Being out of office has left me with plenty of time to do stuff, and it has gotten to the point where I am having problems with too much time to spare. The whole thing is even worse considering that reading and long sessions on the computer are off the menu, leaving me few options that my eyes can handle. That’s why I’ve been playing Rock Band, building Legos, listening to podcasts and riding the bike a lot. An eye patch allows me to work on the computer for some time, but it’s still a strain and I would rather not do it a lot. Unfortunately the lack of entertainment keeps me coming back to the desk to read some blogs or whatever.

I like to say that there are no boring environments, only boring people, but this time it’s shooting back at me.

Or maybe it’s just lack of company and good conversation that makes me feel this way.  No matter how I try to be open, positive and all that, I just don’t find myself on the same wavelength with the locals. I especially have to supress my twisted sense of humour to avoid trouble – people have gotten fired and mobbed for a lot less than what I usually like to say and do in the free world.

And I’m not even going to start about sarcasm, a form of art all India seems to be oblivious about.

Having to watch my language and behaviour this much all the time has also given me a reason to stay at home more than before. Here I can still be fully me, but without my friends it feels… futile.

Like, what’s the point of being a clown in an empty circus tent?

Tags: culture, friends and family, oh bugger, people in india, religion, time, what is different

As I told earlier, I am currently living in my future home while the present occupants are on holiday. Let’s cut straight to the case, the photos (more here):

Here’s the house from the roadside. It has three floors, four bedrooms (each with separate bathroom & shower), three balconies, two guards (one of them right there) and a roof terrace. I would estimate it has somewhere around 300-350 square meters, but I don’t have any hard data on my hands. In any case it should be enough for two plus two.

The amount of trees still amazes me, as well as the East German (lookalike) cars people still drive around here.

Okay, back to the house… this is the main hall from the front door direction. There’s another entrance on the left because the logical one faces the wrong direction for some god(desse)s to be favorable on the house. And that’s not the most wasteful effort put into this house in the name of some imaginary being…

…but before that, here’s something I didn’t expect to see: it’s an alcove for washing your hands. It’s conveniently placed right next to the dining space (and with a mirror I noticed too late).

Undoubtedly this is the most decorated and well-made part of the house, but sadly it isn’t anything of significance for me: there’s a small room about the size (and feel) of a two-person outhouse behind them, purpose-built for worshipping hindu gods.  I could respect the culture and blahblahblah, but not in my home, thank you. So from my point of view it’s complete waste of time and effort.

The living room in the second floor (first floor is on ground level) will easily accommodate my desk, couch and movie screen when they arrive. Quite frankly, I’m not a huge fan of the current interior, especially when there’s no room to land your laptop anywhere without first lifting that beer can out of the way.

The library is right next to the living area, complete with exotic laminate floors and a writing desk with an antique feeling to it. Sadly I’ll never have enough books to fill up the shelves before I move on.

The second floor balcony is decorated for hanging around with friends, although again with no tables to rest your drinks on. Of course I will see that there’s plenty of tables here when I’m in command, but not just yet.

The bigger third floor balcony accommodates a couple of grills, along with a slight sense of privacy since the closest neighbours are lower down (the tall building on the right is a hotel, windows not facing this way). I am yet to find something good to grill, but one of these days…

This photo was taken from the top point of the house, even above the roof terrace. If only I could have a swimming pool here!

I realise I’m being quite negative on certain aspects of the place, but most of it is only temporary: in a month or so I’ll be able to customise the whole place as I please,  because it will be ALL MINE! No, wait…

Tags: accommodation, luxuries, oh bugger, photos, religion, what is different

Roaming around the city and reading the newspaper carefully gave me some interesting insights to the Indian culture about relationships and marriage.

I have known for a while that arranged marriages are common in India, but only today it really struck me. I was skipping over some classified ads in the Sunday Times, since I don’t feel the need to buy a house or anything like that. After three pages I happened to take a closer look, only to realize that there wasn’t a single ad about real estate or goods, but boys and girls of all ages.

At first I thought these were personals, but none of the ads included anything… personal. Instead I could find detailed descriptions of education, work and family background, classified by religion, caste and profession. People looking for other people. And the page title?

“Matrimonials”.

