These photos were taken in Whitefield, the IT suburb of Bangalore, and yesterday, from the car, on the road to the Bangalore airport, which is about an hour outside of the city.
These two women were walking side by side, crossing the road:
In a village, on the way to the airport:
Closer to the airport, on a highway:
Carpet delivery in Whitefield:
Tuk tuks are fun. They are everywhere. They are green and yellow and will take you anywhere. Voom voom, they zoom through traffic. Honk honk, they go where they want.
Tuk tuk number one belongs to a nice man who speaks very good English. We zoom through town, go to stores, voom. We are driving in a video game. We get two points for every cow in the street, one point for a dog, minus one point for every guy urinating in public. Zoom. Vooom vooooooom. Honk. I wave at people in the street, at people in buses, at people in cars. In return, I get waves, giggles, smiles (in the States I would have been flipped the bird at least once). Voom. We’re having a blast.
Vooom. Voooooooom. Honk.
Voom. Voom. Putt. Voom. Putt Putt. Voom. Putt. Nothing.
Crap. He ran out of gas. And disappears. Great. We are on the side of the road, in a stranded tuk tuk, with no driver, in rush hour. And night is falling. Luckily we are stranded in front of a police station so we feel pretty safe. After a few minutes, the driver comes back with another tuk tuk driver and simply transfers us to his colleague.
Voom Voom Honk, tuk tuks are dhoom.
The feeling that you’re about to enter another world starts in Frankfurt. You’re waiting to get on a plane for India, and you know which gate your flight leaves from by looking at the people waiting in the area. You see passengers who are not NRI, or Non Resident Indians, the common name used to describe Indian emigrants, people who have left their country to live abroad. There are two categories of Indians at the airport: the ones returning home, who were just visiting, and the people who now live outside of India. There isn’t really a precise way to distinguish them, it’s in the details. And maybe I am completely wrong. You see older women draped in saris, well-worn saris, not the ones that they take out of the closet on special occasions. My guess is that they don’t own western wear. Their hair is long, very long, neatly tucked behind their ears, and gathered in a ponytail. At their feet, they have luggage that identifies them as non NRI: they have printed labels taped on them, with addresses in India. They don’t use, or maybe they don’t trust luggage tags. They use grocery bags as carry on luggage. You see bindis between eyebrows and the red mark at the hairline. Younger women’s make-up, if they wear any, is the heavy line of khol around the eyes. Often, younger women wear loose fitting shalwar kameez with dupattas that effortlessly stay in place on their shoulders (a long tunic over loose pants, with a shawl). Men wear sandals with socks. I don’t follow men’s fashion at all, but I can see that Indian businessmen wear suits with a different cut than what is seen in the US. Then, there is the walk, slow, more of a shuffle.
And they cut in line. No big deal, I can get used to that.
When you land in Bangalore, you don’t know you’re in a country that is struggling to get out of poverty. Everything is modern, up to date, clean, orderly. Maybe because we landed at 1am, there was basically no line at immigration.
Sathya was waiting for us with a big sign, among 40 other drivers. Sathya was E’s driver while he was on a business trip here for a couple of weeks in the fall. Sathya so impressed E with his competence and kindness that we hired him to chauffeur us around here. I had seen a picture of Sathya and imagined him tall but I was wrong. He recognized E right away and walked towards us with a smile so big it lit up the sky. He picked up all our luggage, pushed the cart, and went to get his car. We stood outside for maybe 5-10 minutes, just enough time for India to start stealing my heart. I can’t describe the feeling of humanity you get, or I get, here. Kids started staring at me and looked back towards me while holding their mother’s hand. For those of you who don’t know me, I am blonde with hair down to my waist.
And then, Sathya gave me a beautiful bouquet of roses to welcome me to India. That floored me, in the good way.
The hotel is about an hour from the airport. You don’t get to see much because of the dark, obviously, but I still saw a stray dog, and one tuk-tuk. There are no markings on the road. You assume it’s a two lane street, but there is no demarcation painted in the middle. You just honk. They have speed bumps, that they call speed humps, that are maybe a foot high.
They don’t speak hindi here. The couple of words that I had learned, such as yes and no, are not useful whatsoever. I will take a course in Kannada, the local language. And yes, it’s pronounced the same as Canada.
