a few thoughts

India always does this to me. Turns everything upside-down and makes me wonder if my world is really the real world or if there even is a “real world.” But it also reassures me that there is a reality here that I don’t see when I’m at home, surrounded by comforting things and a bubble of privilege and capabilities. It makes me more aware; more aware that I am a part of this place just as much as I am apart from it. That people do not live the way that I have lived in a lot of ways, but that in a lot of other ways, we’re all just the same. It makes me furious that there is so much hatred and loss and inequality and injustice. And my inability to do anything about it makes me so frustrated and sad that I could scream. It makes me love even stronger, and appreciate every amazing and not-so-amazing part of my life, because I am so fucking lucky it’s ridiculous. It makes me stand in awe. Because for just as much hatred there is in the world there is infinitely more love. There is acceptance and generosity and laughter and people being kind without even a second thought.

There are beautiful people in not-so-beautiful places and there are moments in the middle of all the chaos that make me stand still. I can feel this place in my skin, in my blood, in the very pit of my stomach and I know that I belong here in some small way, even though the balance tips to tell me otherwise. It makes me think so hard I’m surprised my brain can manage so many thoughts coming at once. Then, in the exact same moment, everything fades away because it’s shocking me once again. It’s dirty and smelly and people pee on the streets and men give you very inappropriate looks and cows try to eat your hair and you feel so uncomfortable all you want to do is run away and find a Starbucks but then, right away you catch the scent of jasmine in the air and you pass an old chai-walla with a sweet smile and there are endless colors and sights and so much craziness happening all around you and you can’t move because its all so beautiful and confusing and terrifying all at the same time. It’s contradiction incarnate, right in front of you; not hidden, not hiding, but put on display, tugging on your sleeve, smacking you in the face and making you look and making sure you can’t look away. There’s an honesty here that I can’t run away from or wave away or ignore. There’s a discomfort that makes me remember exactly who I am and what I have and makes me feel like more of an outsider than the Swedish lady trying to pull off a kurti and men’s pajamas. Because I realize that as much as this place is a part of me, I am only one very very very small part of it, and that puts everything into perspective.

And on another level, or really the same one but in a different and not-so-different way, India is about understanding myself. Challenging myself, pushing myself to see how far I can go and settling into another side of myself that maybe, also, is not-so-different after all. The side that isn’t so scared all the time, or that is but I make myself do the things I'm scared of anyways. The side that just pins it as inevitable that I will get lost, I will have to ask for help and I will (probably) look pretty dumb while I wander back and forth down the same street talking to myself while I try to figure out which tree looks most like the one I walked by an hour ago. The side that takes the fear and the nervousness and the frustration and swallows it and I just take it right along with me rather than letting it hold me down. Well, at least most of the time. India is all of the things I’m afraid of and all of the things I want to be, wrapped up into the crazy, chaotic, amazing mess that is me and is this place. It’s a training ground for the rest of the world and my gradual attempts to grasp some sort of understanding of it and maybe, one day, a place in it.

Whirlwind

This past week has been crazy and fast and very confusing. It started out typically enough, with a fairly low key weekend, a couple of interviews and site visits and then on Tuesday, after coming into the ESG office late, I found out that the conference on the Metro that Bhargavi had mentioned to me was not at the end of July like she'd thought, but the next day...in Pune. Leo was leaving by plane that night to be there Wednesday morning when the conference started and I really reaaally wanted to go (being the academic transit nerd I am) but I was like, 'how the hell am I going to swing this?!' And then Mallesh mentioned taking a bus and it all just sort of spiralled from there.

I have never planned a trip so quickly in my whole life - all of a sudden I was leaving in 4 hours to go to Pune and I had to rush to a travel agent to book a 15 hour, overnight bus ride to Pune. I was already getting nervous about how fast everything was happening, and about traveling along Indian highways, alone, at night, in a bus, to go to a city I'd never been to before, then Leo cheerfully informed me that all the government buses that people usually took for these kinds of long journies were not running right now because apparently a bunch of them had been attacked last week while passing through Belgaum, a territory straddling the border between Karnataka and Maharashtra that both states were fighting over. He said that private buses should be fine, but since we were going close to Belgaum he couldn't be sure, but that most likely I'd be fine...and that even if we were stopped, life was about adventures and these sorts of exciting situations. Um, sure Leo. Easy for you to say when you get to take a plane...

