sign and tell him what the speed was. Upon this happening, Vijay told my uncle that every time he sees a sign like this in the future, he'll drive at that speed. (!)

For a driver like Vijay, my uncle says he pays him around 2000 to 2400 rupees a month. For those of you dying for the conversion, it's right now 43 rupees to the dollar (I'll let you do the math). That is apparently a good salary for Vijay and a very acceptable expenditure for my uncle. My uncle also has a cleaner and a cook that live in the house (I think). I didn't find out what their salaries were but it must be lower since they have quarters provided. The cook is phenomenal. He seemed to spend all his time in the kitchen and was always ready with a meal. I guess he might have been enjoying it because there normally aren't that many people in the house (8 with us, normally 3). The meals he normally prepares are a lot simpler and more daily food type stuff. He seemed to always be running to the market to get fresh produce.

The cleaner spent a good portion of each day ... cleaning. He would sweep the whole house each morning and if we didn't make our beds, he always came by and made them each morning. He didn't cleaned each bathroom because there was a separate woman who came by for that. Pretty wild for me.

Another item that was hard to get used to was picking up the plates after a meal. My relatives were adamant that we shouldn't pick them up. I kept doing it at first out of habit and (again) out of my american sensibilities. I guess that having other people picking up their own plates would break the normal cycle of operation and could cause the whole thing to break down. I hope we didn't do too much harm to their system.

Indian Homes as Heat Sinks

Well, we have made it to Patiala and have visited most of the family on my father's side. We took a quick plane trip from Bangalore to New Delhi on Air Sahara. While not as nice as Jet Airways, it was still damn good service. I think that I will next have to try out Air Deccan; they are apparently a new Southwest-type airline that is beating the pants off the others with ticket prices.

Anyway, we landed in Delhi and one of my uncles had come there from Patiala with a car and driver to take us on the 6-hour car ride back to Patiala. By now, Stacy seemed to be getting quite used to the car trips and driving style so that was at least one complicating factor out of the way. We chatted a bit with Biloo Uncle and then proceeded to watch as our driver got lost getting out of Delhi.

As for Delhi, all I can say is, "Wow!" The change from four years ago is astonishing. A while ago, one of the high courts ordered that all public transport buses and auto-rickshaws in Delhi had to convert over to CNG (compressed natural gas) engines. The difference in the air quality is amazing. The standard engine smell and smog was much better than Bangalore and good by any other comparison. People had told me it made a huge difference within days.

We first drove a few hours to a town called Panipat to eat lunch with my Dad's eldest brother and his wife (Major Uncle, because he used to be a major in the army). It was good to get a break from the driving and Stacy got another chance to see the making and storage of the cow-dung patties that are used for fuel in many parts of India. It had come up in conversation right before we left Bangalore but there wasn't any such activity evident there. We saw some immediately upon hitting Delhi and on the road north.

I'm not sure how many of you know about this, but cow-dung patties were/are a major fuel source. Basically, you collect the cow dung from any cows/buffalo you own and shape it into discs that are about the size of a frisbee and about an inch or two thick in the middle (kind of like a throwing discus). These are then dried out by either stacking them into large piles or sticking them onto the sides of any vertical wall surface nearby. These dried patties can then be used as fuel for cooking and the remaining stuff can still be used as fertilizer.

Stacy didn't comment much on seeing this (mostly she just recognized it). Actually, both of my parents remember either them or their families doing this when they were young. This whole practice is shrinking fast because the government made a major effort to get people to use gas-type fuel sources for cooking and cattle farming/milk production is (of course) getting more industrialized on larger and larger collectives/cooperatives.

