She's Your Shatabdi

Here's the deal. I was going to take an overnight train from Bangalore to Mysore. Never mind that it shouldn't take the entire night to get from B'lore to Mysore; the price was right and I thought I could endure the seventeen-plus stops along the way.

Then my hosts suggested I take the Shatabdi instead. An air-conditioned chair car that left Bangalore at 11:00 and hit Mysore by 12:30.

Oh, and there's a free lunch.

So I bagged the sleeper car and the all-night trip and took the Shatabdi. It was everything an air-conditioned chair car could be. It was traveling first-class, and being waited on, and not having to hear the endless parade of chai-wallahs screaming, and not having to deal with glinty-eyed young men asking obnoxious questions.

It was the perfect way to get to Mysore.

The problem is that now I want to upgrade all of my train tickets. Now that I know... um... what I'm missing.

Things I Wish The U.S. Would Steal From India

-- Controlled flush systems. That is, with Indian toilets (and with Indian "western" toilets) you get to choose how long the toilet flush takes. Push the handle down to start the flush, lift the handle to stop the flush. Not only do you get to ensure that everything that needs to disappear disappears, I would assume that (when one considers all of the smaller flushes) this system also saves water. At least, it seems as if it ought to.

-- Electrical outlets that can be turned on and off. In India, each outlet has a corresponding switch. When there's no cord plugged into an outlet, the switch is turned off and the outlet is completely disabled. Again, this seems environmentally sound, although I really have no idea how much electricity is saved.

And one thing I wish India would steal from the U.S.????

Doors that can be locked from both sides. With the bolt-and-padlock system, locking the door means either the people on the inside are locked out or the people on the outside are locked in.

It also means that if there's no padlock on the door, it's obvious to everyone that you're home. (This was rather disadvantageous when I was staying in the university guest house.)

Kiss Kiss Beat-Me-To-It!

I promised a post comparing the "real" Bangalore to the one depicted on The Simpsons episode "Kiss Kiss Bang Bangalore."

However, Bangalore Monkey (whom, I hope, is wearing clothing) has already beaten me to it.

Click here for B-Monkey's pics and analysis. ^__^

(My analysis? Groening and his staff didn't draw half enough trees. The dominant color in Bangalore is green, as opposed to Hyderabad, which is... dust color.)

Fun With Auto Drivers!

In Bangalore I have finally met the "please let me take you to this emporium" auto drivers.

They tell me that they will get books for their children, shirts for their backs, cans of petrol for their autos, if I will only take the time to stop into one or two stores.

They're quite persuasive. But it's like being asked to give up a seat on an airplane... that is, if you wait long enough, they start offering stuff.

Like free rides.

So I, ever the rupee-counter, have been having some fun with these auto drivers. Once we get the money thing settled up, I'll happily go into whatever emporium they suggest. They even tell me what to say at the counter ("just got off the airplane, isn't India wonderful?" etc.), and I dutifully agree.

And then I traipse into these posh little stores and get waited on hand-and-foot. Oh, yes, I've just arrived in India. Yes, from the U.S. Texas, in fact. Or Kansas. Oh, these silk scarves are beautiful! Yes, I'd love to try that on! Of course, chai would be lovely.

And then, after the necessary five minutes, I turn around and hurry out. Urgent phone call. Or maybe I forgot I had a cinema to get to. At one, I just tossed my hair and said "bye, boys!"

The only catch is that the things in these shops are really nice. Much nicer than the stuff they sell on the street. I saw a set of ivory elephants that practically made me drool, and I had to remind myself that ivory is un-environmental and cruel to animals.

And those boys do know how to pick a scarf to match my eyes.

Hmmm. I wonder how many cans of petrol the driver would get if I actually bought something?

Images from Lal Bagh

Nothing's cuter than a monkey wearing clothing. Especially one who tells me where to put my trash and helps me find drinking water. There were also "trash-can statues" of rabbits and frogs and rams throughout the park, but only the monkey statue got to wear clothing. Why?

Corporate sponsorship is never far away. Also -- is that dwarf in the back picking his nose?

I just liked the combination of colors on this one. Plus the horizontal line of the walkway cutting through the verticals of the trees.

This is the "money shot;" the picture of the Glass House. When I got up close, I found it was the extremely dirty Glass House. A bit of water and some Windex would have made it much more impressive.

More fun with angles and lines. I liked the curvy branches of the... um... "curvy branch tree."