Anyways, tickets were booked, now I just had to try to find a place to stay in Pune for a night that didn't cost 3000Rs. So I scrambled around for a while trying to find a cheap hostel that might or might not be close to Pune University (where the conference was being held), opting for the ones that looked least sketchy. Then I got super lucky; Leo had called ahead to the group who was organizing the conference, Parisar (an activist group kind of like ESG, based in Pune), to let them know I was coming and one of the interns who worked with them said I could stay with her! I am constantly amazed at the willingness of people to open their homes to perfect strangers.

So bus ticket, check. Place to stay, check. Now just 3 hours before I left. Ummmm...

I scrambled home to shower, change and pack before my impromptu journey and took off promptly at 7PM to catch my 8 o'clock bus to Pune. I got to the bus stand with (relatively) little complication, though I did land a rickshaw bill that was at least twice what I should have paid. But at that point I was too anxious and too relieved at actually winding up in the right place to care too much anyways. Plus, I don't mind supporting the local rickshaw walla community all that much, especially since they do get kind of a bum rap (poor guys sit in traffic inhaling fumes all day for a living). Anyways, on the bus and surveying the general surroundings. Not too bad, kind of squished and uncomfortable, and the bus was full of men (who are kind of smelly, but generally not that bad. 8:23 and the bus expedition begins!

The trip was very bumpy, and only slightly terrifying (mostly this aspect only came up when I spent too much time looking out the bus window at 2:30 in the morning while we drive through...questionable areas), but I did manage to sleep a little bit at least. Finally, we got to what I thought had to be Pune, only I had no idea where exactly we were, or where the bus would stop, or where I should get down, or what I should do after that. Using the limited Hindi skills I have, I tried asking around to see which stop would be closest to Pune University. But alas, to no avail. So when a flash of understanding finally appeared in one dude's eyes and he pointed to the driver and said 'next stop' I took it, because apparently it was the last one in Pune before the bus moved on to Mumbai. So I got my stuff, staggered to the front of the bus and scrambled down as the bus slowed down...only to narrowly escape being hit by a very large truck. I was in the middle of a highway. Literally. They'd let me down in the middle of a freaking highway.

Needless to say I bolted to the closest open area and stood on the shoulder freaking out. There were cars coming from about 12 different directions and I had no idea which way was which. Luckily, I did find a bus stand a bit away and tried asking where Pune University was. A very nice woman with a very cute baby pointed in the opposite direction and told me I needed to catch a rickshaw. Unfortunately, there were no rickshaws to be seen on this highway. Hence, more freaking out. I finally spotted a few riskshaws on the other side of the highway kind of chilling out on a small island amidst the traffic, so I very cautiously (ish) and somewhat recklessly sprinted across about 5 lanes of traffic, stopping every few feet to let a motorcycle zip by and managed (somehow) to make it across. I think the rickshaw wallas must have been watching my attempts because they were very raucously laughing and pointing in my general direction. Too pumped full of adrenaline to care all the much, I strode over and started asking each of them in turn, "Pune University jante hai?" One guy finally responded but demanded 160Rs. fare. Again, too worried about getting there on time/at all, I just agreed and hopped in, glad to be out of traffic and at least moving again.

I finally got someone from Parisar on the phone and he gave directions to the rickshaw walla, so at least I knew I was going in the right direction now. Since it only took about 15 minutes to get to the campus, I was pretty sure I'd been jipped on the fare but then again, at least I was there in one piece. It's interesting, how much most of us are willing to pay for security in unfamiliar surroundings...

After this brief adventure, I managed to find Leo on campus and grab lunch before the conference was supposed to begin. Basically, the topic of the conference was metro systems in India. Parisar had brought together representatives (scholars, activists, engineers, officials and citizens) from 6 different cities in India that have a metro already, are building a metro, or are contemplating building a metro, in order to address the issues and controversies surrounding them and to relate experiences and opinions. There were people from Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kochi, Mumbai and Pune. Representatives from the BMRCL even attended - they were the only officials present, officials from the other cities had declined to attend.