We ate a nice lunch in Panipat, visited for a while and then continued on to Patiala. When we got there, Stacy was inundated with lots of new faces. We first visited Biloo Uncle's house where my maternal grandmother also lives. She was really happy at finally meeting Stacy and kept commenting that at least she had seen her in person. I think Stacy was a little shocked at how tiny my grandmother is. We think she's about 90 years old (no one know for sure) and she seems to have shrunk over the years because she is now about 4 or 4.5 feet tall. I guess with some of the stories Stacy has heard, it must be hard to imagine how a woman this small could fill the roles she has heard about. We also met the rest of Biloo's family (my cousins Vicki and Vishi and his wife Reka). We stopped for a while and visited and showed Stacy around the house where I was born.
It's funny, they have made several renovations over the years and the place looks great but I can't seem to keep the renovations in my head. Although most of the renovations were already done last I visited (2001), I had completely forgotten about them. In my mind, I kept reverting back to the old structure for the house in the 80's and early 90's.
From there, we went to Avinash uncle's house which is where we are going to stay for most our time in Patiala. It was just built a year ago and it is gorgeous. It's a modern-styled house and comes complete with a couple of servants and a driver (more on these guys in another post). We also got to meet Avinash uncle's family (his wife Deepika and kids Anubha and Anupam).

Unfortunately for us, we happened to visiting Patiala during a cold snap so the temperatures are a bit low right now (6-10 degress Celsius). Too boot, it's a bit cloudy/foggy so there isn't much sunshine. This is important because I'm sure you've all heard from Stacy on how cold she is. I tried to time her and she's sometimes lets only 3.5 minutes pass before mentioning again to everyone how cold she is.

Indian homes are traditionally built as huge heat sinks. Older homes are constructed from stone and cement while newer homes have a substantial amount of marble as well. This is useful in the summers because the home spends all day absorbing heat and by the time the cool night-time temparatures appear, the house is reradiating the heat to keep the inside warm. By the time the sun comes up again, the house has lost all the heat and will keep the insides nice and cool for a substantial portion of the day while it acts again as a heat sink. When we get a cold snap like we have now in Patiala along with cloudy days, it means that the house never really warms up and as a result, it can be really difficult to warm the whole house artificially. Most families just bundle up and have radiant space heaters to heat individual rooms. Also, most houses don't really get air-tight. Allowing airflow through the house is a standard design feature and it can be hard to completely seal up most homes. There's no real reason to since keeping the inside and outside temperature different is so difficult.

In the States, most space heaters I've seen operate on warm air and not radiant heat. I guess it's because homes in the US are most generally insulated and have a lower heat-index than in India. In India, the space heaters are to warm _you_, not the house/room. Regardless, the end result is that is damn cold in morning when you wake up and the marble/tile floors seem to suck the warmth right through your feet (another good reason to put on flip-flops and socks). In the mornings, everyone just puts on warm clothes, a shawl and socks/slippers to move around. Luckily, the sun is out today and I can already feel the house starting to warm up.

Indian homes also feature copious numbers of voltage stabilizers, back-up power supplies and batteries. This is because the power is not a given and could cut-out many times a day. One of the apartments were in had a few light-load electrical items (flourescent lights, etc.) cross-wired into a battery with an inverter so that a few things would still operate if the power was cut at an inconvenient time.

Okay, more on Patiala later.

