Trip to INDIA - 06 BANGALORE and OTHER STUFF

BANGALORE and OTHER STUFF.

January 2008 Dear Friends and Family

I first experienced Bangalore from moving into an area that Lonely planet considers as “somewhat seedy”. This is the area close to the train station and the bus terminal. Usually these areas are located in some of the oldest areas of any cities. It sure is crowded, chaotic, and extremely busy. Today I walked to a different area called MG Road (for Mahatma Ghandi). This is the area where the government of India decided to move their Hi-Tech stuff. The area, close to a very nice park is full of newer buildings, expensive cars dealership, with more modern building being built. A different world indeed! I even found the “Starbuck-like Barista. This is the same coffee shop as in Mumbai where I was able to use Wi-Fi. Oddly, in the most Hi-Tech area in India, this coffee shop does not have Wi-FI?! I visited an interesting museum of technology which has extensive coverage of mechanical devices.

I could have left Bangalore of my place to visit but the lack of interesting sites gave me an opportunity to catch up with emails and blogs.

Some reflections on India and its people

In one hand, India is light-years behind as far as being a modern country, in the other end its has some the best University in the world. The entrance exams are extremely demanding (the people who do not make it can easily be accepted in one of the top US university). There are lots of people being employed in low-paying menial jobs. As an example, the grass around the temples is mowed by hand, by women using hand tools (sickle?). Everywhere you go (like a restaurant) there seem to be a lot of people just hanging around with no particular job to do. In the other hand, at the ticket office for the tourist sites, in the train station, and at the post office, they usually have only one or two windows open to serve very long line of people ?! Picking ones nose in public seems to be socially acceptable. The women are generally well dressed and seem to have an eye for beautiful things and color, but they do not mind being surrounded by trash, as they throw all the trash on the ground. This trash is usually picked up the next morning by women who sweep the trash in the middle of breath-choking clouds of dust.(many streets are unpaved).This made me consider the possible effects of somehow convincing the people of India to use trash cans instead of throwing everything on the ground, As an example, what would happen to all the roaming cows, goats, cats, dogs, pigs, etc, many of them feeding on the trash? Either, the people would have to take over the responsibility of feeding them, or they would die. A marvelous discovery about India is that you are almost certain to get very fresh fruits and vegetables in the restaurants. I have witnessed fresh vegetables and fruits delivered to restaurants each day. This is not too surprising considering the number of fruit and vegetable street vendors everywhere.(more about this later). I am somewhat puzzled by the fact that vegetarian restaurants do not serve beer?

Love and peace - henri