The first day was basically presentations from one representative of each city, with discussion and questions following each. It was amazing how similar the problems and experiences were across all of the different cities. Several of the same issue arose time and again. It was also interesting to have the BMRCL reps there, as the majority of the people in attendance at the conference were against the metro, and they were among the few that supported it. There was lively debate surrounding the various merits of different systems of transportation, the condition of Indian cities and alternatives to these types of 'mega-development' projects.

The second day was devoted to hearing a presentation from the BMRCL and then breaking into groups and having round table discussions on the various issues we had gone over the previous day. We ended by drawing up several resolutions and conclusions from the two days.

Mostly, I just got more confused. Everyone has a different side to the story. Mr. Rao, the BMRCL General Manager for Finance, and one of the gentleman I had been in contact with last week when I went to the Metro offices, summed up very well the sentiment I walked away with. "The truth is somewhere between what they say, and what's really happening." The 'they' he was referring to, were the activists very obviously against the metro, or at least the way it was and is being implemented. But I think, no matter which way you spin it, the truth is always somewhere between what anyone says, and what's actually happening. The trick is, what's 'actually' happening is also pretty subjective...not to mention hard to determine. What is really happening?

Well, lots of things, I guess. People are getting displaced from their homes. Losing business. Losing their livlihoods. Losing their rights. Losing their ability to move through the city. Will this metro system actually work? Will the sacrifices be worth it? For who?

I've heard the argument that this Metro will help make Bangalore a "world-class city," but what kind of world are you talking about? It really is all about perspective. It seems to me like a very large, motivating factor for these kind of infrastructure projects is the aesthetics of it, the image, the perceptions and symbols and meanings attached to them. It's new and fancy and technical and so...obvious, in the sense that you really can't help but notice it. Other, developed nations, have underground metro systems, and it has become a symbol, a marker of development the world over, and especially, it seems, in India. But is that enough?

More Thoughts on Mass Transit

I was speaking with an engineer turned social activist last weekend and he said something that really stuck with me. He was talking about the different between a street and a road. He said it’s comparable to the concept of a house and a home. A house is just a structure, concrete and pieces of material, a utility, just like a road. But a home is cluttered, it’s messy, it’s vibrant and lived in and chaotic and interesting, just like a street. The streets in Bangalore, and indeed all over India and the world, seem to be dying. It used to be that life happened on streets. Hawkers and merchants and beggars and pedestrians and children playing cricket and old men meeting on the corners for chai and paan and women chatting as they bought vegetables and teenagers goofing off while they ate chaats. Streets were alive and messy and full of people living their lives and making connections and adding a tangibility and closeness that doesn’t seem to be here as much anymore.

I keep hearing stories about ‘how it used to be’ and how you didn’t have to fear for your life crossing a road or worry about your kids getting hit by a car if they played outside. Now there’s been a mass movement towards a sort of sterilization, a widening and conversion of streets to roads as the city has gradually come to be overtaken by vehicles. Land, vast tracks of public and private land, and trees and greenery and sidewalks, are being sacrificed to this monumental, all-powerful movement of the Private Vehicle; the purchasing of personal space no matter what the cost. If you can afford a car or a two wheeler or even a taxi or a rickshaw you have made it, man, You are up there with the cream of society, taking your private vehicle and dominating those roadways. You don’t have to walk or take one of these slower forms of transportation, you don’t have to make any effort at all. You just sit back with your space and your AC and cruise along. Only now, everyone wants one and what’s more, they have one. So you might have your personal space and your status symbol, but you’re stuck in traffic for twice as long as it would have taken you to walk where you wanted to go and back again!

The argument for private vehicles is the convenience of this door-to-door transport that we have all become accustomed to. The ease and amazement of the least amount of effort we can manage. We want the flexibility, luxury and leisure of being able to go where we want when we want no matter the wider costs and implications. Public transportation systems are just too inadequate. They’re too slow, or too unreliable, or too crowded or too infrequent. So we get our own ride and complain when everyone else does the same and we all have to sit in traffic together for hours on end, burning fossil fuel, inhaling smoke and destroying our environment.