Tags: culture, people in india, religion, surprises, what is different

Today’s menu has been exceptionally good and my stomach is singing hallelujah as I write. In the ISKCON temple there was a restaurant for pilgrims, with the best bang for buck ratio I have seen so far. For lunch we had Masala Dosa, a traditional Indian pizza kind of thing.  It is made of rice flour and lentils, has some ketchup-kind of sauce on the surface and a filling of potato and onion. Tasty, rich in nutrition, appealing with smooth texture and all this for mere 20 rupees(!). My general feeling of the temple was that they are only covering their own cost, which makes sense since they are probably trying to recruit more people rather than make a lot of profit. Two thumbs for price vs. quality!

For dinner I went to Bombay Post on the other side of Airport Road, right next to TGI Friday’s. The place was really tidy, well-maintained and even classy, with nice waiter uniforms and stylish interior design. The menu was really long and choices were plenty, but I went for Sheek Kabab this time. It was like long, spicy meatballs made of lamb and fried well. I had mine with rice, Butter Naan and a pint of Kingfisher. The term pint is not exactly what I expected it to be, even though it is a former colony of Britain. The usual serving of beer is actually 650 millilitres, while a pint refers to a bottle of 330 milliliters. This is good to keep in mind if the servings seem too big.

The food in Bombay Post  was excellent and the whole experience was… intense. Not a single moment went by without a waiter being close by, ready to fill my glass or serve some more lamb to my plate. If I ran out of some side dish, it didn’t take more than a minute before I had a new portion on my table. The service was really good, but the price policy had some undocumented extras hidden inside. First of all, the list prices didn’t include taxes, and second, they charged a service percentage of everything. Looking at the list, the dish was less than 300 rupees, so I estimated the total to be somewhere around 700 with drinks, rice and bread. I was in for a surprise when I got the bill with a total of 1067 rupees with everything included. Although the food was good, I think it was not worth that much.

Next time in that district I’ll try the third place, Indijoe. It should be a chain restaurant, so the possibilities are there.

Tags: food, prices, religion, service, surprises

After getting used to pre-heating shower water, minimal selection of kettles and some other unfamiliar things, there is one major problem with living in Diamond District: distances. The whole district is in the middle of nowhere and it takes a lot of time and effort to get anywhere near the shopping centres, offices or anything I would generally consider “somewhere”. There is the exact same problem with my home in Oulu, but there are also two differences that make Oulu far better than DD. First of all, my apartment is right next to the office and it takes around 5 minutes by bike. The second major factor is that traveling downtown is not a jungle of congestion and exhaust fumes, but a straight road to drive when I want. No sign of honking horns and suicidal pedestrians/rikshaws/motorbikes trying to block my way, which makes the journey much less stressful. My next apartment in this country will reside much closer to the office and shops, not in some bedroom town.

The more time I spend here, the more I learn how to cope with the locals. The motto of all India seems to be “now”, meaning that long-term plans should be done only by yourself. Most people either come to work by their own means (motorcycle, car, walk) or take the first rikshaw they can stop outside, instead of having someone pick them up at certain time. Punctuality and reliability seem to be out of the question as well as ability to handle unexpected situations. For some reason it is too much to ask from a driver to inform you if they are late or something similar happens. This results in wasted time, frustration of both parties and increasing stress levels, avoidable by a simple phone call or two.

One of the main reasons for being late is the traffic, which seems to have to major problems. The first one is that the road network is not even remotely sufficient for the amount of traffic there is, resulting from the exponential growth of the city. The second reason is a self-feeding loop of stress, irritating behavior, congestion and fighting for your space on the road. A little co-operation would help a lot, but it’s again one of these world peace ideologies. Maybe some day, but probably not in my lifetime.

Seems like I return to the traffic almost every time now, but it is so totally different it’s hard to believe. Maybe someone will catch the clue after reading all my rants.

I noticed a major flaw in the plan to collect photos of different modes of transportation here. Usually I see those only by a glance and there is not enough time to snap a photo. I will try to catch those while I’m out there, but there will probably be only a few incidental shots.