Cell Phone Madness

Maybe it's a sign of how behind the times I am but I've discovered several new and interesting things about the cell phone market since I've been India.First of all, the whole scheme I had about getting a GSM cell-phone in the US, buying special software to unlock it and then getting a new SIM card in India... worked. I had no idea how simple it would be to get cell service in India and how useful it would be when we had so many different people travelling.
Basically, every storefront, stall and shack sells cellular service. As an example, I bought service for my parents and myself from a stall that sells oranges, chips, water and cellular service. (!) It was incredibly easy. Fork over 99 rupees, and you get a CD sleeve with a SIM chip, a phone number and service instructions. For another 441 rupees, you get to charge your pre-paid account with almost 300 rupees of talk time. Local talk time is 1 rupee/minute and text messages are even cheaper.
Which brings up this issue of test messages. Maybe I'm too old in the US but this is my first introduction to a text-heavy community. My cousin Noni (once she got our phone number), kept asking us to just "message" her our address so she could visit. I kept repeating, "You mean e-mail you?" She would respond, "No, just message me." I think she realized I didn't understand and finally messaged me her request. I think this is the first example of her realizing that I was probably her learning-impaired cousin from the US.
I couldn't believe how fast she could respond to my text messages (when I managed to send them). It would take me forever to compose a simple message and she would respond with a treatise in what seemed like the time it would take to put the phone back in my pocket. When we saw her, I watched her thumb was flying all over the phone. I think she could do it without even looking at the phone. She would quickly glance to read a message and then just put the phone back at waist level and kept communicating. Since text messages for everyone on her network are free, she says that she sends 100-150 messages a day. *wow* She finally showed Stacy and I how to improve our texting speed (use the T9 interface).
This whole texting thing also opened up a bunch of other ideas. For one thing, on GSM here, they have these location-based services that keep track of where you are (down to a neighborhood of a couple of square blocks). I thought it would be useless but it's quite handy to look at your phone to get th name of the neighborhood you are in. Beyond that, when we traveled to different states in India, I would get a text message welcoming me to that state with some info services. Also, the phone would let me know if I switched networks with statements like: "Dear Hutch customer, welcome to the !dea network. Remember, an !dea can change your life." I guess this is all good fun but there is a setting to can all messages like that as well.
Also, instead of voicemail notifications where you have to call and listen to a bunch of prompts, you simply get a text message that tells you how many calls you missed and what numbers they came from. You can then text a code back to get more information. Just wild! Given all of this, I even started to see tickets and other purchases that were becoming possible by just texting from your phone to a special number and your cellular account would be charged the price of whatever you were buying. If you want to recharge your pre-paid phone, there are even stalls where they don't need any information from you to recharge your phone. You hand over cash and your phone number to them, they use their cell phone to recharge _your_ account and everyone walks away. Of course, your receipt is a text message confirming the transaction. Now, if I could only remember where I put the original SIM card that came with my phone. :(

Sights and Sounds

Since I've spent a fair amount of time in India before and I spent some of my first years there, I sometimes seem to have a visceral response to something I see, smell or taste that immediately brings back old memories or some feeling deep inside that I know this experience. I thought I might try to write down when these thing happen. It's nice to try and notice these feelings instead of letting them pass and then forgetting them (like I usually do). I hope it might get people to think about what sights/smells around them make up their feelings of home.

* The smell of water spreading across a clay tile floor * -- yes, there is a smell

* The smell, god help me, of a diesel engine *

* A bumpy ride in an auto-rickshaw down a half-paved street *

* Drinking water from a stainless steel glass *

* The feel of bare feet on cool marble *

Stacy Sees Some Simians

Well, we took our trip to Mysore a few days ago. You've already read about the roads to Mysore but you haven't heard about the wonders in Mysore. Mysore is a one of those architecturally preserved cities that (for some reason) didn't tear down or hide its old palaces, buildings and landmarks with new construction. It's not that big a town to boot so it's a popular place for tourists to visit.

Stacy and I hired a car to take us there and back. Once we started in the morning, it was both good and bad to learn that we had both a new car and a new driver. Having a new car is nice because everything works and is all shiny and new. The new driver was cool but he obviously hadn't had time to learn everything about Mysore so we had to stop and ask for directions a lot (!).

In Mysore, Stacy and I decided that we would make this a nice evening and stay in one of the high-end tourist hotels. We ended up deciding on The Green Hotel. It's an eco-friendly, sustainable tourism place a little bit out of town. It's based on an old palace and sounded like a nice place to relax. We got there and went through all of the available palace rooms and picked out our favorites. Just for completeness, I asked them to also show us the non-palace rooms (just so we could compare). Stacy ended up liking the cheapest room in the hotel the most so our blow-out night was not quite the wallet-lightener we had imagined. We later learned a valuable lesson in wind dynamics and figured out that room size is not related to room cost for a reason.

The hotel had a private outdoor garden setting for food service that looked serene and plenty of friendly wait-staff to attend to every need. We had a quick bite, rested and then headed out for Mysore Palace, a 100-year old testament to opulence that can rival any palace in Europe in terms of sheer chutzpah. Most of it is quite beautiful however. We later headed down to Brindivan Gardens, a large park/garden that has a nightly musical show that features dancing fountains and such.

