Here in Bangalore the traffic is legendary, but in particular the motorbikes and scooters — or “two wheelers” as they’re collectively known — are what makes the difference. Usually occupied by at least two people (and up to 5), the 2-wheelers make up a huge proportion of the traffic here. In a congested city with poor roads, the advantages are obvious: you can weave through gaps in the otherwise-gridlocked roads, you can go up on the pavement to overtake (and […]
The world’s biggest democracy just had the world’s biggest power-cut. According to the Times of India, 684 million people across 21 States and Union Territories in the North and East of India were without electricity yesterday, when 3 power grids failed. That’s more than half the population here, and pretty close to a tenth of the people on the planet. It was the biggest electrical power failure in history. 300 coal miners were trapped underground, the Delhi metro was […]
A weekday evening, about an hour before sunset. On a busy street a muslim woman emerges from a trendy ice cream parlour, dressed head to foot in a black Niqaab, and carrying a fancy leather handbag. She pauses at the door and looks around furtively, as if checking to see that nobody has spotted her. It’s Ramadan.
I’m only just finishing off writing this post in July, but the last bit of holiday I managed to take was our “term break” in the last week of March. I took a short trip away to see another bit of India — this time up to the Northern state of Uttar Pradesh, or U.P. as it’s known. I got away for a whole 7 days, which is the longest I’ve been off work since arriving here in December 2010. […]
The doorbell rang at 7.50 this morning, and there at the door was a woman I didn’t recognize. She said she had come to work, which puzzled me, but I pointed at the number on the door and suggested she had come to the wrong apartment. She didn’t seem convinced, and asked if I needed any work doing. “Not here”, I told her. She asked again, and I told her the same thing. After a few minutes of back and […]
You can see why people say one of the best things about Bangalore is the weather. Although we’ve been into monsoon season for 2-3 weeks now it hasn’t really rained much — just a few afternoon showers. But the skies are now quite often grey, and there’s a cool breeze blowing most days. It was even so cool yesterday morning that I could walk to work instead of catching an auto — normally infeasible because I would arrive dripping […]
It’s 18 months ago today that I arrived in India, for the first time ever. Three jet-lagged days later I started my new job. I’ve been trying to avoid “Robinson Crusoe” accounts of living here — notching up the days — but this feels like a bit of a landmark and anyway I’ve not really been counting since it was 1 year. What I’m really interested in is documenting how it feels to become an ex-pat for the first time, […]
One of the things you first notice when arriving in a supposedly hi-tech, cosmopolitan, “top-tier metro” city like Bangalore is just how quasi-rural bits of it are, particularly animals roaming the streets full of the notorious traffic. (This bull, above, was sitting happily on the pavement next to a very busy intersection, when I was on my way to the supermarket a few days ago. There wasn’t much pavement left after he’d sat down, so we were all […]
So, the monsoon is upon us again — almost. The newspapers here had been talking over the past week about how it would be “late”… it’s supposed to arrive in Kerala (first place of landfall) on 1st June. It’s now 5th June and you can see from the map that the actual (green) is 4-5 days behind the predicted time in red dotted lines. According to the map it’s coming in from the South-West, as expected, and has arrived at […]
[ Hover mouse over the text for English translation. I had to write something for my Hindi class, so I thought I would post it… ] मार्च में मेरे पास सात दिन कि छुट्टी थी, तो मैं उत्तार प्रदेश गया । पहली बार थी । मैं हवाई जहाज़ से लखनऊ गया, और फिर मैं रेलगाड़ी से वाराणसी गया । मुझे वाराणसी बहुत पसन्द था। प्राचीन और दिलचस्प शहर है, और हिन्दूओं के लिए बहुत पवित्र स्थान है । भोर से […]
