Bangalore-City of Information Technology-and the entrance to Hell/Mumbai

John’s sudden change of plans from the trip to Calcutta to Bangalore altered the planning and outcome of our trip considerably. However, Bangalore was a lovely city and offered several interesting activities. When we arrived, we were taken to one of the most beautiful hotels I had ever seen. It looked like a nineteenth century lavish British mansion, but instead had been built in the middle 1980’s! It was called The Windsor aptly enough.

As soon as we arrived in the hotel, John was whisked away to meet with several potential partners, and I ate a horrible white bread cheese sandwich and took a nap.

The new colleagues had recommended “The Royal Afghan” for dinner, and amazingly it was in our hotel. The fare was expensive but delicious afghan food, the best of which was the lamb, but the lentils were fabulous.


Now I am desperate to find the lentil spices as we were told that they were available in the hotel (not) and around town (couldn’t find). The evening brought a terrific thunderstorm as the rains are just beginning. It only made me more tired; thus, stuffed to the gills, I immediately fell into coma.
Fancy hotel room with dress form
Dublin Bar
The interior of Dublin Bar
We were fortunately able to spend 3 hours in the morning touring a little of Bangalore. The history of Bangalore is quite different from the other cities we visited. It was the home of Prince Tipu who was apparently the fiercest Indian who lead troops and fought against the British but was ultimately surrounded in his castle in Bangalore and ultimately killed in the “First War for Independence”. After this period, the British clearly enjoyed the city, its cooler climate and green grasses and flowers and flowering trees. I felt as if I had been transported back to Africa when I first sighted the Flame Trees, the Jacaranda trees, and the Bougainvillea. (Barabara Moja? A-5? Rose Pauli, no not hardly, these trees were in the richest neighborhoods, hardly the “KCMC Compound.”)
Yellow trees
nice gardens and trees
Flame tree
It is no wonder that the Brits would want to live in this area. They apparently appointed a Maharaja to be the “puppet” leader, and the heir continues to live in luxury in his old palace today. As our driver said, no power, just luxury.
Maharaja Palace
Maharaja Carriages (now uses BMWs)
We visited his palace, paid an outrageous amount of money so that I could take pictures (maybe the way the Maharaja earns his keep- I don’t recommend paying if I were to do it again) both outside and inside. The palace looks like Windsor Palace though inside are all sorts of older artifacts from the first Maharaja. He imported fine china, had all the walls with either Japanese wall paper or hand painted with slaves. John’s eyes twinkled when we walked through rooms adorned with painting after painting of nude women, old, young, poor, rich, being stabbed, carried away, on the beach you name it.

The majority of the women were built with generous bosoms, of course. John commented to the required guide that this Maharaja must have liked women and wondered how many wives he had. The guide said that he had only one, but laughed about the paintings. It turns out the Maharaja sort of had a live-in artist and his wife who primarily painted nudes.

We saw the sitting room-men only of course-where it looked like men smoked played cards and planned various war schemes, definitely not getting rid of the British as far as I could tell. Women were allowed to sit behind a small screen and look at the men as they were doing whatever men did in those days and circumstances.
Where the men would be
where the women would watch
We saw children’s beds and playrooms, sitting areas where they apparently for some reason liked to watch a fountain.
Cute baby cradle
John and I pretending to be maharaja and wife
The most awesome and fairly gruesome thing we saw was a huge elephant head mounted at the entry and his feet and another elephant trunk that the Maharaja and his guards had killed. Apparently the elephant on the wall had killed 9 people before the brave Maharaja managed to bring him down and save the city. (just kidding). This Maharaja kept elephants; thus, my guess is that one of them just sort of went rogue and had to be put down, or it suited his highnesses fancy, who knows.
Elephant Going Rogue

Elephant foot bottom
We had the usual “cottage industry” handicraft stops, all the same crafts at outrageous prices. I was glad that we had spent a little time in Kathmandu shopping as these places were hardly what we were looking for. Go to Bombay India for it. Our guide nor the shops were pleased at our lack of purchases.
One of my favorite things were the street paintings. Apparently painters were invited to make murals on the road sideways, and some were amazing. John enjoyed quite a few of these as well.

notice the motorcycle fitting right in
Nandi the bull
John's favorite
The two little elephants
We went to the Bull Temple which was actually very cool. There are several small temples and one large one. All Hindu, and all active. The little bells would ring and people would race to fall prostrate, get some water from a holy man, pay some money and get the little die for their forehead. We received red dots also by the time that we left. But, holy Hindus were very pleasant to us, always asked where we were from and welcomed us kindly.
Entrance to Bull Temple
little shrine
Holy Man
The big Bull Temple
John at entrance to Bull Temple
At the Bull Temple, which hosts an enormous reclining 1786 Nandi. He is beautiful carved and adorned with lots of cute things-bells and glistening peanut oil. Though the hawkers were out, they were much less aggressive than the cottage industry people so it was a pleasure to look at the things that were offered.
People viewing the bull
The glistening bull

