Episode One

On my third trip to India, I flew Korean Airlines to Seoul.  As the flight attendants were bustling around preparing for takeoff, two of them went to the head of each aisle and stood there.  I was puzzled because I had expected that the safety instructions were going to be on a video.  When the captain came on the intercom and started to speak in Korean, they both simultaneously bowed at a certain point in his speech, and then went back to their tasks.  The captain then said the same welcoming speech in English, but they didn’t come back and bow during that portion.  On the second leg from Seoul to Mumbai (still Korean Air), the bowing came in the safety video itself.

At Mumbai, I had to take a bus from the international terminal to the domestic terminal to pick up my Air Sahara (tagline: “Emotionally Yours”) flight to Bangalore.  After getting off the bus, I was told by a person in an airport uniform that he would take me to a hotel for a rest (it being two in the morning). I had less than four hours until my next flight, and I had been warned about these guys, so I just said no (over and over again) until he left me alone.

While in the airport a man in a round cap and long white shirt (kurta? kameez?) sat down next to me.  He told me he was a member of the Bohra community (a Moslem community), and was on his way from his town of Surat to Calcutta to work with other members of the community there. I asked him how many members of the community were in Surat, and he said, “Not many, perhaps 20,000.” I said that seemed like a lot to me, but he said that the population of Surat was about 1.2 million, so 20,000 wasn’t many compared to that number. We talked very pleasantly until I had to leave to catch my flight.

Episode Two

I’m staying in a relatively new hotel, the Grand Magrath.  Next to the hotel is an empty lot with some trucks and piles of rubble. On Sunday, my first day there, I saw a group of people, about 15 or so, milling around a truck.  The group was about half men and half women, all very young looking except for one white-haired older man. They were trying to get this piece of equipment out of the back of the truck.  At first I couldn’t see what it was, but once they got it out I could see it was a concrete mixer. They set it up and started mixing concrete and using a “bucket brigade” to get the concrete up to the roof of a nearby building. The women would get sand and gravel from piles near by and carry it in big bowls, balanced on their heads, to the concrete mixer. The guys at the mixer would load and mix it, and then another brigade would pass bowls of concrete to others standing on a hand-lashed scaffolding to get the concrete up to the roof.  I couldn’t see exactly what they were doing on the roof because there were trees in the way.

They worked a few hours on this. After they were done I saw the women lining up and the men standing around.  After a few minutes I saw each one of the women get a plastic rectangular bag, which I realized was a loaf of bread.  They opened the bags and started eating.  I saw one woman give a few slices of bread to one of the men.  One of the women and one of the men walked all through the piles of rubble (in bare feet) picking up wood scraps and bundling them up.

They then cleaned up, the women using the ends of their saris as towels, hoisted the concrete mixer into the back of the truck, crowded in around it and left.

Episode Three

Got into the office the first day and hooked up my laptop.  They put me in a conference room with a glass-topped table.  Everything worked fine except for my mouse, until I remembered that the mouse was an optical mouse, and would not work on a glass table (because optical mice detect movement over a surface by bouncing light off the surface, which won’t work on glass). So I put a piece of paper under the mouse and made it happy.

At lunch one day I asked one of my co-workers if he had a place for pooja (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pooja) in his house (which he had finished building some months ago).  It turns out he was Christian, not Hindu. I asked if I had offended him but was assured that it was not a problem. We then talked about being able to identify people by their names, and (strikes oneself on the forehead) it suddenly became more obvious to me.  People with names like Ali and Husein are probably Moslem. People with names like Nagendra or Srinivasa are most probably Hindu, and those with names like Abraham are probably Christian (but this doesn't always apply). I asked if they talk about religion much, and the answer was, no, only when there are religious riots, and then the talk is mostly shaking heads. One of the Moslem guys said that he went to an elementary school where they all went to Mass in the evenings (even though he was Moslem).

