Bangalore

July - Dec 2005

Nic and I have quite different views on India, so his seperate entry will follow this one.

Nic set off for Bangalore in the south of India, leaving on our first wedding anniversary of all dates. With the house all packed into a storage shed, and the car at Dads, I joined him 2 days later. At first I found Bangalore very intimidating, just the sheer number of people in the one country was daunting. The constant stares that I was getting bothered me a lot - and took some months to get over. Most times I felt flourescent no matter what clothing I wore or how I acted - it was like I was the first white person to ever enter India. One day I remembered how many of 'them' there were (in Bangalore the population was around 7 million, with room and infrastructure - that would be Indian infrastructure :) for only a million!) and realised that perhaps for those staring at me on that day that I was the first white person they had seen. It just never stopped, until I decided that it wasn't going to ever change, so I decided to get over it.

It took about two weeks before I started to settle in, and I actually started to think I could live there forever. There was always some action going on - life was never boring, but when you stopped long enough to observe, it was just the hussle and bussle, cos the action was just the noise of survial for the locals. A type of survial that you and I are just not accustomed to. India is often described as the country of contradiction and it is one great way to describe it. For me things were simple, yet so so confusing, practical yet disturbing, and clean yet dirty. The list can go on forever, but these sum up my experience. The way that they live their daily life just kinda makes sense and its what they need to do in order to survive, yet at the same time, what they are doing is not really helping them at all - but they do it with a smile, so it must be good for them, right?

We found a place to live in Koramangala - a 'really nice' suburb. Now what this means is that there were a couple of trees in the area - and boy do they make a difference. The apartment was the first floor of a house - the owners lived on the bottom floor - but they were entirely seperate houses. We were lucky enough to find a landlord who helps expats out in Africa, where he is based, and was willing to let us rent his house without providing the 11 month deposit that is standard for tenants to hand over! Now the rent was cheap at 25000 rupees (inr) a month - but thats a huge deposit. So we paid the 3 months rent upfront and moved in. We did end up staying for 6, in the same place.

We hired a maid to cook and clean for us. I know what all you ladies out there are thinking and trust me, having a miad is not what you are thinking - not in India anyway! As much a I do appreciate the work she did, from the day she started I could not wait to get rid of her. Servants in India do not have a good reputation for being honest, nor loyal, nor trustworthy. They lack initiative, are constantly late, never (no matter how many times you might ask them) refer to you by anything except Madam/Sir - they say they understand things and then do the exact opposite, possibly for their own personal amusement... Most disturbing is that they do not understand why they must by hygenic - remember they are not trustworthy, so you can't be sure they are being hygenice when you aren't there! They generally are very poor and do not enjoy an average/normal/satisfactory level of health - so put the two points together and you have good reason to be concerned for your own health.

Now on the upside, for the last 6 months, I pretty much never washed a dish, never made my bed (I had to get out of it so she could make it though), no sweeping, mopping, dusting, I never cleaned any of the bathrooms and didn't have to do the laundry. Ohhhhh and the best was just outside our house was a Dhobi, which is an ironing person (usually a man), who charges an astounding 2.5 INR per item. Roughly 7 cents!! Now this is the price for foreigners - the locals pay 2 INR. He was worth every rupee, and he is sorely missed. Nic ironed his work shirt the other day and said he 'did not enjoy the experience'...

We also hired a driver to help us get around the streets of Bangalore. This was pretty neat. Although I did have the occassional thought that I could seriously manage the streets behind the wheel, I doubt that the car would have come out unscathed. The traffic is just manic, as I said earlier there are 7 mill people and only room for 1 mill of them. There are trucks, buses, cars of all different sizes, rickshaws of all different speeds, scooters galore (the most dangerous), motorbikes, stray dogs, cows and of course pedestrians. Oh and no such thing really as a pedestrain crossing - survival of the fittest/fastest/bravest/stupidist!!!

We had the experience of firing our first driver and the second driver stayed with us to the end. He was extrememly patient and never got angry with the conditions he had to put up with. I have to say that given the conditions that they do drive in there is a very very low, almost non existent amount of road rage. Just a damn lot of horn honking! Our driver was extremely patient and pretty careful driver. Sure he had his days where he didn't appear to be as observant as he was the day before (I'll blame Glenny and his late night partying for these moments) - but you just knew that he would never have a bingle, as it wouldn't be worth his job. So the nerves of the first few weeks of being a passenger in a car just settle and it all becomes normal, including that cow that insists you go around, cos it was there first!

There aren't many good roads within the city of Bangalore - they are mainly red dirt with a bit of loose rock thrown in, if you're lucky. When it rains you really should just stay at home for a few days - cos you won't be going anywhere fast. This is the cycle - rain=potholes=traffic avoiding said potholes= backed up traffic = horn honking (more than usual) = headache = getting to your destination 2 hours after planned and the NEED to find a toilet NOW = I can't be bothered = turn around and go home = potholes = traffic avoiding....

I often came up with the theory that no one has bothered to show them how to make roads, and its not a silly suggestion. They would serioulsy fill the potholes up with loose rocks (not peebles) and that was it. Oh once I saw them pour tar in on top of the rocks, which was actually impressive, so I did feel for them briefly when the pothole got rained out again a few days later. Anyway the roads are a big problem, in short there is too much traffic and lack of maintenance makes travelling slow and bumpy. Accidents don't happen often as its rare for you to get above 20km/hr - another reason that helps the nerves settle.

We did do a couple of road trips and I can tell you that they do also have some sealed roads, with slightly less traffic. We went to Mysore which is 150km south of Bangalore, a trip that takes 3 hours one way! I KNOW!!