We are here during the celebrations for the local new year, called Ugadi. Sathya told us it’s a local holiday, celebrated in the 2 states of Andra Pradesh and Karnataka.
The hotel is a five star hotel. Glass windows that are probably 60 feet tall give you a glimpse of the outside world: other modern buildings, empty fields and lots of unfinished construction. This country loves concrete.
We got up this morning, rather early, thanks to being jet lagged. The hotel rates include breakfast. I didn’t want to go, thinking it would be hotel food. I was wrong. They serve yummy indian “stuff”. I say “stuff” because I have no idea what they fed me. I think it was a dosa since it’s what it said on the table, but don’t ask me what it was made of or with. But it was really good. The waiter smiled when I asked him if I should eat it with a fork or with my hands. Hands it is.
After slathering on mosquito repellent, we went for a walk around the hotel. And this is when India stole the rest of my heart.
It is dirty, it stinks of sewer, it’s dusty, it’s loud, they speak a language I don’t understand, people stare at me everywhere, but I feel like I am home. The heat embraces you but doesn’t suffocate you (if you think India is hot, you haven’t experienced a Houston summer).
We walked on the sidewalk, or what was probably designed to be a sidewalk, but often had to walk on the road. Pieces of broken concrete that weren’t stable looked dangerous. You can see the sewage flowing under the concrete. We saw a few dogs, that weren’t as skinny as I have seen in other countries. I bought a dupatta (shawl) and I know I was taken, in spite of my haggling, but I felt naked without one: women do not go out without one. E. got a haircut in a little “salon” where 5 guys were sitting, hanging out, reading the newspaper, watching a soap opera on tv. Crossing the street is a dangerous event. We walked, and people stared. We walked some more, and kids would turn around and look at us, smiling. I didn’t see another white person. We were only half a mile from the hotel, but we were in a different world. We passed a couple of temples, tucked between shops. I saw a guy sleeping on the ground, all facial orifices covered with flies. I am not sure he was alive. I bought 4 bananas for 16 rupees, or about 29 cents. We saw several men wearing western shirts with dhotis, the “pants” that we usually associate with Gandhi.
We took a tuk-tuk (auto-rickshaw) on the way back. Once at the hotel, we had to ask the security guard to translate the price for us. 50 roupees, a dollar. And we know we overpaid.
Tomorrow, instead of making a left when we leave the hotel, we will make a right. And we’ll bring the cameras.
Before going on a trip, excitement often gives way to stress. It starts like this:
“Honey, did you go to the bank to get cash?
– Yes, and on the way I picked up your prescriptions.
– Awww, thanks, you’re the best.”
Later:
“Do you know where my pants are?
– No.
– I left them on the dryer.
– I didn’t move them, sorry”.
She goes away, knowing very well that he moved them, because she knows she left them on the dryer. (They will later be found already packed in her suitcase).
“I went to the mailbox. There were a couple of bills in there. Did you pay them?
– How could I have paid them if you just got them?
– I don’t know, you’re in charge of that. When are they due?
– I don’t know, check the date on the statement.
– If we pay them late, when we get back, the power will be cut off.
– No it won’t. They will send a second, and a third notice, and then it will be cut off. In 12 years, have we ever had the power cut off? No. I said I will take care of that but you need to give me the bills. Where did you put them?
– In the bill bin.
– The what?
– The bill bin.
– We don’t have a “bill bin”.
– So where do you usually put the bills, don’t you have a system?
– Yes, I have a system but it has never involved a “bill bin”. Never mind, I will check online.”
A couple of hours later:
” Did you get aspirin?
– Yes.
– How many bottles?
– Two, like you told me.
– No, I said three.
– Looky here, you wrote two in the email. See, two. I bought two.
– I wanted three. I think we need to have three.
– Why do you even need 3 boxes of aspirin for a one week trip?
– Just in case.
– Just in case what?
– In case we need aspirin.”
You can’t beat that kind of logic. But when you join two people who are used to manage all aspects of their lives very independently, you’re bound to have a few clashes on deciding who will be the leader and who will be the follower. You can get organized in advance and have lists describing the equal distribution of tasks according to ability, preference or geography, it never turns out the way it was planned. The key to successfully getting in the plane without first becoming a suspect in an assault case, is first to shut up. Then, learn the art of rolling your eyes inside your mind. There is nothing ruder than rolling your eyes at someone, but it sure releases tension to do it! So learn to visualize yourself doing it, without really doing it. A third option is to practice saying “Om Mani Padme Um” while breathing slowly. And in the end, keep your eyes on the prize: you’re going on a trip around the world with the love of your life!!!