Bangalore is the capital of the state Kaarnataka and all the government buildings were quite lavish, especially the Old Parliament building, but we saw the high court, the New Parliament (both are active) and other Finance, Air Force, Hospitals and Schools.
Proof Old Parliament Building
Proof High Court
Every other block had IT industries. Even the AIDS Prevention Building was in quite a nice area of town and looked to be well funded. John does not think that Bangalore has a large AIDS population, but there is money there and business people coming in and out continuously so that does sometimes lead to a higher AIDS load. There were some wonderful Asain street scenes.
A great effort for a mirrored desk
Stand selling Bamboo leaves for filling with food
My very favorite aspect of this city was the quantity of signs discussing behavior on driving and also the incredible number of ministries. I tried to take pictures of them, but it just got too overwhelming so I only have a few. The Ministry of Minor Water Issues was pretty great, and my all time favorite was “The Ministry for Agriculture for Important Insects”. We understand that there are many Ministers, and therefore, many nice houses for them to live in. What a gig. Though John doesn’t want to come back as this Insect minister, I think it would be pretty cool.
Beauty Body Care
Do not Drink and Drive
Marriage sign
Obey Traffic Rules sign
Minister of Minor Irrigation and planning
Bureau of important insects
We had the chaos of packing & all too quickly out.
Farewell to our Guard
Soon enough we were in flight and arrived at 6:30 promptly, only to wait for 45 minutes for transfer to the International Airport, and then the biggest craziness, not to be allowed into this huge International Airport before 3 hours before the flight. Our flight was at 1 am, and we were told to wait outside until that time. They sent us to a “private” lounge where for 120 rupees we could sit and have some potato chips and water. What a crazy mess. There was no way to imagine what the outside was like right unless you have been in mob. Halloween on 6th Avenue in NYC, maybe. It was teaming with people all furious, all of them pushing and shoving and yelling at everyone. The evil gods appear to be at work. All of this was to improve security in the airport. It would certainly appear that the security risk is much greater with the angry mob outside than if people were able to get checked in prior to the flight. John is already composing his letter of complaint to Delta.
As we were finally allowed in, we were told by a Delta worker that immigration would turn us away, we would have to spend the night in Mumbai and get a new card giving us permission to enter the country twice on our multiple entry visa. because we had entered the country more than once in 3 months. Since we had already entered it for the second time when we flew back to Delhi, it seemed ridiculous. The Delta guard seemed sure, but allowed us to go forward. Now, JB had gone to the Indian Bank (Embassy closed) in Nepal, and an embassy worker said it would be fine…..) Anyway, JB picked out the friendliest immigration person who waved us through…

I think that the Indian people are wonderful. Friendly, Kind, Generous. Gandhi would be pretty proud. And, I understand security issues are extremely important. However, the lack of information given for travelers is unbelievable, the hassle great. One must be prepared that travel particularly to Mumbai is at quite a bit of inconvenience.

Old Delhi New Delhi What Delhi

New Delhi, Old Delhi, What Delhi, Delhi?

The experiences of the last three days have been polar opposites. We ate dinner night before last with the meeting participants at the “Safari Jungle” restaurant in the fancy mall next to our hotel with 30 people from John’s meeting. This place was bizarre. You walk into a room with plastic green leaves coating the ceiling and with random plastic animals located around the restaurant. Above me was a plastic snake that periodically opened it’s mouth and hissed. Behind me was a plastic giraffe that wiggled its ears, and at the entrance was an elephant that flared its ears and trumpeted. I thought the movements were all random until I saw one of our “safari guides” waving remote controls at the various animals, and the performance occurring shortly afterwards. We were presented with bites for about 2 hours and thought that this was the dinner-overpriced and marginally good, until suddenly new bowls of even less good food began to appear. It was time to leave this place.
This afternoon John learned that we were going to Bangalore instead of Calcutta, because this working trip has taken so many sudden twists and turns that he has to go where the need for the global health opportunities is the greatest. So, reorient from a 9:30 am flight to a 6:15 am flight. Well ok then. Tonight was much more interesting and bizarre. We ventured downtown again sort of between New and Old Delhi, picked up our Greg one of the young students who will be working in the refugee camps and is taking a semester at J Nehru University. A usually 25 minute drive took over an hour, and though we were lucky to be offered a ride by some colleagues John had meet at the meetings, the ride was a prelude to our evening. The only way to get to our restaurant was to take a rickshaw (three wheeled gas powered vehicle). (same type of vehicle we saw turned over in Kathmandu).

Oh well. We got both breeze and dust all over us, but it was an adventure. We got out at a “gate” and began to snake our way through shop after shop, children running helter skelter, bicycles & motorbikes just missing us or actually whacking our arms, beggars everywhere touching begging. Small boys, girls, mothers. Smells were wonderful and gross. We found our restaurant, Karims,by cutting through an incredibly narrow alleyway and turning one way or another. The food was delicious.