Don’t get me wrong, I have a car and there’s nothing I love more than cruising at a clear 65 down the highway and getting exactly where I need to go without and muss or fuss. But I like the buses too. Especially in Seattle. You can get wherever you need to go in a pretty timely manner. There are stops every few blocks all over the city and a fairly reliable and affordable route system to help me get where I need to go in about the same amount of time (and sans the parking prices) as if I took my car. So if more transit systems were like this, and they became even more efficient, and more people took them, then roads wouldn’t have to be widened, trees wouldn’t have to be cut, people wouldn’t have to spend so much money on cars and insurance and gas, less green house gases would be released, the routes and wotnot would probably get even better, more funding could be allocated to other projects (like, oh I don’t know, education? Health care? Etc!) and maybe people would be so unhealthy and have to spend half their lives in traffic. They might even be able to spend more time with their family, and friends, and who knows, maybe even be happier and then violence would decrease and maybe, just maybe, the world would not be quite so fucked up. Maybe.

But mass transit has to be done right for this to happen. That means consulting with the public before you build the public transportation that’s supposed to serve them. Considering routes and infrastructure projects that will cause the least amount of disruption. Trying not to displace people from their homes and destroy their businesses. Preserve street spaces and try to keep in tact the integrity of a city rather than breaking it down to look just like the ‘global cities’ of Singapore and Hong Kong. We already have a Singapore and a Hong Kong, so how about we try to keep a Bangalore!!! It is so devastating to see something that could potentially be so good (the Metro and MRTS here) go so bad (i.e. – with mass displacement, loss of business, lack of compensation, and severe environmental degradation and disruption of the city). There has to be a way to compromise, right? The Metro people I’ve been speaking to keep talking about how this project will be for the ‘greater good’ and how ‘sacrifices must be made’ – but at what cost? And more importantly, at whose cost? The greater good doesn’t seem to really be benefiting the greater population, but rather a particular category of people. It kind of makes you wonder, just whose city is this anyways? From the looks of this project, it’s not the hawkers, or the bamboo weavers, or the slum dwellers, or the beggars, or the small shop owners, or the pedestrians, or the home owners and business owners along the Metro route or who happen to be in locations where road widening is taking place. Public transportation should serve the public, right? The whole public, not just the part that looks good to foreigners and investors.

I’m all for progress and everything, and I understand that change is inevitable and you can’t hold onto the past and life isn’t fair and sacrifices must be made and blah blah blah. But is it too much to ask as a 21 year old college kid who still has hope for the future and hasn’t had the optimism beaten out of her by life yet, that we, I, us, everyone just try to do something better than has been done before? To learn from the past and try and try and try to make something better of the future? To be conscious and compassionate and to believe that there is really a better way for the world to work and people to live in it and that it’s not all just about money and power and status but that maybe, maybe it’s about people and friendship and sustainability and that maybe the ‘greater good’ can actually be good for a greater number of people?

Maybe not. And maybe I am just a naïve 21 year old college student who doesn’t know anything about anything and is about to get a cold hard slap of reality when I find out what the ‘real world’ is really like. But for now I would like to believe that maybe my generation and the generations that follow can save the way this world could work and not beat each other into the ground, thank you very much. Maybe not. But then again, maybe so.

O, sweet confusion

The past few days I have been doing a lot of interviews, with engineers, activists and average citizens, trying to get more of a feel for the issues surrounding the metro. Yesterday I was finally able to get into the Metro offices (after 3 failed attempts and a lot of waiting in the lobby) to speak with Vasanth Rao, the General Manager of the BMRCL. Half way through our meeting he called in about 5 other people for me to meet, which was cool but also kind of weird.

It was odd talking to all of them. Mr. Rao was very thoughtful in his speaking, very informative and professional. Occasionally he would take these very long pauses in the middle of a sentence, then continue on. When he called in his two colleagues, they spent the first 15 minutes complimenting each other (and themselves) and talking about how great the Metro was. In fact, Mr. Rao went on about this more than anyone else. He kept calling it “my train” and “my metro”, very possessive. And very proud, the “only solution for Bangalore.” He was so sincere and so convincing I kept thinking, ‘wow, this can’t be so bad after all’ which was very odd, considering I’ve spent the past (almost) 2 weeks only hearing about how bad it is and all the things wrong with it. But the way he talked about it made it seem like it really was the best solution. And he kept managing to address all of the things I was wondering about but didn't voice – about compensation and displacement and environmental degradation – he had an answer for everything. And he really had me convinced (minus the ‘take it with a grain of salt; skepticism that never seems to leave me) that it was the best choice and he made it seem like they really had considered everything. He talked about feeder systems and public transport connectivity and compensation for the poor – he even gave two “pulled up by their bootstraps (with the help of the BMRCL)” stories about 2 girls whose lives had been completely changed for the better because the metro displaced them (I do find this part hard to believe).