So when the bickering turns to:
“You’re doing your nails? Now?
– Yes.
– Really?
– Yep.
– Why?
– Just in case Hrithik Roshan is on the plane. I will woo him with my tootsies.”
The only appropriate answer is:
“Good thinking. Can I get mine painted too?”
The next day, on the way to the airport, after eating their last hamburger made of cow, you can hear:
“Oh $h!t, I forgot my passport.
– No honey, I have them both.
– Aww, you’re awesome. I love you.
– I love you too”.
I have my tourist visa in hand.
Let me tell you about the best government transaction in the world. The Indian government has outsourced its visa department. Ironic isn’t it! I do not know what prompted this decision, but it is the most efficient bureaucratic endeavor I have ever experienced. Here’s how it works.
You first fill out a visa application online on the Indian embassy’s website. It’s pretty standard: name, age, citizenship and Indian origins and purpose of your trip.
You are then assigned a confirmation number. This takes about 15 minutes.
The next step is another online application through a private company called Travisa. Starting with the confirmation number proving that you already informed the Indian government of your intention of visiting their country, you fill out once again a simple form, scan your picture, print the application and mail it, with your passport, real picture and a check. That’s it. All of this was done from the couch. No office to drive to, no wait line, no customer service rep in a bad mood. All I had to do was fill out forms and have a picture taken (which happens to be the most horrible picture of me ever. I went to get my hair done a few days later!)
I sent my application on a Monday at 4:45 pm, and my passport with the visa was delivered back to my door on the following Monday. 7 days, you can’t beat that type of efficiency. If you need your visa faster, you can go to their offices.
Outsourcing the government, who would have though!
I got 4 shots yesterday, the beginning of a long series of necessary immunizations. My arms hurt. Since this is a business trip, we went to the medical clinic at Qualcomm in San Diego (Qualcomm is E.’s employer). It is a great facility. We met with Laura, a nurse practitioner specialized in travel medicine, who was very thorough in explaining the risks and how to protect ourselves.
In case you’re interested, here is the complete schedule of vaccinations required for an extended stay in India.
Day one (that was Monday):
Day seven:
Day 28:
In a year:
Add to this 3 shots for rabies that we will get over the summer. This clinic doesn’t have it in stock, nor do they provide it at all so we’ll have to search for one. I believe SFO does it.
Then we should be covered for our entire stay in India. For the sake of accuracy, I should mention that yellow fever is not required for India, but since we plan on traveling to other places in Asia that may have the disease, we included it in the package.
This makes it a total of 14 shots, over 7 visits. I feel like a pincushion. Since E. already went to Asia in the fall, he had already had a few and only needed 3 yesterday.
“How about the cream?” you may ask. It works rather well. But you have to slather on more than I had, and especially in the right place. I had put it on both my arms but not the back of my arms. So it hurt. I said a really bad word to the nurse 😦
For our short trip in a few weeks, we will take daily anti-malaria pills. Then for the 2 years we’ll be living there, it seems that we just have to be wary of mosquitoes and hope for the best. I hear malaria is treatable.
Laura also gave us each a cute little “International Traveler’s Kit”. It’s a combination of First Aid and Comfort kit.
Here is the inventory, and a picture of everything I found in it:
Strangely, it doesn’t have Naproxen.
We also each got a Zpac and a prescription for anti-malaria pills that should be waiting for us at the pharmacy. And a thermometer since fevers determine which type of disease you may be suffering from.
That’s an awful lot of medicine!
In the summer of 1976, France experienced a severe heat wave. I was spending my vacation at my uncle’s house, with his wife, my three younger cousins, and a goofy dog. They lived in a remote village in the countryside, where he was the only doctor. We spent a great amount of time at the local pool, about 500 yards from the house. It was so dangerously hot that the community had waived the entrance fee so all kids could enjoy the break from the heat. It was a great summer.
My mother had warned me that it was the year my booster shots were due. It was understood that my uncle would be would in charge of that torture. He had to be my beloved uncle and my executioner. For most of the summer, I hoped the grown ups would simply forget about it and leave me alone. Not so.