This is for the people who laugh when I tell them India reminds me of California. ^__^

ISKCON: Welcome to Krishnaland!

So. ISKCON. I'm going to stay out of the politics and describe only the temple itself.

What struck me about the ISKCON structure, in both its appearance and its operation, was how much it resembled a theme-park ride. It wasn't the kind of place one went to for a quiet devotion or puja. It was, in every aspect, intended to be an experience.

After all, where else would one find a sign proclaiming that ISKCON followers were "saintly people" next to a sign warning "beware of pickpocketers?"

As I progressed through the experience, I noticed that it felt vaguely familiar. All too soon, I placed it. Disneyland.

Here's why:

1. The accordion queue. I know there's a real name for this, but someone nerdier than I will have to provide it. But you know what I'm talking about -- the deal where you walk through the front gate and into the hutch and then you see that the line is about ten times longer than you thought it would be because the queue is folded back and forth.

Luckily, when we went, there were very few people there. Unluckily, it meant we still had to walk through all of the queue turns.

2. The first pre-show, and then the second pre-show. Like Disney, ISKCON has plenty of entertainment to keep you occupied while you're queuing. First, you get Krishna's life story, on placards, spread over the twists and turns "Burma Shave"-style. As the queue gets closer to the main temple, it passes by three mini-temples (all with their own donation boxes, of course). All, of course, intended to keep you entertained and psych you up for the Main Event.

3. The ever-repeating soundtrack. Loudspeakers along the route piped us full of "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare," etc. It's a small world after all. Remember, we're not even inside the temple yet.

4. Gilt-edged murals in every corner. Okay, now we're inside the temple. And like, say, the Haunted Mansion (yes, I know, I just compared a temple to Disney's Haunted Mansion -- to be fair, Disney also uses this portrait scheme on its carousel and in Cinderella's Palace), there are gilt-edged paintings shoved into every available wall space. The portraits are even in the same style; contemporary romantic/pastoral arrangements of iconic scenes and characters.

5. An immediate exit into a shopping arena. Like Disney, you exit the event and find yourself immediately in a store which sells smaller versions of the event. In ISKCON's case, there were several floors of shopping available, all which we had to pass through before we got back to the parking lot. As well as an "all-prasadam" food court.

Did I enjoy the ISKCON experience? Absolutely. But the sense of building anticipation + brief, exciting encounter + instant urge to memorialize the experience felt a little too... manipulative (not to mention canned, or -- as one of my friends described an earlier temple -- "synthetic"). Krishna, after all, is not Mickey Mouse; and visiting a temple should not be like riding on Splash Mountain.

But, then again, I am the outsider, putting my own value judgments on things I know I don't really understand. So... well, these are my thoughts only.

What are yours?

Visiting Kolu

When I was young, I always wanted to celebrate the holidays I read about in books. (Okay, I always wanted to do anything I read about in a book -- and still do.)

After I read All-Of-A-Kind Family, for example, I told my mother that we were going to celebrate Purim, and -- with all the costume and ceremony I could derive from the book's chapter on the subject -- we did.

There weren't many books about South Asian children in our local library, unfortunately; the closest I got to India was through Burnett and Kipling. So I had no chance to read about Navarati or the Kolu celebration.

Which is too bad, because if I had, I most assuredly would have spent one afternoon building nine steps out of cardboard and chairs and arranging my stuffed animals and Barbie dolls into my own interpretation of a Kolu display.

I probably would not have been able to keep them there for nine days, however; wouldn't have been able to handle the delayed gratification. But arranging them, and then standing in front of them and singing.... oh, I would have been all over that.

I've been taken to see several Kolu displays in neighboring flats, and all of them have been very charming and thoroughly impressive. After I admired the sand painting of Saraswati that I saw in one home, I was given a small pot of sand and invited to try and make my own design in front of the kolu. Suffice to say I failed disastrously. I managed to make a pile of sand, and then when I tried to spread it around with my finger into a kind of arrangement, I ended up with a messy pile of sand. ^__^

They did, however, also invite me to stand in front of the kolu display and sing; and at that I was much more successful. It was probably the only time, ever, in history, in which Charles Kingsford has been performed in front of a Kolu; I can only hope that Saraswati approved.

Medical Tourism!

The last time I had an eye exam was summer 2001, right before my sophomore year in undergrad. That'd be six years ago, for those of you keeping track.

I exchanged the nerdy glasses I wore throughout high school (think very large and very pink) for the chic, stylish pair you see in all of the photos, and when I arrived back on campus, the change was duly noted.