Between them, I really do (did?) believe that they had considered everything. Mr. Shivananda, one of the engineers of the project, kept saying, “you can create from destruction” or something like that and they all followed the mantra of “sacrifices must be made,” (in the name of progress, I assume). It is all very confusing – what was (is?) the right choice for this city? For the people in it? Who does this project actually benefit? Is ESG just exaggerating all the bad stuff (I find it hard to believe) or is the BMRCL just sugarcoating, or speaking from a place of privilege and selective story choosing (those girls being point and case)? What were the alternatives? Did the government really consider them? Why did they do what they’ve done, really? Do they really think they’re doing the right thing for the city? Are they? They seem to have all the answers, but when I think about it, I have counter answers and examples that I could have shot right back at them. This work makes me feel like an investigative journalist, like there’s more of a story here. But will it be the one I think it is? This issue is so nuanced and complex and there’s so much more to it and I’m afraid I won’t be able to get to all of it. Everyone has a perspective, there’s no such thing as an objective opinion. Dude.

I think it boils down to different people having different visions for the city – different ideas of how it should be, what it should look like, and who it should be for. ESG and friends want a green, eco-friendly, tree-lined, pedestrian and cycle-friendly place with fewer private vehicles, more buses and no metro (or at least one that has a better route and is more practical and affordable). BMRCL and friends want a city that is modern, fast, efficient, sleek and up to the standards of Singapore and Hong Kong in terms of saavy, sauve and aesthetics. They want modernization. They want a high-class structure that will cater to a high-class community (everyone should be ‘moving up’, as they say). Is there a way to merge them? Why don’t governments here (and everywhere for that matter) and the people they're supposed to represent communicate and cooperate more with each other? Is it all really just about competing interests (personal gain vs for the common good – which ironically line up in ways that benefit very few people anyways)? I feel like there has to be a better solution. A better way. But that it ultimately comes down to a ‘that’s just the way the world works’ sort of argument and I go to bed feeling very confused and frustrated and depressed. What is going to happen to this beautiful city? Will Metro really solve things? Will it really ruin them? What would be better? What can we (I? Anyone?) do now? I am so sad to meet people who have been pushed out of their homes with no say, who’ve lost business, who can barely navigate the roads, who were squatters who lost their homes, to see trees that will be cut and imagine the thousands that have already been ripped down, to see greenery and life and living beauty being replaced by cement right in front of my eyes – but people do seem to want this metro. They want their private cars and two wheelers and wider roads and a modern city. Except for the people who are suffering the consequences of these wants. It really is the whole “not if it’s in my backyard” syndrome that so many people have cited to me. So what is the alternative? Can anything (anyone) be saved or spared? Or does it really all have to be sacrificed “for the greater good,” so to speak? Would the alternatives ESG and other groups presented, really have been better? Is the government or the rich losing land instead of the poor really even possible?

I know that part of me is just a hopeless romantic when it comes to this stuff – a classic case. I hate seeing all of the pieces of india I love best going away and being replaced by imported, damaging and 'sleeker' alternatives. I hate seeing all of this beauty and authenticity and uniqueness and difference from US and other ‘developed countries’ going away so fast. The India my dad and his brothers and sisters knew, even the india I grew up coming to see, not 20 years ago, is disappearing before my eyes. I hate seeing cities destroyed one day and feel like really, it’s being re-created the next. What is right and wrong in this situation?! Is it even possible that it’s that simple? I know it’s not. But I’m still frustrated and I can’t make up my mind and I find myself asking what the good of this research I’m doing is anyways. What can come from it? What can I possibly even hope to do?

So that’s where I am now; wondering what good is it anyways but unable to stop because it’s just so freakin interesting. I tell you, who ever though mass transit could be so damn depressing?