One morning, my cousin and I were told this would be the day of our shots. One shot: Diphtheria Tetanus and Polio, aka DTPolio. We kids went to the pool, walked back home, dried off and there came my aunt telling us to get ready and go to the office. Hell broke loose. I snapped. I started screaming, running, kicking and hiding everywhere I could. My younger cousin, now scared of me, of the pain about to be endured, and of the look on her parents’ face, ran with me.
I lost that battle. My uncle caught me, sat me on the exam table, my aunt smacked my arm rather hard (“so you won’t feel anything” she claimed), rubbed a spot with alcohol, and he stabbed me with a syringe. I survived.
In case you’re thinking that I was just a brat, you should know that I wasn’t raised to turn into a screaming banshee when I didn’t get my way. Obedience is a virtue in my family. Kids obey parents, period.
You see, it’s catholic nuns who did that to me. A few years prior to that summer of 76, I was a young schoolgirl, in first grade I think. Schools were mandated to do TB tests on each kid every few years. A nun-nurse stuck a little piece of fabric on our chest and we had to keep it on for a few days, being careful not to get it wet. It was like a lottery ticket glued on you: if you win, you don’t get the vaccine, if you loose, you get scratched. I lost.
We were standing in a single line in front of two nurses and our teacher. One nurse would pull the piece of fabric off, and announce the verdict: positive or negative. All my schoolmates were “positive”. I was not. Then, in front of the entire class who was now seated at their desks, one nurse grabbed me, pushed me face to the blackboard, pulled my left sleeve up, twisted my arm behind me, while the other nurse cut three short lines about 1/8th inch deep on the inside of my upper arm with a little bitty tool that looks like a fountain pen quill. Obviously I screamed out of fear, and pain. And to make matters worse, I heard my classmates gasp, and a few girls cry. They later told me that blood was dripping from my arm. And when I turned around, I saw the shock on my teacher’s face. I think she was horrified by the whole event.
Since then, I don’t like shots. Not one bit.
I have had a few more run-ins with medical professionals about immunizations in the last few decades and I have come to understand one thing: it’s a power struggle. I truly believe that some nurses enjoy causing pain.
So when I realized that moving to India, or even going to India as a tourist involves a series of inoculations, I was none too pleased. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the need for vaccinations that I have a problem with (see previous post about the plague!), it’s the physical pain associated with a needle piercing my skin, muscle and thick layer of fat, followed by the injecting of a foreign substance that I loathe.
The CDC provides the list of currently recommended immunizations: Hepatitis A and B, typhoid, polio, Japanese encephalitis, rabies, as well as your routine immunizations, which of course I will need. So how many times do I need to have my skin pierced with a sharp object? I don’t know. After a quick internet search, I found that some can be given orally, but I am preparing for a nurse telling me that’s not their procedure. And others require more than one trip to the butcher. After calling the specialized clinic in the area, I still don’t have a straight answer.
My dear cousin is now a nurse. A few days ago, when I casually mentioned my fear of shots and the need to get many of them before our trip, she burst out laughing, vividly remembering us running around the tables! And because she is probably the only person in the world who understands the extent of my trauma, she gave me a tip. She is a psychiatric nurse, a caring nurse, who sometimes has to inject patients with neuroleptics. The way she describes it, the substance is similar to oil, and the injections are rather painful. But they prepare the patient by applying a lidocaine cream, which numbs the area. Pure genius.
So I went on a quest for that cream. As expected, it is not sold over the counter. When I called the travel medicine clinic, they had no knowledge whatsoever that such a product even existed. The nurse was nice and told me they were “very good at what they do” (ok, but, well, you know, I don’t believe that it won’t hurt!). It took me a while, but I found a doctor who didn’t belittle me, didn’t lecture me, and gave me a prescription. Hooray for cool doctors! And he is Indian!
So on Monday, after slathering myself in ointment, I am going for round one…
Ladies and Gentlemen (especially ladies):
Let me introduce you to an Indian god. His name is Hrithik Roshan.
Move over Timberlake, Usher and Bieber (yuck…). Hrithik Roshan is a real dancer. But he could dance like Kermit the Frog, or Elaine on Seinfeld, and I would still watch him. I don’t even know how to pronounce his name, but you’ll understand that’s not important. Because he’s Asia’s sexiest man.