Traffic is, as usual, crazy.  There is one street in particular which I have to cross on my way from the hotel to the office that is usually a five minute wait for a break in traffic.  At that point we’ve usually built up a pack of people, so we cross en mass. One evening, however, was particularly bad. After a while I saw a small gap (which I never would have dared in the U.S.) I walked out and held my hand out (as I have seen people do occasionally). The cars slowed down just enough to let me pass. Not sure if I’ll do it again, however.

Episode Four

My first day in Bangalore I went up to MG (Mahatma Gandhi) Road to shop for gifts.  One of the stores I usually go into was closed for vacation. As I was leaving it and crossing the street an Indian in baggy hip-hip jeans said “Sir, Sir!”.  I didn’t say anything but shook my head.  He started walking away ahead of me and I continued walking. A couple of shops later I stopped and so did he. A few more shops and he came up to me and said something about the shop that was closed, and then beckoned me into another shop up the street.  I looked at their silver and liked a couple of pieces, so I bought them. The prices seemed pretty reasonable (compared to the U.S.).

This weekend a couple of the guys from the office took me shopping on Commercial Road, which is a rickshaw ride from the office. I had told them I was looking for silver jewelry, and one of them recommended this shop on Commerical Road.  It was a little hole in the wall that I never would have walked into myself, but they had some items that caught my eye and I bought a few. When the time came for the bill to be presented, my co-worker told the salesperson to give me a discount, and the price suddenly came down about 15%. Lessons learned: shop with someone who knows the territory, and never pay list.

On our outing I asked them more questions about religion. One of them said that the pooja room in his grandmother’s house had (along with the Hindu deities) a little statue of Christ as well as pictures of Mecca and Medina (the Moslem holy places). He said that his Moslem friends will sometimes invite him to Ramadan events. I said it all seemed very relaxed to me.

We went to the Shiva statue that I had been to during my first trip. The first time I saw it, it was in the evening and I was much moved by it.  The status itself is still impressive in the daylight, but it’s much clearer how the surroundings are constructed.  I had told someone that I wanted to see it again, and he told me that there was a scandal because the person who put up the statue then put the shopping mall (named Kempfort) in front of it, which was not in the original plan. I asked when it was built, and he said only a few years ago.  While I was there this time I saw a plaque which said "1995". For some sites that contain pictures of it, you can Google: "Shiva Temple" Bangalore "Airport Road".

The humidity has rendered my Tums so soft that they have almost dissolved and crumbled.

Episode Five

The Grand Magrath is very nice looking, with marble (?) floors and a very pleasant lawn/garden in the back, but they have a few kinks to work out.  They don’t have any Kleenex (a problem for an allergy sufferer like me). The lights in the room, while nice looking, are high on the walls, so not as much light reaches my reading or writing surface (a problem for a geezer like me). Also, they don’t have an exercise room. The television showed only snow, and when I asked about it they said that there was a Bangalore-wide problem with the cable. There was an article in the newspaper the next day that confirmed this.  A couple of days later the cable was back. One day I sleepily got into the shower, only to suddenly notice that there was no shower curtain.  Time for a sponge bath. It took a couple of days to get the shower curtain back.

It doesn't seem to be hurting business, however. As I was packing on my last morning, I got a call from the front desk asking when I was going to check out, because they had someone who wanted the room.  I told them I would be out in a few minutes.  I went down and checked out, and as I was waiting for my ride an Indian couple came in, and I heard the clerk give them the room that I had just vacated. I wonder how (or if ) they got it cleaned between me leaving and that couple going up.

One day one of my co-workers was late coming into the office. He told us that his car had trouble starting.  It turns out that his daughter had left some sweets in the car.  Rats had gotten to the food, and and had then turned their attention to his wiring.

The cafeteria on the top floor of the office building seems to have a more "food stands" than before. I say "stands" in quotes because they are all behind a long counter, but different groups sell different items.  One item I saw some of my co-workers get was was a dish of chickpeas with spices.  I'm a sucker for chickpeas so I had some, and enjoyed it (get thee behind me, Pavlov!). One of my co-workers told me the dish was called "chole bhature." Actually I had to ask him to spell it out for me, given the velocity of his talk (and maybe my aging ears...).