Notes on Bangalore

Until one month ago, Id never visited Bangalore. Having been away from India for a year, I wondered how shes looking these days. I took a taxi from the airport and the city seemed peaceful, even serene. The airport itself was stunningly modern and would not be out of place in Western Europe. In contrast, the Bombay and Delhi airports can only be described as Indian circles of hell, as gruesome as the cities themselves. (I once stepped in cowshit at the Departures gate of the Delhi airport. Why are there cows at the airport?) So far, things didnt seem very Indian, in the way I remembered it. Could things be different here? I thought. Certainly this was different from Delhi. Signs were in a language Id never seen called Kannada. The roads were clean and orderly. The weather could not be better. Palm trees swayed as only palm trees can. The city seemed to have its act together. Bangalore was becoming a major centre of IT wealth. Maybe some of that bounty trickled into public works projects? Then our taxi went under a highway and back up, and we passed a slum. Then another slum. Tarpaulin roofs and mud roads, and skinny faces watching the traffic go by. Nope, still India. Bangalore does, in the developed areas, bear some passing resemblance to civilization, and in remarkable ways even surpasses the civility of our own. I am always remarking to my friends that the upper castes of India are more colonial than colonial England ever was. The Raj-era retreats and country clubs are still used for their original purpose, only now by wealthy Indians. Polo is played, and the sport of cricket, the gentlemans game, is revered nation-wide. Club waitstaff are roundly and ritualistically abused, and seem to enjoy the pleasure. Our society has come to see such things as staid, aristocratic frivolities only to be enjoyed ironically, but India doesnt. She appreciates the finer things, and I love her for it. The financial area of Bangalore, the famous MG Road (MG = Mahatma Ghandi) area where I work and live, is a messy, incoherent, beauty-free urban patchwork, marred by incredibly poor upkeep. Walking on MG Road is a chore. The crumbling sidewalk disappears into a muddy puddle, or worse, a gaping hole you could lose an ankle to. Not to mention the myriad squishy things your foot could land on. In India you quickly learn to watch your step at all times. That said, Bangalores residents are a happy bunch, and the city swarms with life. Much of that life is in the form of suffocating traffic, but nonetheless. While the city lacks any trace of man-made beauty, there are bushy trees and reasonably well-kept green areas everywhere. The best I can say is that Bangalore is unpleasant much of the time, but not most of the time. The bar scene in Bangalore operates under a principle of compact and efficient party maximization. This is because all bars in Bangalore close at 11:30 PM, leaving little time for languid, prolonged tippling. In the English fashion, the Bangaloreans indulge ferociously over very limited time periods before the last-call bell rings (or all the lights are shut offbar managers are equally fastidious). Service is instant, and in some places, prices rival New York. Pub music tends to the retro, mostly in the form of soft 80s pop: Stevie Wonder, Dire Straits, Madonna, a trend I quite like (the ability to talk to one another over bar music is a dying luxury). Indias relationship with Western pop culture is charmingly dated in places; mostly they are au courant, but every so often you hear a Hey, you should check out this great movie called The Usual Suspects& comment. Indian booze, sadly, remains terrible. The food is excellent. A love for fiery curry helps; Id hate to be one of those its too spicy people here. A curious phenomenon of Bangalore restaurants is that after the meal the waiter gives you an elaborate feedback card to fill out before they give you the bill, with an astounding panoply of irrelevant questions such as Anniversary, Occupation, Spouse Name, Childrens Names, Mobile #, Address, Email, etc. Nobody flinches at filling in every box. Bangalore has yet to absorb its rapid gains of wealth. Certain streets are well-kept, busy, and filled with slick, modern shops and restaurants. Duck down a side street and youre in that other India of crowded roadside dhabas, sickly fruit vendors, oxen, and temples. It is a confusing sight, stemming from the insatiable Desi taste for poor public cleanliness. The rickshaw men are the biggest cheats I have seen in India. While getting the white guy price is normal across the country, the going rate appears to be triple that of other places. Most rickshaws are adorned with Karnataka flags and few drivers speak any language but Kannada; the nationalistic fervour of Bangalore seems to emanate chiefly from its transport industry. There are daily political rallies (one last week shut down the entire north end of the city for seven hours) and it is not uncommon to see a convoy of painted cargo trucks filled with flag-waving patriots, their tinny speakers blasting unbearable Kannada music, shouting slogans through megaphones seemingly with the goal of maximizing noise. Finally, Bangalore is an IT city. Therefore, I lack the source material to give comment on the attractiveness of its women. Any evaluation would be disqualified for insufficient sample size. Suffice it to say that, not unlike Man Francisco, Bangalore is a place for a man to write code and win wealth, not find love*. * (Id make a joke and call it Mangalore but theres already a place called Mangalore. Id hate to see their women.)