As one young man told me: "You look like a librarian I'd like to f*ck!"

(If I had a nickel for every time someone told me that...)

I scratched the right lens badly about a year ago. Maybe a year-and-a-half, by now. It was also about that time when I noticed things were starting to get a little blurry at distances.

But in the good ol' US of A, those without vision insurance (that'd be a little more than the half of all working Americans who don't have health insurance) have to pony up about $500 for the examination and lenses. And -- though I thought about it, and tried, off and on, to save -- I could never get $500 in the same place at once.

Instead, I started favoring my left eye, and squinting at road signs.

I had planned to ask my parents for new glasses for Christmas; but first I thought I would ask my friends in Bangalore how much it would cost to get my eyes examined in India.

"Two hundred rupees," was the answer.

Two hundred divided by forty-two is... holy crap.

And so I became a medical tourist.

The examination was extremely thorough, almost more so than in the U.S. I got a very careful going-over, and will be returning tomorrow for a follow-up to ensure that my eyes are behaving the same way. In other words, they double-check before writing the prescription. Which is awesome.

Soon to come, then, will be a picture in shiny new glasses!

Never Wear A Chiffon Sari Garba-Dancing. Seriously.

Now that we're into Navarati/Dussera, people are starting to organize garba and dandiya parties. I had been hoping to attend one, and had carefully packed the dandiya sticks I bought at last year's Navarati (hosted by my university's Indian Students' Association) and carried them to India with me in my suitcase.

So I was very excited to be invited to a garba/dandiya party in Bangalore.

Being the prepared type that I am, I had also packed a delicate jute silk salwar (ten points if you can guess the color) which I had planned to wear while dancing. However, on the morning of the party we learned that women who wore saris (Gujarati-style, of course) would get into the event for free.

And so I wore my pink synthetic-chiffon sari (with its horribly "frumpy" blouse, as some of you have noted) to the dancing arena.

When I wore the sari to the opening night of Tempest, I had such a good time and wore it so easily that I thought I might begin to invest in a small collection.

After last night, I am thinking that one pink sari is probably one sari enough.

When we arrived at the arena, we were told that no footwear could be worn inside the dancing tent. Off came my strappy heeled sandals, and I was left kicking at the pleats of a sari that was now about two inches too long.

As we began the dancing, I found myself struggling to keep both my sari and my hair from falling down. (Since I stopped using hairspray, my hair has become much happier but has also taken on a life of its own. It cannot be contained, and comes loose from every braid or bun into which it is tied. And how a twenty-inch strand of hair can work its way out of a French braid is beyond me.)

Undoing my hair was easy (and Rohit likes it better that way anyway), but I couldn't very well undo my sari. My host, realizing the problem, pinned the front pallu to my blouse in a few strategic locations, but I still had to be very careful where I stepped (particularly when dancing backwards) and occasionally resorted to hiking the thing up in one hand.

The arena itself was crowded. It was like dancing on a bus. When we formed the circles for dandiya, we were pressed so tightly together that most of us were dandiya-ing with only one stick, since there was only room to extend one arm. ^__^ Also, no one seemed to agree on the pattern of tapping and turning, so (although the music was clearly in five) I would turn to meet partners who would be working in patterns of six or eight. So it was not a very synchronized dandiya, but it was great fun.

Next year, though -- salwar all the way. ^__^

A Year-Late Book Review

Yeah, I know. I promised that my next post would be on ISKCON. Call it Murphy's Law of Blogging: whatever post one promises to write will be the one that takes the longest to actually appear. ^__^

You see, I was walking yesterday down M. G. Road in Bangalore. I wasn't looking for anything in particular, just exploring. I started at one end, and five sari emporiums and a hundred and seventy specialty shops later, I was sick of hearing young men call out "Madam, what you want?" and worn out from resisting the people shoving chess sets, trick snakes, and junk jewelry into my face. I am still, mercifully, junk-jewelry-free.

Then I saw the man with the books. His stand smelled sweet and woodsy and spicy, and I was afraid he was going to try to sell me on one of those sandalwood keychains they foist on tourists in India. But instead he tossed his too-long, shaggy brown hair out of his eyes, and smiled a half-smile, like he knew some big joke that was about to be played on me.

If you haven't yet figured out what book I found at the book stand, well...

The joke, of course, is that it's terrible. Leaving the plagiarism issue aside, it's still an awful book. (Sorry, Niranjana. I know you liked it.) And before one accuses me of not caring for or "understanding" teen chick-lit, I should warn you that I own all four copies of the Traveling Pants books. In hardcover. Purchased on the day of release.