Thus began our evening. Greg snaked us back and around curves and corners…same beggars, same foods good and bad, same near death experiences with vehicles. All this was to find the Sufi Mosque, Hazrat Nizamuddin Darga, and hear the sufi singers.
We found one entrance, had our shoes off and were told to go to the other side. We wandered for about 10 minutes, Greg speaking Hindi to everyone around trying to find the entrance. Finally a small hole, off went our shoes and inside we went. A large quite dirty area filled with cripples, beggars, men and women, babies, children running everywhere surrounded a “holy place” where women were not allowed, and the sufi mystic was inside blessing people and waving green and red fabric, throwing rose petals. This is a tomb (darga) of Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia who became a sufi mystic in the 13th and 14th century. He has amassed still a huge number of followers-especially the poor. Huge baskets of red petals kept coming out of this big room (you could see in through lattice work) Suddenly there was a singer who was joined by others. On another side of this big room people, clearly the most destitute people, lined up to receive small foods handed out by the mosque. It seemed that nearly everyone had some sort of ailment or another. We tried very hard not to think about what our feet were walking on.
Slowly, a crowd began sitting around the entrance to the room and a totally crazy man came around waiving a huge cloth shaped fan. He was vigorous and the fan so nasty that one wave covered your face with grit. Gradually men began to sit with squeezeboxes and do a strange chant. More joined with drums and some just sat and clapped at particular moments as they were singing. A woman suddenly began to swirl and pull away from a man. He threw her around and she pulled him away into another room where you could see a very strange dance occurring. Though it was all fascinating, we knew we would have a long drive to the hotel. We snaked our way out to the street, (thanks to Greg)
Another 40 minutes of waiting and we finally had a cab. As we left this bizarre area of New/Old Delhi, we pondered just how many of the children would reach even the age of 5, and then watched the homeless people crowding every vacant space of concrete sidewalk. And, then we drove through Embassy Row.

When we got back to the hotel at last, we both took long hot scrubbing showers. Aren’t we lucky.
Today, our last in Delhi, the widow Bartlett had her husband back, reincarnated from all the meetings and hundreds of e-mails, for 4 hours to see the city. I had planned the old city of Delhi, but I also wanted him to see Gandhi’s Samriti . Low and behold, we also went to the place that Gandhi was cremated and saw the real eternal flame at the Raj Ghat and National Gandhi Museum.!

(say nothing about the hair)
The weather was brutally hot and we were unloaded into a rickshaw, driven by a man on a bicycle.

We snaked in and out of the alleys of the old city.


Saw the Sikh Temple Sisganj Burdwara, the Svetamber Jain Temple,

the Jama Masjid (the largest mosque in Inda-we couldn’t go inside because it was Friday and was closed for the morning and early afternoon)

and the Charity Birds Hospital. I was desperate to go in, as the tour guides say that tender care is given to birds and rabbits there. They even have an intensive care ward. We could see many birds resting on the rooftop of the hospital. John was unmoved, however, thinking I guess of Avian Flu, poop or other such things that birds & rabbits have a tendency to do.

We did spend extra time in the Red Fort, an enormous expanse of mixed Moghul and British architecture that sort of summed up the history of India before Independence. As we tried to stay as near trees as possible to keep in the shade we could note a plain private mosque just in front of clearly British big buildings, fancy doors of the Moghuls and the military look of the British. I learned that one of the last Moghul kings began each day by having his beads read—so Kate—stick with fortunes and you might be read. Apparently he totally planned his day based on the beads.


(A very cool tea house)
(Mosque and British architecture)


King's room who started his day with bead reading.

We returned to our rickshaw and started back to the markets again, but it was clear that I had gotten more heat than I needed. If you don’t sweat, you suffer differently. The old beet face again, so we returned to the car and were able to go back to the Gandhi Samriti. John agreed that of all the sites he had seen, this one was the best. Gandhi should be the way, and we have lost that. Since I included many pictures of the Gandhi Samriti in the previous blog, I will only include a few in this one.
Read, if you can the Gandhi Talisman. It is inspiring. If only we could live as Gandhi did.
A footpath led to the place of Gandhi's assassination. The location is marked by the simple stone. I walked on a few of the steps before the guard ordered me off. Just wanted to think a minute.

John and I had an argument about the roots of this tree. Someone tell me-are roots really blue?
At the end of the day, what about Delhi did we love: Gandhi Samriti, food (John’s addition, but ok by me) Sufi strangeness. What did we appreciate: friendliness, rich contrasted with (as John says) the poorest of the poor, what colonialism has accomplished in the world, and how tourists are prey. We are used to the prey issue, but the other issues are thought and emotion provoking. Fortunately, John’s meetings and extensive work were about ways to solve some of the health problems, mine were just to keep smiling.
Can we live like Bapu? Probably not.