Today I visited the local ISKCON, one of the largest and newest temples in Bangalore. The amount of gold, jewelry and work put to that temple is something amazing, and they were even planning to expand it with a new 400-foot-high temple hall. It seemed like an ideal place to snap a ton of photos, but all cameras had to be left to the gate before entering. I tried to find some pictures from Google, but the results were quite disappointing. You will have to see it for yourselves, sorry. If you do, there is an interesting experience waiting for you. The whole temple area is filled with loudspeakers that play Hare Krishna chanting all the time, boosted with some prayers or such in between. The surreal atmosphere was mainly created by the constant background noise, but luckily for me the insides of the temple were more quiet.

I bought some souvenirs from the numerous shops inside the temple area and I’m hoping to be able to send some of those to Finland via mail.

Ada, if you are reading this, I found some sandelwood incenses at a ridiculously low price. You will get them as soon as I figure out the best method of delivery

Tags: culture, diamond district, people in india, practical stuff, prices, religion, traffic, transportation, ways of working

I was facing a quiet afternoon today so I took a walk on Airport Road. There was a marking “Shiva” on my map, so I decided to take a look. On the way I saw a bunch of street shops and popped in a brand new mall to see what was available there. On entry I had to go through a metal detector and show the guards that all I had was a camera and the keys to my apartment. They seem to take security quite seriously around here.

All the shops but one were under construction, but the open shop was a real hypermarket. The vegetable department was my first target since I was eager to see if rutabagas were available, but no luck this time. Next I inspected the liquor department and found quite a lot of beers, both Indian and foreign brands were present. Kingfisher was around 60-80 rupees for 0.65 liters, Fosters somewhere around 100 for 0.5 litres and Bacardi Breezers around 50 rupees a piece. From the whiskey shelf I spotted a 0.7 liter bottle of The Glenlivet for little under 4000 rupees (<60 euros) a bottle. Luckily I didn’t have that much money with me this time.

I say luckily because the Shiva place was right next to the mall. On the outside it looked more like a cave than a temple and the actual name of the place was Shiv Mandir, a Shiva Temple. The sign inside tells that there are more of them all around India:

Advancing further behind the locals I arrived at the ticket sales. The entry fee was a nominal one rupee, but a camera license cost 25 times that for a regular camera. A mobile one would have been 10 and video license 35 rupees, fees that seemed to me as a way of ripping off tourists. Not that it would do any damage to my finances, and maybe it saved someone else’s income for a day or two.

After getting tickets I had to leave my sandals for deposit during the visit in the temple area, which was an outdoor one after all. First I was greeted by a huge statue of Ganesh:

Some people did some rituals with small candles in front of the idol, some only stopped for a short prayer and went on. I have no special bonds with Hindu deities so I just took a couple of photos and continued to look around. Just a few dozen meters further I realized what the writing on the map was telling about:

This idol was roughly double the size of the previous one, as you can see by the people beside it. He is the god of destruction and obviously the main one in this particular temple. The top of his head is actually a water fountain, cooling off the surroundings of the idol quite nicely. While approaching the statue I spotted a smaller idol of Ganesh and the Hindu symbol that the E described as “the essence of all prayer”:

At this point the fences guided me to walk some meters away from Shiva and towards this kind of a construction:

Does anyone know what this steaming stone thing is about?

Right in front of Shiva there was a pool of water, with the bottom full of coins and lit up outdoor candles floating on the surface. In front of the pool there was a special place:

The instructions on the wall told that you should read a prayer to Shiva seven times, toss a coin in the pool and then make a wish., which Shiva would then fulfill. I still don’t feel the connection between myself and him, so I skipped this time. On the right side of Shiva there were some more idols that people were worshipping:

The ritual is to move the outdoor candle around in front of the idol and repeat some prayers half spoken. Then the same (or some different, wouldn’t know) pattern was repeated in front of every idol with Shiva as the last one. The outdoor candle is then placed to the pool and the current from the fountain moves it to the other side. The poolside area was covered with straw mats and people were doing their worshipping on them.

When exiting the temple area, I was asked to make a donation to a local hospital. Actually the whole place was abundant with charity collections, so I gave up in the end and donated 100 rupees for the hospital before getting back my sandals and leaving. The way out was full of bazaar type shops selling idols, decoration items and such. There was a intense smell of incences down there, but unfortunately I couldn’t find any for sale. Maybe next time.

There are some more photos back at my gallery. The address is http://heze.dyndns.org/gallery/v/misc/india/?g2_page=2.

Tags: culture, deities, idols, people in india, photos, prices, religion, temples