By the time we returned to the palace that evening, we were ready for a relaxing dinner and some sleep. It was incredible to be in the palace gardens while getting served dinner and drinks for the evening. The air was also starting the get fairly cool and I was looking forward to an evening where I could feel cold with the AC. Well, everything went well but we never could get the room to cool down that evening. I dawned on me (at 3 in the morning as I was messing with the window shades) that the non-palace rooms had windows on only one side. Even though there were 5 of them, it was still difficult for the cold air outside to come into the room. I remembered that all of the palace rooms had windows on at least two different walls. Ah, now it makes sense. At least the royals in the palace knew what was important; they could get cool air flowing through their rooms with barely a breeze. I'll chalk this one up to another valuable lesson learned.

In the morning, we were coming out for breakfast when I opened the door and was greeted by a monkey climbing along the balcony railing. I wanted to call Stacy but there was a certain freak-out factor (Stacy's) I had to consider. I decided to just ask her to bring out the camera and let her find the monkey herself. This she did in great form but the mnkey startled her so much that she had trouble even manipulating the camera to take some shots. It was then that I noticed monkey #2 crawling on the floor toward Stacy. She seemed to handle my warning fairly well but then she decided that monkeys were too cute to be dangerous and started talking to them and motioning for them to get closer. Now, I know that rabies is not inversely proprotional to cuteness so I tried to warn her about actually being cute back to them. At this point, I noticed monkeys #3,#4 and #5 also taking their morning stroll across the balcony. We ended up with some great monkey shots and an appreciation of how fast monkeys move (luckily, it was away from us). I was pleased to see that these weren't con-monkeys who were involved in some nefarious confidence scam to part us from our belongings. It's been known to happen in India.

The Urban Elite (I)

Oh my goodness. On the 17 of January, we met my cousin, Noni to hang out and have her meet Stacy for the first time. We met her in Bangalore in the M.G. Road area (Mahatma Gandhi). It was amazing to see this in India. It's obvious that the middle class in India is starting to flex its financial muscle. This area is filled with western-styled (and some western-branded) shops. It contains a lot of young indians who seem to flow easily between western and Indian dress styles and fashion styles. The kids all seems to have oodles of money and very little compunction about spending it. The prices of the goods I saw were still low for a westerner but seemed scandalously high for India. The evidence of huge amounts of businesses tells me I'm wrong and that I'm seeing a brand new section of urban India that was only hinted at on my last visit.

You can find a lot stores that are designed like stores in any outdoor mall in the US. No haggling, fixed-price, well-lit interiors, lots of glass and modern architecture. Maybe this has been in India for a long time, but I've never seen it. For Stacy, this area was a bit of a relief. She didn't feel so stared at (there are plenty of foreigners here) and she just felt a lot more comfortable in these settings. We relaxed with some coffee drinks at Barista (the local version of Starbucks). The prices were also Starbucks prices. A cup of tea/coffee at Barista is about 50 rupees while the little tea stall from the earlier post was 4 rupees.

We had dinner with Noni at a chinese restaurant in the MG Road Area. It was really nice and the service was unlike anywhere I'd ever been before. While we got our meal family-style, you weren't supposed to help yourself from the shared dishes. You would motion and some waiter would magically show up to dish out whatever you wanted onto your plate. According to Noni, you could try to dish things up yourself but then the waiters would descend instantly to stop you. I'm glad that she finished her plate before me and motioned for more food. I would have tried to serve myself and inevitably attracted the wrath of the waitstaff.

After dinner we went to The Forum, a new western-style mall just built in Bangalore. Wow! It was incredible. As nice, if not nicer than anything I've seen in the States and in Europe. Top flight shops, lots of local products made for upper-middle class markets and the largest multiplex in India (11 screens). Most movie theaters in India have been more of the super-large screen and opera-size audience so a multiplex is fairly new. From what I can tell, it's probably sold out for every show at every time.

What's neat is that they have grades of tickets depending on how much service you want. They have separate waiting lounges where you can sit and relax before the movie starts. Also, they have Gold Class tickets that I think are like the Alamo. For a set fee (500 rupees, more than $10!), you get a luxury auditorium, lazy-boy style seats and unlimited food and drink during the move (plus, of course, a separate lounge).

