We spent the last few days getting up late and wandering around Bangalore. M has dragged me to about half of her favorite restaurants, fast food joints and chaat stands. I feel very accomplished having successfully distracted her from her work to appreciate her inner sloth.
We’ve walked and caught buses and hailed autorickshaws to get a full appreciation for the City’s transportation woes. It is a complete oversimplification to describe what we see as “woes.” There are 6.5 million residents of Bangalore who get around. That is an incredible accomplishment, just supporting the roads and transportation facilities. What we do see is constant congestion. The bus system is completely over utilized.
There is a subway system (The Bangalore Metro) that is in construction that will hopefully make things easier. It is modeled after the successful Delhi Metro which has had its share of controversy. Lets hope that the Bangalore version doesn’t get bogged down. That won’t do it on its own. Hopefully there can be some sort of smart growth, transit preferred development and planning to mitigate the growing traffic disaster. Judging on the futility of other planning efforts in indian megacities, I’m not holding my breath on this one.
I like Bangalore. The streets are tight and the buildings are not too huge. The city is booming like no other city that I’ve seen. Everywhere you look are the tell tale signs of new wealth and transition – bamboo (for external support while in construction), bricks, mortar, fugly “modern” glass facades and dudes with pans on their heads carrying earth. The congestion really hits you when you are in a hurry to get around the City after 5:30PM. Walking in the park makes you feel like you were in Chicago around the turn of the century… everywhere you look, there are families and people enjoying the sun and atmosphere. Maybe I didn’t see it before (maybe my bioclock is ticking) but it is astounding how many families you see. This translates to lotsa fancy baby gear, competitive day-care and yoga for moms. As everyone has a digital camera or cameraphone-type device, I suspect that that the new babies will represent the most documented generation in India’s history. We should also look forward to some ass-kicking india photographers.
We did a short stint in Mysore. Which was great mainly because we got to take the train. Michele wanted air conditioned chair class on the way out, but I got IInd class on the way back to bangalore. Mysore has a great raj-era palace, plenty of touts and lots of opportunities for street food.
We stumbled on the palace as the sun was setting and joined the masses waiting for the palace stewards to turn the lights on. White bulbs line the 1912 proto-deco flourishes, colonizing moghul grey granite and guilded turrets. When they pulled the lever and flipped switches, the whole thing lit up like a christmas tree (great pictures now in the flickr set). The whole city of Mysore seemed to wander the palace grounds, which before the sun set was an inhospitable wasterland of a parade-area, better fit for a monster truck rally then a promenade. We witnessed the full metamorphosis from emptyness to vibrant public space and the evening was beayootiful. We sat and watched child laborers sell popcorn and balloons and light-up yo-yo balls to the many mysoreans and their toddling offspring.
We sweated in IInd class with a cute muslim family for the 3 hour ride back. The beautiful mother (who must have been all of 17 years old) and three girl chilluns slept and fought and stared out the window. Rice paddies, sugar cane fields, chinese bicycles and shitting ploughhands flew past the window bars. It is good to be back in India. Tomorrow we fly up to Delhi, then Srinagar, Kasmir. Wish us luck avoiding IEDs, tourist bus bombings and debilitating sunburn.