What bothered me about this book was its absolute predictability. (Spoilers may follow, but since there's nothing to spoil about this book -- its plot is pretty much obvious after the first chapter -- I'm sure no one will mind.) Opal will lose interest in the hot alpha male in favor of the "differently cute" nice guy? Who just happens to be a closet genius? She'll quickly rise to popularity and then become publicly humiliated by her new friends -- and then learn who her "true friends" are? Due to her new attempts at popularity, she'll come dangerously close to losing her long-achieved academic standing... and then redeem herself at the last possible moment?

Forget Sloppy Firsts. I've just described the plot of Mean Girls. As well as half-a-dozen adventures of the Babysitters' Club. Viswanathan's novel reads exactly like Opal's attempt at popularity: the frantic watching of every teen movie "from back when Molly Ringwald was cute," and then the attempt to mush everything together, spitting out band and designer references and hitting every trope in the genre. Imagine Alloy Entertainment as the Mehta parents, micromanaging Viswanathan's every move to make sure it adheres to their well-constructed research on what would make a book popular. ^__^

Ironic that the internet is the tool used to bring both Opal and Kaavya down.

The most irritating part of the book, for me, was its ending. The ending was the one place where Viswanathan strayed from her tropes. Opal, when she gets her Harvard letter (and btw don't tell me she "doesn't know" what's inside; any high school student knows the difference between a thick and a thin admissions letter) is supposed to do one of two things. She should either:

A. Choose not to open it, deciding instead to embark upon a wonderful new life that she has discovered for herself.

or

B. Open it, realize she has been admitted, and then personally visit Dean Anderson to tell him that she is refusing admission so that she may embark upon this wonderful new life that she has discovered for herself.

She's not supposed to go. That's the way these stories end. That's supposed to be the lesson; that when you become your own person (after trying to be someone else) you learn what is truly important to you and you forge your own path.

But she went. Oh, and she also solved this scientific theorem that no one's been able to solve for 150 years because no one ever thought that it could be a single integral. BARF.

ISKCON post coming soon!

Home-Cooked Food Makes Me Smile

For those following my travelogue, I'm now in Bangalore visiting friends. And staying in their lovely flat. Which means... home-cooked food.

To understand the immensity of such a jump (that is, from university mess food to... um... real food), I will remind you of what I've been eating for the past two months.

Mmmm.... brinjal goo....

Anyway. And in addition to all of this home-cookery goodness, I had my first taste of masala puri (and sev puri!) last night. With fresh coriander and fresh tomatoes. (Like Ashima, you'll see me in a few months trying to replicate this taste with Rice Krispies and barbeque sauce.)

The food -- all of it -- makes me smile. Am terribly happy.

Next on the docket: the post on ISKCON.

Sleeper II

I love trains. Don't know why. They make sense to me in a way that airplanes don't. (Please don't come back to me with sixteen comments about lift and about how the plane isn't likely to drop out of the sky like a stone -- I know the mechanics of how a plane works. I've just never liked them very much.)

Maybe I like trains because I can hang my head out of the window and watch the country go by. Or maybe because, at heart, I am a bit of a romantic and trains (even still!) have that bit of romance to them.

At any rate, when I was buying a packet of idlis to take with me, the man in the queue next to me turned and asked "Why do you look so happy today?"

"I'm going on a trip!" I told him.

My compartment was ladies' only, plus two children, who spent the first hour of the trip playing a game they made up titled "what's in your tiffin-carrier?"

"Is it chocolates?"

"No."

"Is it ice cream?"

"No, sillies, it would melt!"

Etc. It's a good thing I like talking to children almost as much as I like trains. ^__^

Considering I am, in general, a poor sleeper (particularly in new environs), I managed to get much more sleep than I thought I would. The lulling movement was very soporific, and the entire train had its lights off by about 9:30 p.m.

Probably because they knew the lights would come on again at about 5:30 a.m.

From my upper berth (and my compartment's direct connection to the lavatories) I had the privilege of watching nearly our entire car wake up and complete their morning ablutions. Smelling this, of course, was much less of a privilege. Interestingly, most of the male passengers took turns queuing up to brush their teeth... and only one of the women. Is toothbrushing something women are "not supposed" to do in public? Or is it that our breath just always smells like flowers? ^__^

Will write more about Bangalore soon; now, it's naptime.