Honking, honking, honking

As I was responding to Austin's comment, I thought I should put in a quick entry about the honking of the cars. Initially, when you first get here, the honking is deafening because it is pervasive and it all sounds so ... angry. In the US, with everyone following lane markings and traffic lights, you only honk when something is going incredibly wrong. Any honk you hear indicates either extreme anger or extreme danger.

After some time in Bangalore, Stacy noticed (and I remembered) that the honking is much more than an expression of anger. You use the horn to announce your presence to other drivers, to beg for space to pass, to warn that you are being unknowingly squeezed and to ask for clearance to cross the street in an intersection. It's also used to let people know that any of the above requests has been denied. (!)

This brought back memories of a video I saw in my Driver's Education course in high-school. Those of you who went to school in the US may have seen the same video. It's a 50's video featuring an old guy driving a car and teaching the commentator beside him how to drive through urban and suburban settings. The only thing that stood out from the video was that the old codger would use his horn for everything he saw on the road.

Scene: Person standing next to the street looking to cross (suburban setting with superb visibility).
Old Codger: "See him, we want to make sure he sees us, just give a friendly tap on the horn to let him know we're here."

Scene: Guy mowing his lawn near street.
Old Codger: "Just give a friendly tap to let him know we're here."

Scene: Crossing intersection with right-of-way. Cross street has a car on it, waiting.
Old Codger: "Just give a friendly tap on the horn to make sure he sees us."

Scene: Turning right, or turning left or doing anything where you might see another car, person, animal.
Old Codger: "Just give a friendly tap to make sure everyone knows we're here."

This could possibly be the worst advice to give young drivers in the US while also being some of the best advice to give young drivers anywhere else in the world. :)

Cable Channel Day

Okay, so the reason we are in Bangalore for so long is that my father has a conference here for the next few days. For those of you wanting a chuckle, it's the Association of Spine Surgeons of India Conference. While the conference seems great, the acronym (ASSICON) could use some work. :)

We spent a portion of the 21 of January shopping and finding places to eat for lunch. As a result, we saw a shiny new western-style shopping mall and then roaming around and looking for a place to eat. After all of this, we got ready to attend the opening reception for the conference.

The opening talks were held at the Indian Institute for Science in Bangalore. Stacy, my mom and I spent a bit of time walking around the display booths and I kept staring in amazement at the tools they had for display. If I didn't know better, I would have thought I was at a metal-smithing shop instead of a spine surgery conference. They even had one device that looked like what Arnold used to retrieve the chip in his head in Total Recall.

The opening talks featured the governer of Karnataka (!) who gave a great speech on the importance of the work being done by the spine surgeons. It was interesting to see that the last election in India seems to have had quite an effect on the mindset of the educated elite (at least at this conference). Many of the speakers were focused on how their skills, new techniques and new technologies could be used to alleviate the suffering of the poor and improve the quality of life of those who don't otherwise have access to excellent medical care. The last election in India was a resounding defeat for the party (BJP) that was connected with the recent rise of the middle class in India. Additionally, in Bangalore, the BJP was also well connected to the rise of the IT industry and the huge amounts of money that companies like Infosys and Wipro have generated for India. Not one poll or pundit forecast the BJP defeat in the election. Even the Congress Party (the winners) weren't ready for victory. I heard they didn't even have their cabinet nominations set up (something any party expecting/hoping to win will do). It seems that although a lot of new wealth was generated, it didn't filter to all parts of the society and what eventually let to the BJP defeat was the votes of the masses who didn't think anything was changing in their own lives.

After the talks, we were taken to the reception and dinner at a ritzy hotel (Hotel Atria). It was here that Stacy commented, "In the space of a few hours, this vacation has gone from 'National Geographic' to 'The New Yorker.' She quickly changed to say that it felt more like we were on the 'Travel and Living' channel. I thought that was an interesting comment that demonstrated how fast you can move among the different strata of society in India. One moment, we were fighting dust and heat to catch an auto-rickshaw on a crowded street, and just a bit later, we're in the lobby of a magnificent hotel watching people hop out of foreign automobiles.