Some Things I Love About India

1. Whenever you go to anyone’s house/office/apartment you get chai or coffee or something delicious to eat (or all three)

2. There is nothing better in the whole world than chai. Period.

3. Drinking indian coffee (which is very milky and sugary but delicious) while watching monkeys play on the mango tree outside your house and playing sudoku = best morning routine EVER

4. Taking a walk in India is actually more like taking a hike, or doing some sort of weird urban obstacle course. My route to ESG = point and case. There are only sidewalks for part of the route and when they are there, they are very uneven, broken in places and usually blocked by large piles of dirt. Thus 80% of the time you need to walk on the side of the street, which means avoiding dog poo, cow poo and various forms of unidentified brown stuff, in addition to motorcycles, parked vehicles, other people, buses that I swear actually try to run you over, various animals (i.e. the dogs and cows that make the poo, in addition to goats, cats, small horses and the occasional camel) and large groups of men that make very rude comments if you happen to be walking alone. Thus, getting to work means jumping over thing, dodging people, avoiding cows that try to eat parts of your clothing, trying not to step in anything gross and nearly getting killed every time you try to cross the street. It’s quite fun actually.

5. You eat dinner around 9. I don’t know why but I really like this

6. Indian soap operas. They are very elaborate, usually involve someone about to get married, getting married or recently suffering from amnesia and not realizing that they’re actually married to two different people but one of the women is actually the guy’s dead brother’s wife and is pregnant with some other dude’s kid. And every single moment is overly dramatic and absolutely must consist of a close up on at least 8 different people in order to capture the look of surprise on each and every one of their faces.

7. You can buy roasted corn on nearly every street corner. It’s fresh and delicious and covered in lime and salt and chili powder.

8. Hindi movies. Need I say more?

9. Bollywood songs (and the dances that go with them, especially the dances that you break out spontaneously while watching MTV with your host mom and sister)

10. When you go to any store or small shop there are about 34782368 different types of crackers and biscuits to choose from and somehow they are all good.

11. Everything is colorful and fragrant (in both good and bad ways) and alive and vibrant and real. It’s cliché, but there really is an energy here that you just don’t find in other places.

12. Kingfisher beer. Oh hell yes.

Now I'm getting somewhere!

To continue about Tuesday - simply said, it was badass. Mallesh, who works at ESG, set me up with a friend of his, Raju, who is a rickshaw driver in Bangalore and has worked closely with ESG for a long time. He set Tuesday aside to take me all over the city to various sites of Metro construction. We left pretty early on Tuesday morning - Chaitra, my host sister, also came along to help with me translations. The first place we visited was Baiyapanhalli, which is basically where the Metro will begin. From there we proceeded on to CMH Road (one of the most affected areas of Metro construction), then drove along the length of M.G. Road (which is the commercial hub of the city and attracts most of the tourists and young people in the city - it also has great shopping and is pretty posh). We also went along Magadi Road, which has been the area hardest hit by Metro construction and road widening - hundreds of people have lost businesses and homes to make way for construction. Next we stopped along Vijayanagar Main Road, R.V. Road and Nanda Road. In each place we stopped for 20 minutes or more so that I could get a good look around, take pictures and talk to as many people as possible.

I actually ended up with a lot of great interviews with a wide range of people - Raju and Chaitra were awesome about helping me translate and talk to the non-english speaking part of the population. It was really interesting to hear all of the different perspectives surrounding the Metro. I was actually really surprised at how many people seemed to support it and all of the different reasons they felt the way they did. The most compelling conversations I had were those with shop owners along CMH Road and Magadi Road. So many of them had suffered tremendously because of construction, losing 50-60% of their business and profits (even more in some cases). In most locations, the roads were all torn up and construction materials were all over, it was incredibly noisy and the streets were even more difficult to navigate than they usually are in India. One shop owner told me that business was at the lowest ever and that he was afraid of losing his small sweet shop, but when I asked him how he felt about the Metro he said that overall, he was glad that it was here; "it is necessary for development" He said that things were bad now but that he thought that once construction was over, the road and the are would be better and business would pick back up. This was a sentiment repeated by almost everyone I spoke to who were in similar circumstances as this man -- it seemed like they thought the Metro would bring business and help to improve the area. Several other people said that time was a huge issue and that they expected the Metro to maybe help ease traffic a bit. Other people thought that that was a joke and that by the time the Metro was actually finished, traffic would be 4-5x worse than when construction started so the Metro wouldn't make a difference anyhow.

