Bangalore - Missive #5

In 2005, my work sent me to Bangalore in India, to provide training to our colleagues. While there I wrote a series of stories about my experiences and about an expat living in India. This is one of them.

Hello all.

Today is another mini missive. Not much has happened this week, although it is only Saturday morning. I’m sitting in the hotel room whiling away the time until after lunch, when I plan on doing the weekly shopping. I will probably send this note off Sunday night.

It’s enthralling so far, isn’t it. I told you not much had happened.

I have come to the realization that I don’t like living in hotels. Every hotel room is exactly the same; the only thing that varies is the quality of the fittings and the service provided. The service at this hotel is overly fawning, to the point of being comical at times. They had a bad start to the week with the power going on and off over and over on Monday or Tuesday evening. It started while I was in the room before going downstairs for dinner. Then when I was sitting in the “pub”, the power went on and off a few times, leaving us briefly sitting in the dark. Everyone took it very well, but you could see some of the westerners considered this to be a little beyond the pale. Then for the next few days we had every hotel staff person asking us whether our stay is enjoyable, if everything is as we like it, is our room clean enough, is there anything else they can do for us over and over again, even if they couldn’t speak English. Some of the cleaner people just can’t speak English, but they still tried to ask us these questions.

One more week of hotel to go. It is looking more likely that I will be moving into the apartment on Sunday the 20th. Now let me describe this apartment. Keep in mind that we are shocked at the cost of accommodation in Bangalore. It is outrageous on any scale. But what they insist on giving me for the money is extraordinary. I am in an apartment complex that is in one of the better parts of town. It is about 5 stories high with swimming pools, squash courts, a library, a billiards room, badminton court, a room for playing cards, underground car park, tennis courts, beautiful gardens, a pathway throughout the whole shebang that doubles as a jogging track if you want. The apartment itself is 3 bedroom, with 2 huge living areas, kitchen of course and a bathroom off every bedroom. Don’t forget I am here by myself except when Donna visits for a couple of weeks in May. And the crowning glory is the whole thing is made of marble. The kitchen floor is marble; the lounge room floor is marble. It is a huge apartment, being freshly repainted as I type and is made extensively of marble. Why do I need this, especially at the cost they are charging ( $A3000 per month )? All of the westerners in the office are saying the same thing. We don’t need this.

I’m doing my bit to reduce the cost by sharing a ride to work with another one of the fellows who lives in the same complex. Yes I know, I know. It’s the cross I must bare. That’s one of the down sides in my opinion; I can no longer walk to work. One funny aspect of the deal is that everyone plays games with each other here. An 11 month lease is considered the standard, so the apartment people expect that I am going to be here for 11 months and live in their apartment for that time. However I am only here for 3 months after I move in, so the company is signing a lease that has a 2 month “get out” clause built into it. So a month after I move in they will tell the apartment people that plans have changed and I need to leave in 2 months. So we get the less inflated price of the lease ( $A3000 ) and they get the chance at an 11 month lease.

I am getting more and more comfortable with some of the simple things of life here. For example I have learned about the tiny internet cafes that dot the place. In actual fact they are not internet cafes at all, because they don’t serve coffee. You go in, sit down, use the internet on an old but functional computer, then pay for the time you have used as you leave. It’s all on trust, as it was in Saudi. And the cost is an amazing 66 Australian cents for an hour. I was there for about 40 minutes last night and the fellow asked for Rs10 as I left. This is a touch over 30 Australian cents. And I am getting quite good and comfortable with catching the Autos. These are the 3 wheel rikshaws that most have seen pictures of. There are a few rules to learn, then everything else is pure adventure.

Rule #1 – Does the meter work (pointing at the meter)? Repeat as necessary until an answer is given.

Rule #2 – Do you speak English? There’s no need repeating this one. They must have some English if the trip isn’t going to turn in to a disaster for both parties.

Rule #3 – NO SHOPS (uttered at volume and forcefully as many times as is necessary). The Auto drivers work in conjunction with special shops that cater for the tourists, and sell the local handicrafts. Much of the handicraft is of exceptional quality. But two thoughts must be considered. Am I being ripped off? The answer is of course “Yes”. The second thought is “Do I really want this stuff?” Nine times out of ten the honest answer is “No”.

After you’ve gone through this ritual, the ride itself is fantastic. Nobody is travelling fast enough for anyone to really get hurt and I’ve only witnessed one accident. That was last night when a two wheeler (motor bike) and an Auto tried to occupy the same space at the same time, which Einstein said was not on. No one was hurt, but some tempers were given a test I believe.

When you are in the Auto, you become a part of the flow of traffic as it oozes its way along. Some places are free flowing, like the part of Airport Rd not far from the hotel where the planes are taking off. The noise is too much for any houses or other buildings to be there, so the traffic goes really well through that part. But in most other places you are down to a thrilling fun fare ride of dodgems as you weave your way through the melee. And all of the vehicles travel so close together. At the lights, the auto sits literally centimetres from the other vehicles. Cars will compress as far as they can without actually touching. Pushbikes fill the tiny spaces that are left. Amongst all of this are the smoke belching trucks and buses. And it all works. That’s the truly amazing thing. If they were to sit in their lane with the same space between vehicles that we expect then there’s no way it would work; there are just too many vehicles. This way a much larger volume of traffic can be kept moving and it all works.