The evening quickly moved on from 'Travel and Leisure' to 'Discovery Health'. This being a spine conference, there was a presentation before dinner of an artificial disc being introduced into India. The presenter, a rock-star looking surgeon from Chennai (think Buckaroo Banzai) was kind enough to include a set of movies of an disc replacement surgery he had recently performed. Ryan, you were in my thoughts here since I was sure that you would have not have eaten any dinner that day. Just like on Discovery Health, we got to see the surgery starting from the first incision all the way to closing up and watching some post-recovery testing. I am always amazed by the amount of pushing, pulling and twisting that goes on when surgeons work. These guys were going in with pliers to crush certain items (the old disc) and then pull out pieces of it bit by bit.

Stacy and my dad have seen this all before (in person). She kept confirming that surgery is really that... raw (I think that is the right term). With the end of the presentation, it was time for drinks and then the dinner. This was when we entered the Food Channel. Not having been to an Indian conference before, I'd never had that many choices of food on a buffet. It was all I could do to keep from piling my plate with more food than I could possibly eat.

The choices of food on the buffet were very interesting. Almost everything was Indian. There were choices of north indian and south indian cuisines with veg and non-veg options. There was a chef making fresh dosa to order. However, for dessert, there was... butterscotch ice cream and a Brazilian souffle with pralines. I was completely amused. I mentioned to Stacy that this was a sign that Indians know that our desserts aren't as popular with foreigners as the main dishes. The conference didn't even bother trying to have any Indian desserts. Stacy commented that it seems some Indians know that their desserts aren't actually desserts. I replied by saying that it was more likely that some Indians know that the foreigners are just lacking in good taste when it comes to dessert. ;)

The Mythical Creature and Accident Awareness

Hey all,
Seems like Nilesh has shed somel light on the source of much of the staring here in Banaglore. According to him, blondes are actually mythical creatures so I guess Stacy is attracting as much attention as a one-horned horse that can fly. At least this helps her understand the source of all the backward glances.

On the other hand, I think that we'll end up being responsible for some sort of traffic accident. The traffic in India is like that in Italy or any south-east Asian nation. Everyone on the roads has to pay attention to the roads at all time. The whole system is based on a delicate balance of driver awareness, sheer terror and unmitigated fear. Throw one mythical creature into the mix and the whole balance is upset. I don't know how many motorcycle drivers, rickshaw navigator and truck drivers who have done a complete 180 with their heads while continuing on down the street for a couple of car lengths. Rather than our own safety, I've become more fearful about the safety of those around us.

Gravel, Tar and Caterpillar, Oh My!

We drove yesterday (18 January) to Mysore, a smaller city famed for it's old architecture, museums and more relaxed setting. I thought Stacy might have heart failure on the way out of the city but a good dose of anti-anxiety and Dramamine took care of most of her concerns. The trip was nice in that we got to see a lot of the countryside over the 150 km distance to Mysore.

I was most struck by the sheer amount of construction going on in both the city and in the countryside. The only comparison I have is what Karl and I saw in downtown Miami. There are buildings that have been torn down, road construction everywhere and new buildings in various stages of completion. What's most interesting is that everything seems to be happening at once.
The road from Bangalore to Mysore is being reconstructed, widened and raised. The whole 150 km at once (or so it seems).

As we drove, we passed many small farming communities but we also passed a number of (what I thought were) small construction communities. They were basically shanty-town villages that seemed to exist solely for housing the workers that were rebuilding the nearby stretch of road. The sheer amount of parallel work taking place seems massive (and this is just one highway between cities). It was really heartening to see this kind of progress going on. The infrastructure seems to have become a real priority in the last five years and the government seems to have thrown the full force of the working population behind making the improvements. I can't wait to get to the north to see the new highways.

Inside the city, there are an incredible number of highways and flyovers being built to ease the traffic. I guess I thought that building roads just took longer since we're still waiting in Austin for the airport flyovers to be completed (after 6 years in the works!).