A lot of the people I spoke with also mentioned the Delhi metro, how efficient and clean it was and how they hoped the Bangalore Metro would be the same. One woman kept going on and on about how the Delhi Metro was clean and hygienic and free of all the usual problems with transportation in India. The physical appearance of the Delhi Metro was mentioned often, as were comparisons to what they hoped the Bangalore Metro would look like. There's actually a prototype of one of the cars set to go on public display sometime in the next few weeks near M.G. Road. It's under cover right now, but I read in the paper that the government is going to build a little photo area around it so people can get their picture taken in front of it. I'm really hoping I'll still be around when they finally get around to this so I can see it for myself - not to mention talk to all the other people who go to see it.

Basically the day was a huge success and I went home finally feeling like I was getting somewhere. It took forever to transcribe all my notes and observations and interviews, but I ended up with like, 12 pages of great stuff and about 100 pictures! The past few days I've mostly just been hanging out at ESG, working on my internship stuff and networking like crazy. I've been emailing everyone I can think of and I have a couple of interviews set up for the weekend and next week. I'm also planning on spending most of Sunday at Lalbagh, the last and most famous garden of Bangalore, which has a Metro station running along its south end and cutting through a corner of it. I'll probably wander around there for a few hours and see who I can talk to about what's been happening there. I'm also planning to go to Majestic, which is easily the busiest area of Bangalore, and the location they're building the central station for the Metro.

I can't believe I've already been here a week - it's gone by so fast! It's weird, but time in general seems to be going much faster here. Everything happens so quickly, I go to sleep barely knowing where the day went! I knew my time here would go fast, but this is ridiculous. I keep alternating between feeling really good about what I've done so far and really really anxious about everything I have left to do. I guess the upside to everything though is that I get to eat a lot of really, really good food. And I've been meeting a lot of people and making new friends and seeing old friends and generally enjoying myself, which I think is a part of research that people don't really do, or at least they don't mention it. I'm trying to balance things but I've found that usually everything gets pretty mixed and jumbled anyways - I end up making friends with the people I'm interviewing and I end up interviewing my friends and the people I meet through them just when we're out having fun. Even the work I'm doing for ESG is interesting - I've gotten to learn about a lot of the environmental movements that have been happening here in India and the different issues surrounding them. I'm so excited to see what the next few weeks have in store!

Back to Bangalore

I haven't updated this thing in a while so this is going to be a fairly long synopsis of the past few days. Basically my time in Mumbai was spent bouncing around the houses of various members and eating a lot of food and drinking a lot of chai, a.k.a – basically getting spoiled and teased that I should marry a nice Indian boy. Have I mentioned how much I love my family?

Friday morning I left for Bangalore and the beginning of my first foray into “field research.” As soon as I landed I headed straight to ESG (Environmental Support Group – i.e. the NGO I worked with last summer and that I will be “interning” with while I’m here) and after a cab ride that was probably about 700 Rs. too expensive, I finally made it to the offices. I hung out there awkwardly for a while, ate lunch and then got dropped off at my host family’s house. The woman I’m staying with is named Kumuda and she has a 19 year old daughter named Chaitra. Both of them are unbelievably sweet and their house is AMAZING. Usually in Indian cities people live in flats or apartments, but I’ve noticed in Bangalore that a lot of people have their own houses. Kumuda’s house is 5 stories and absolutely beautiful. Seriously, there’s a rooftop terrace, another balcony one floor down and windows everywhere to let in the sun, plus I get my own room and my own bathroom. Now that is beautiful, as usually I’m sharing a bed with at least 2 other people and a bathroom with 5 or 6. Staying here for the next five weeks is going be pretty awesome. Plus, they have a dog. named Chili. a.k.a - chili dog. yes.

