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.