We Make our own Tour of Banaglore

Well, we can confirm that we've had the absolute worst tour of Bangalore ever. Stacy and I started our third day thinking we would take in the sights of Bangalore and then meet my cousin, Noni, after her exams. We had some time to kill and decided to get some morning tea and coke. We dropped by the corner tea/morning food diner and got our tea and cokes when it hits both Stacy and I that there are no other women in the diner. Unfortunately, I ended up sitting with my back to most of the people so I didn't get to watch the inevitable staring that occurred. I'll bet we've broken yet another unspoken social rule concerning who should be getting morning tea at this location. To top it all off, I think I managed to drink the tea incorrectly. It seems that the tea is served in a small stainless steel glass (filled to the rim) that is placed inside of a lipped stainless steel ramekin. I guess standard procedure is to pour the tea from the glass into the ramekin because it's too hot to drink directly from the glass. One slightly burned mouth and careful observation the next day confirms my error. I believe that this action may account for some of the staring but I don't want to take away from Stacy's share of the staring problem.
After the tea experience, we waited until 9:00 am for the 8:15 am tour bus. No problems, though because there was very little staring going on while we were waiting. Certainly not any staring. After getting picked up by the bus, we proceed to spend the next 90+ minutes looking all over town for the enxt two groups to pick up. We finally start our Bangalore tour at 11:00 am at the local Science Museum. By this, I mean the standard made-for-kids hands-on experiments science museum. Not a good beginning to the tour. Most of the other people in the tour group seem a little shocked that the Science Museum is the first thing to show off in Bangalore. Lest we think we were getting gipped on our tour, we saw several other groups of tourists (Indian and Western) wandering around the Science Museum obviously waiting for their tour groups to move on to the next location. On the plus side, Stacy and I did get our pictures taken by a group of schoolgirls. I imagine it's for posterity but since we were in front of the roaring dinosaur exhibit, I think they were more interested in what a couple of old farts like us were doing at the science museum rather than the fact that we were a mixed-race couple.
The next site was the Bangalore Bull Temple that was quite interesting. With the next stop being the Mysore Silk Emporium we finally gave up on the tour and asked the guide what the next stop would be so we could cut and run. He told us we would go to the LalBagh Gardens and then to lunch. The Gardens were on our must see list so we stuck around for the next stop. As fate would have it, the next stop was lunch (and not the Gardens).
I could see rebellion rising up within Stacy and we cut and ran from tour as fast as we could. Given our situation, we decided to walk to the Gardens and rest there after eating lunch.
Lunch was a whole different experience that I'm sure Stacy will cover. Let's just say that on the way to eat lunch, I decided to cut off of the main streets because Stacy was having trouble with all the diesel fumes, the noise, the honking and the honking and the honking. Unfortunately, we ended up taking quite possibly the one road in Bangalore that is filled with mechanics shops, metal working shops, diesel engine repair and all things "American Chopper." That is now known as the "street we will never speak of again." I just think of it as Voldemort's Alley.
We finally make it to LalBagh Gardens and are rewarded with a huge park overflowing with flowers and removed from the noise of the city. A tranquil and relaxing hour passes while we recover from the morning's tour travesty. All I could think off was that those poor people still on the tour were stuck with it until 7:30 that night. The horror...
Stacy has adapted really well to the differences of city life in India and one big surprise was her love of the auto-rickshaws. For the uninitiated, these are compact three-wheelers that hold three people in a back seat while flying through, around and between city traffic. Not something for the faint-hearted. Stacy seemed to take to them from the moment she sat down. In fact, she considered our auto-rickshaw ride to be the best part of the tour yet. Personally, I think it might have something to do with the young schoolgirls that waved goodbye to her as we got on and left in the rickshaw. Next up... we rub elbows with the urban elite of India in hip downtown Bangalore.

Day 2 - 16 January

Today, as if to further make my efforts to adjust our body clocks ludicrous, we woke up late, walked around for a few hours, took a nap at 4 pm (thinking we would get up for dinner), woke up at 11:30 pm, and then just slept till morning. I am thinking that perhaps I should just stop pretending to prepare for the jet lag.
I did venture out late for a quick half-hour walk without Stacy to just look at the surroundings without having Stacy to announce my presence. It was nice to walk around quietly and just watch people without having them notice my presence. We are definitely in a section of town that gets very few tourists but the large Christian presence here was a surprise. I guess the nearby hospital is a Christian hospital and many of the local businesses are Catholic.