The “field research” part is yet to be sufficiently established. Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t just been hanging around idle for the past few days, I’ve been doing like, site visits and whatnot. Preliminary stuff, if you will; getting reacquainted with Bangalore (aka – trying to go somewhere and getting lost for 3 hours trying to get home), talking to people (my host family) and generally trying to figure out how the hell I’m going to do this. Friday I mostly just settled in and got to know my host family, but first thing Saturday morning I went to go check out the Metro construction that was (supposed) to be happening by City Market. My host sister, Chaitra, helped me hop a bus and I was off! A word about buses in India. They are not very reliable. There are number and routes and schedules just like any proper bus system ought to have but in classic India style – timing and space are issues. Thus, my journey to City Market was spent between a small boy carrying a duffle bag as large as him who decided that my shoulder was a lovely place to take a nap (and drool, apparently) and a very large man who kept asking me, “what country you’re from?” repeatedly no matter how many times I answered (I took to answering a bit more creatively after the 8^th time he asked and may or may not have successfully convinced him that I am Jamaican).

Anyways, City Market is very crowded and a veritable maze of various stands and hawkers and side streets and dogs who keep trying to get at the crackers you forgot were in your bag. Suffice it to say that after wandering around for about an hour, I did not find where the Metro construction was happening, but did have several near-death experiences almost getting run over my motorcycles zipping around very small, narrow side streets and a cow that had a vested interest in eating my hair (at least that’s what I think it was trying to do). I finally found my way back to where I’d started from but could not for the life of me find the right bus to go back home. The drive hadn’t been that bad so I decided to just start walking and flag down a bus if I saw the right one coming. Well, the bus never did come my way and (as I do) I ended up about 5 km from where I was supposed to be going. I was so sure I was getting close but after a long coffee break at Gandhi Bazaar (which I later found out is actually laughably close to my house) I hailed a rickshaw tried to explain where I wanted to go in a mixture of broken Kannada, Hindi and my best native-indian English accent (out-of-towners get ripped off like no other so I’ve been adopting the best south-indian accent I can manage in an attempt to pass for a local, or at least not a total noob. Results have been mixed). Predictably, my lack of directional capabilities revealed me for what I truly am (severely directionally-challenged) and I got taken around and charged too much, but I did manage to find my way back, which is pretty astounding for me. All in all, my attempts at a site visit was sort of bust. But things started looking up when Mallesh (another guy who works at ESG and takes care of basically everything from making coffee to setting up homestays for students like me to basically helping ESG survive in all major departments) came to Kumuda’s house for a visit and said he’d hook me up with a rickshaw-walla friend of his who could take me around to all of the Metro sites to the east, which are basically almost complete. I did this yesterday and will write more about it later, as i spent about 6 hours wandering the city and that's a lot of field notes to record.

Anyways, afterwards, I went out with Kumuda to get dinner and she showed me Nandah Road, which is another site of Metro construction that is sandwiched between two beautiful parks, which I found out today will eventually be demolished to make way for the Metro station, parking lots and probably a mall. Ew.

Sunday I went with Kumuda to her family’s house near Gandhi market. Later in the day I went with Chaitra to Brigade Road and M.G. Road for some shopping and I got to get a good look at the Metro construction that’s taking place all along here. Commercial Street, Brigade Road and M.G. Road form sort of a triangle and are the heart of the shopping district in Bangalore. It’s easily the most diverse lace you’ll find and caters to the young, IT type with lots of malls, international shops, bars and restaurants. The Metro construction was taking place mostly along the length of M.G. Road and was truly a spectacle. I didn’t get a chance to talk to anyone in depth but it seems like construction has been causing a lot of business troubles for the shop keepers and store owners in the area, especially those who face the Metro head on. Traffic has picked up in the area since the pillars have been completed, but the whole area is very messy and dirt kicks up a lot from the site where they’re building the station. I think I’ll probably come back here a few more times and walk the length of the Metro and try to speak with some of the shop owners that line the way to see what they’re opinions about the Metro are.

Monday I finally made it to ESG and figured out what I will be doing for my internship. Basically I’ll be able to divide my time between working on projects for ESG and doing my research on the Metro. For now, I’m working on writing a information booklet about various environmental movements and issues in India for a teacher’s workshop ESG is putting on at the end of the month, which is awesome because urban development is one of the themes they’ll be covering, which means I’ll have easy access to a lot of interviews. After leaving ESG I met up with my host family from last year for chai.

So, unfortunately I’m a bit behind on this blog thing since it’s Wednesday here now and Tuesday was kind of a big day for me in terms of my research, but I will definitely post an update about that tomorrow. Suffice it to say that I am on a roll and that everything is going better than I had hoped. God I love it here.