Ok, he may not be a god in the traditional sense but I am sure a lot of women will agree with me that he deserves the title. And since India already has a few hundred gods, why not sneak another one in there?
Ready to drool? Check this out:
His dance style is more street dance, though he does the head shaking and the fast feet, he doesn’t have the expected old style Bollywood moves such as “Shiva wrists”, “windmill arm swinging”. If you like that, take a look at Shahid Kapoor (see, I am becoming an expert! And I also know he’s Asia’s second sexiest man…). You’ll notice the women are showing more skin than what we see in Indian movies, but yet, there is no risk of wardrobe malfunction. Good! And he’s also an actor.
And now I am going to order a subscription to Start TV India! Tonight we are watching Dhoom 2.
I think I am going to like India 😉
Several bombs exploded this evening in Hyderabad, killing at least 18 people. Dozens are injured.
I started my day as usual, by reading my mail, then looking at Facebook. That’s where I learned about the bombings.
I checked on the only person I know in Hyderabad, and she’s ok. Then the feelings started to sink in. I am sad beyond belief. My future home was bombed. I feel powerless to understand the situation. And I am amazed that just on Tuesday, a very nice man from Chennai whom I spoke with at the airport had warned me about the sometimes volatile situation in certain neighborhoods of Hyderabad. He talked about riots, not bombs. But we all remember the attacks on Mumbai.
I have spent the last few hours reading the news from Hyderabad and from India, and I don’t understand a thing. They write about “Group This” and “Group That”, and that the “Team of Something or Other” will be dispatched there. The VP of the “Minister of I Don’t Know What” made a statement. The Mayor of Hyderabad (heh, this one I recognize) also made a statement. But I am at loss. I am an outsider. I can’t decipher the subtext.
I decided to read the comments. I had stopped doing this for American and local papers, because they are just plain stupid, but I think you get a taste of reality when looking at these opinions. And indeed I learned a few things. I learned some words used as insults by Indians (good to know I guess), that Indians trust their government even less than we do. It is clear from the comments that the readers are already blaming the attacks on a particular group. Experience I guess, or pure racism, I don’t know. And I learned that Indian newspapers also have trolls!
Then I looked at CNN and USA Today for their coverage of the bombings. Nothing. I am not surprised, because there is no doubt that the death of Reeva Steenkamp in South Africa is of utmost importance to all of us and deserves one third of the front page. And since no Americans were killed or injured in Hyderabad, it will not be mentioned. I checked the International section of CNN and still didn’t see anything. I understand that our media needs to sort out what is important and a couple of little bombs in India are probably not going to shatter our national conscience.
But I am French. In the 1980’s, France suffered dozens of deadly terrorist attacks. The French will recognize, among others, the bombing of the Paris Synagogue at the Rue des Rosiers, the bombing of the Marseilles train station on December 31st, the bombing in the store Tati. Americans didn’t care.
And in case you’re wondering, yes, we are still going to India.
Do you know they still have THE PLAGUE in India? Yes, the plague. And not just any plague, the BUBONIC plague. You know, the one that wiped out HALF OF EUROPE, the one in Monty Python (“I am not dead yet”, go watch the movie).
“La peste”, Albert Camus wrote a book about it.
The black plague. Google it, it’s not pretty.
And they have leprosy. Le-pro-sy. They have over 1000 leper colonies.
And they still have polio. And cholera. And dengue fever. And malaria, yellow fever, bird flu, and rabies.
So I wrote a song. Please sing with me, to the tune of Yankee Doodle.
Erick moved to India Brought his little sweetie They settled in Hyderabad With their little kitties Stayed away from the water Brushed their teeth with whisky Did not want yellow fever And not even leprosy CHORUS Virus, polio, bacteria Dengue fever, rabies Get your shots for cholera And may the plague be hist’ry Dengue fever will kill you When skeeters find you tasty And if the dogs do chomp on you They give you nasty rabiesI am not worried one bit. These are rare diseases, and all of them are treatable today. And to be fair, many of them are also found close to home. There was a case of non-imported plague in the US a few years back (traced to prairie dogs I believe), a teenage boy died of rabies in our hometown, and we have West Nile virus in our state.
Disclaimer: this is all from my readings, I do not guarantee, nor do I care about, the accuracy of any of the above!
KittiesVindaloo 