Our First Day There

With all of my talk about sleeping on the plane so that we had our schedules adjusted by the time we landed... our first 4 hours in Bangalore were spent sleeping. :) We managed to actually wake up at 7:00 pm local time and go out for a walk to see the neighborhood. Since we are staying at a nice local hotel near my Dad's conference we're in a decidedly non-tourist part of town. Poor Stacy was already tired from just taking every detail around her and then she had to deal with the fact that everyone had to get a good long stare in when we walked by. I thought perhaps they were staring at me but I don't think I could seriously keep myself that deluded.
We managed to stay up for four hours that included night-time walking, new smells of India for Stacy and a great meal at a restaurant that I think Stacy described better than I could. Watch for a copy of her e-mail below!

After Eights and the Airport

Learned something intereting about what to bring (and not bring to the airport). On the transfer from Bangalore International to Domestic, our checked baggage was x-rayed again. The security personnel stopped us and showed us the x-ray monitor. We had what appeared to be several bandoliers of bullets in the bag and they understandably were looking for an explanation. We were initially flummoxed since we didn't even have any belts with metal. Mystery was soon solved however, it was the wrappers on the after-eight chocolate mints showing up on edge. I think we will try to eat these before any more travel...

The Journey Begins

Hrrm... beginning this blogging thing is a bit more difficult that I had imagined. You normally get to write an e-mail to someone in particular but this blog is for everyone. Anyway, we started the trip off normally. It was interested to have an afternoon flight where we had the whole day off. Most relaxing start to a trip I think I've ever taken. No rushing around, no worrying about things... just wake up, run a few errands, relax and then take off.

Actually, we didn't quite start the trip normally. We came to the airport for a 4:30 flight (after confirming it the previous day), and promptly discovered that it was now a 5:30 flight. Brief flurry of activity as tickets and schedules are checked. I asked the Northwest representative if this was going to be a problem since that shortened our layover in Minneapolis to less than an hour and the luggage has to transfer from a domestic to an international flight. His response was that the luggage almost always gets transferred correctly and that the only other recourse I had was "to pray". Errr... I guess that's what I get for living in a Red state.

We (and our luggage) made it to Amsterdam for the 2.5 hour layover. I'm sure Stacy has more to say about the Amsterdam airport than me. As for our next jouney to Mumbai, we knew we had a three hour layover so I wasn't worried about scheduling. Turns out I was wrong and our ensuing 3.5 hour delay in Amsterdam (on the tarmac) quickly reduced our layover to zero. On the plus side, we got to learn how to replace an electrical component in the starboad engine on a DC-10 (and learn how cold it was when the mechanics would walk by and we would feel the rush of cold air coming off their bodies). The only other problem was that they took our carry-on baggage from us when we were boarding KLM flight. I was wondering which items would have been "lifted" by the time we landed in Mumbai. Stacy was commenting that her "rape by India" had begun. I wasn't sure what to make of the comment but all the possibilities were fairly negative.

Landing in Mumbai International turned out to be a good time to remember how things work in an Indian airport. Fighting through a crush of people to get the luggage, walking easily through customs (!) and then begging for the Jet Airways agent to reschedule us for another flight. The Jet Airways people told me that I should take the airport shuttle to the domestic terminal and do the rescheduling there. As I left the counter, another passenger told me that they wouldn't even let you on the airport shuttle unless you had Jet Airways reschedule your flight and give you a valid ticket. Welcome to India!

I guess I'm running out of time now, but rest assured, we did eventually make it to Bangalore after one of the best airplane flights I'd ever had. Jet Airways served a full meal with real linens, plates and drinks (on a 75 minute flight). While the meal was tasty, I wasn't expecting chinese food to be the first meal I got in India.

Our time in Bangalore has gone well so far. Stacy's been on the lookout for urban elephants but has been disappointed so far. She has seen a higher concentration of cows than she was expecting, however.