As my ear begins to tune to the local languages ( re above about the Auto drivers needing to speak English. Why is it that I don’t see the need for me to speak their language? I’ll leave that hanging ), I am noticing more and more cross over between the local language and Arabic. It is still only isolated words, but the cross over is there. For example the word for PROBLEM or trouble is the same – “Mushcala”. I find that interesting.

It rained last night for the first time since I’ve been here, which is 3 weeks now. It started at 9:30 and there was thunder and lightening and really heavy rain. I wonder what the monsoon is going to be like, never having experienced it before. I’m told it lasts for about 3 months.

This afternoon – Saturday – I plan on going in an auto to MG Road to do some grocery shopping at my favourite food shop. MG Road stands for Muhatma Ghandi Rd and is one of the main shopping areas. It is about Rs30 in an auto. Tonight and/or tomorrow I am expecting to get a call from one of the fellows from Melbourne who is staying at another hotel. We came over on the same flight. Some of the other fellows at that hotel have gone back home, so he’s starting to feel a bit bored. Maybe also he is ready to start sprouting out a little. We talked about him coming here (using his chauffer driven car) and then us walking up the road to the best hotel in town, the one I described in last week’s missive I think. It is stunning. That outing will give me an opportunity to introduce him to a couple of radical things like walking up the street for one. Another thing I will introduce him to is taking a ride in an auto. When I told him I that I ride in the autos his jaw just dropped. He couldn’t believe that a westerner would do that. So I’ll introduce him to the auto. If we are doing something tomorrow, I’ll suggest to him that we go to MG Road and Brigade Rd. This is where I went last weekend. Brigade Rd, I was told by some locals during the week, is the best part of town, meaning quality wise. I was there last weekend and struggle to see the connection, but so be it. As I don’t expect to be sending this before tomorrow night, I’ll give you an update. I know you can’t wait.

Like I said at the beginning, not much has happened this week. I warned you not to expect too much. I expect you are feeling quite whelmed after reading this.

(A few hours later)

I’m back from my outing and I have got my weekly shopping, or as best I can manage here. Now I’m filling in an hour before I leave again to meet with Don at The Forum, which is the nice shopping centre I was telling you about. We’re going to “Hang at the mall” this afternoon and then see what happens. I expect he will come back to my hotel for dinner in the restaurant. Who knows.

I thought of a few more things to tell you about while I was wandering. I had my biggest encounter so far with the beggars the other night on the way home in an auto. We were stopped at the lights in a lot of traffic and the beggars and street sellers were making their way through the traffic. When a beggar came to me the others seemed to sense that there was a foreigner in the auto and they all started coming over. The most common type of beggar is the young women with a child welded to her hip. Now I’m not saying they are faking, although the general opinion here with the locals I work with is that they are part of a business. This is the locals saying this. What I can say is that they all have the same modus operandi and the only thing that varies is the hip the child is balanced on. It started to become a little bit worrying the other night because there were suddenly so many and more coming. One of the street seller children reached in playfully for my bag and when I jerked it out of his way the driver realized what was happening and started telling them all off. I’m glad the lights changed when they did. There are also a surprising number of western women who have gone native. I only ever once saw a western man in Saudi who had gone native, but here there are a number of women who get around wearing sandals and Saris. There’s nothing wrong with it all; I just find it surprising.

The second thing I thought of was about the western backpackers who are here. They appear to be caught in a time warp and haven’t realized that we are no longer in the 70’s and hippies are so passé now. They actually look a bit ridiculous to be honest. I saw a few this afternoon when I was wandering because if you come to Bangalore, the 2 places all tourists have heard about are MG Road and Brigade Rd. So that’s where they were, trying to look all worldly. I actually saw a western Hari Krishna (from Canada I think) selling his wares (charity by the way) to the locals. I thought that was a hell of a twist. Having said that, I was quite impressed with the Krishna temple I went to the second day I was here. It was very well run, if a little bent towards the charitable contribution side of things. Apparently they run a lot of good programs here for the poor and especially children.

The third thing I thought of was that some of the things I learned in Saudi are coming in useful now. One of them is the art of bartering. I’m lousy at it, but I’m better than I was when I first went to Saudi. I was buying a book from a street vendor and asked him how much it was. I had the benefit of having bought one from a local street vendor near the hotel recently and so know how much they could cost. This one told me Rs230, so I put it straight down and said “I’m not paying that much for it”. He straight away said “How much would you pay?” and I said “Rs120”, which is what I paid for the first one. He said “Rs150” and I said DEAL. So he really was trying to charge me twice the price. I still paid too much, but at least I brought him down by a third.

It is Sunday morning now and I’m filling in time before going out to send this story off to you all. Last night Don and I had dinner in the restaurant at my hotel then went out walking. This was new to Don because the hotel he is in is no where near anything and he’s getting rather annoyed about it.

We walked up the road to the best hotel in Bangalore, which is called Leela Palace. It is pure luxury and looks spectacular at night time with the lights. We wandered around inside where there was some sort of fashion industry presentation thing happening. We were watching over the balcony as all of the beautiful people air-kissed each other. Then a young woman with long, flowing hair came swanning in and all eyes turned to her. We were watching from 2 stories up, so could only see the tops of people’s heads, but this young woman was certainly the centre of attention. Cameras were flashing all over the place. I tried to see if it was the same woman whose photograph adorned the huge posters that were stuck up around the place. It could have been, but I’m not sure. But it was all very interesting and gave Don and I something to talk about at work tomorrow.

I love the expat life. It’s a shame Donna and the girls can’t be here as well. One day girls, one day. Set your goals and aim for them. Never give up.