Bangalore, Day 2
Not a bad day, but a high-stress day nonetheless. Started it off with the complimentary breakfast buffet, which featured Indian breakfast and western breakfast, with hints of Italian and German and accompanied by pineapple juice, coconut water, and more. My travel-mate and I are going earlier tomorrow so we can enjoy it better.
Upon arriving at the building complex that houses my company, we wandered around for a bit, realizing that the buildings had no signs, and there were at least four of them housing different companies on different floors. Not only did we happen upon a fellow employee while in the courtyard, she was a fellow writer. And so indoors we went.
My day was fraught with getting up and getting down and trying to eek out some speed from my remote connection. Didn’t get much done, so I’ve spent the evening preparing a presentation that I’m giving in the morning. Definitely getting my share of presentation-giving this week! I find it odd that doors never opened to teach for longer than five minutes in church…yet my company paid for a $2K flight ticket for me to teach in India. I don’t have answers to why that is, and am perfectly comfortable if that was God keeping those doors shut, but that I do find it fascinating.
I got a phone today, so I now have continual data (for communicating over Messenger or WhatsApp, hailing Ubers, and getting the most out of Google Maps) and an Indian phone number (for calling Indian places). I use my own phone when I have wifi. My travel-mate has some data, as well as the ability to call and text American phone numbers. Between the two of us, we can manage pretty well.
This evening, we went into the city to a new shop that sold lots of handcrafted items of metal and wood. That seems to be mostly what our week will consist of—shopping. Shopping takes us into the heart of the people and city, rubbing shoulders with everyone, so in a way it is the best form of immersive tourism. While out, we saw two other Caucasians, both women, both alone. So at least we weren’t that crazy, for all of you concerned viewers at home.
We walked to where a bookstore was supposed to be, but couldn’t find it once we arrived. If it had not have been dark, we may have explored further, but it was time to hail an Uber and go home. A half-hour Uber ride costs less than $3 here! Probably because it’s only a 3 mile trip.
Yes, traffic is that bad.
Traffic is just the beginning of what I find myself struggling to describe about this city. While it does not intimidate me, it is just so difficult to capture what I see even on the half-hour ride to work. Hindus and Muslims and saris and children and dogs and men and motorcycles and tuktuks (called autos here, I think) and trash—trash everywhere. Painted signs admonishing the populace to keep the city clean, but even the strokes of the brush seem resigned and cynical. Horns honking, one after the other, constant; they are not angry, but they raise the noise level of the road by a factor of ten. Infants held in mothers’ arms as they ride on the back of balanced motorcycles. Toddlers gripping the handle-bars. Store after store after store, the same on every street, a never-ending cycle of the same wares: scarves and silks, street food, idols, more street food, shoes, and on it goes. There is a lot of commerce here. Buying and selling and buying and selling and buying and selling. I know the US gets a lot of flak for a materialistic culture, but everything I see of India implies we do not deserve the entirety of that judgment.
Odd, isn’t it? For a country with so much poverty, the emphasis on wealth is abrasively strong. Perhaps that is why?
Our office windows look down on a slum. My Bangalore colleague informed us that, as part of our company’s charity work, several employees go down on a regular basis to teach math and other subjects at a charitable learning center to the children. (It is not just Americans who are attempting to alleviate the poverty of less-developed countries.) She was proud of their efforts, but could not offer a lot of hope. “We ask them what they want to be, and they all say engineers and doctors. But we know most of them will not be.” I think she added that the reason was that their parents will marry them off, but I’m not sure and don’t want to put those words in her mouth.
It is a chilling thing to encounter such a bleak outlook from one of Bangalore’s own workers of good.
Upon arriving at the building complex that houses my company, we wandered around for a bit, realizing that the buildings had no signs, and there were at least four of them housing different companies on different floors. Not only did we happen upon a fellow employee while in the courtyard, she was a fellow writer. And so indoors we went.
My day was fraught with getting up and getting down and trying to eek out some speed from my remote connection. Didn’t get much done, so I’ve spent the evening preparing a presentation that I’m giving in the morning. Definitely getting my share of presentation-giving this week! I find it odd that doors never opened to teach for longer than five minutes in church…yet my company paid for a $2K flight ticket for me to teach in India. I don’t have answers to why that is, and am perfectly comfortable if that was God keeping those doors shut, but that I do find it fascinating.
I got a phone today, so I now have continual data (for communicating over Messenger or WhatsApp, hailing Ubers, and getting the most out of Google Maps) and an Indian phone number (for calling Indian places). I use my own phone when I have wifi. My travel-mate has some data, as well as the ability to call and text American phone numbers. Between the two of us, we can manage pretty well.
This evening, we went into the city to a new shop that sold lots of handcrafted items of metal and wood. That seems to be mostly what our week will consist of—shopping. Shopping takes us into the heart of the people and city, rubbing shoulders with everyone, so in a way it is the best form of immersive tourism. While out, we saw two other Caucasians, both women, both alone. So at least we weren’t that crazy, for all of you concerned viewers at home.
We walked to where a bookstore was supposed to be, but couldn’t find it once we arrived. If it had not have been dark, we may have explored further, but it was time to hail an Uber and go home. A half-hour Uber ride costs less than $3 here! Probably because it’s only a 3 mile trip.
Yes, traffic is that bad.
Traffic is just the beginning of what I find myself struggling to describe about this city. While it does not intimidate me, it is just so difficult to capture what I see even on the half-hour ride to work. Hindus and Muslims and saris and children and dogs and men and motorcycles and tuktuks (called autos here, I think) and trash—trash everywhere. Painted signs admonishing the populace to keep the city clean, but even the strokes of the brush seem resigned and cynical. Horns honking, one after the other, constant; they are not angry, but they raise the noise level of the road by a factor of ten. Infants held in mothers’ arms as they ride on the back of balanced motorcycles. Toddlers gripping the handle-bars. Store after store after store, the same on every street, a never-ending cycle of the same wares: scarves and silks, street food, idols, more street food, shoes, and on it goes. There is a lot of commerce here. Buying and selling and buying and selling and buying and selling. I know the US gets a lot of flak for a materialistic culture, but everything I see of India implies we do not deserve the entirety of that judgment.
Odd, isn’t it? For a country with so much poverty, the emphasis on wealth is abrasively strong. Perhaps that is why?
Our office windows look down on a slum. My Bangalore colleague informed us that, as part of our company’s charity work, several employees go down on a regular basis to teach math and other subjects at a charitable learning center to the children. (It is not just Americans who are attempting to alleviate the poverty of less-developed countries.) She was proud of their efforts, but could not offer a lot of hope. “We ask them what they want to be, and they all say engineers and doctors. But we know most of them will not be.” I think she added that the reason was that their parents will marry them off, but I’m not sure and don’t want to put those words in her mouth.
It is a chilling thing to encounter such a bleak outlook from one of Bangalore’s own workers of good.
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