Animals are People Too

Welcome back. I've missed you, have you missed me?

Since we last chatted, there has been another strike/protest by the people of Karnataka (Bangalore's state). There is a river that runs South from Karnataka to another state called Tamil Nadu, and there is a dam between Bangalore and Mysore (nearby city) that is retaining quite a lot of the river water. The government of Karnataka decided to release water from the dam, and the people of Bangalore, Mysore and Karnataka in general were not pleased.

These strikes that keep happening are apparently not normal for India, says my driver. There have been 3 since I've arrived approximately 1 month ago. Restaurants close. Gas stations close. Rickshaws and buses mostly shut down. This week's "bandh" was scheduled for Saturday, but Friday the tensions were so high that it was basically considered a half-bandh. Protesters have been active near the dam for a few days, but as agitation increased, they started gathering in Bangalore city limits Friday and forced road closures and traffic diversions. Saturday went on as planned, so again, I stayed in my hotel all day. I hit the gym for the first time since I arrived, I caught up on some American TV online, and I ordered room service.

But that's all boring and you've heard it all before. I want to talk about dogs and cows.

The city of Bangalore basically shuts down around 10:30 PM. Sure there are people out later and cars on the road all night, but most businesses - including bars - are closed by 10:30 or soon after. At any given time of day, there are hundreds of stray animals roaming the streets of Bangalore. But at night, the dogs take over the town.

Dogs in Bangalore are basically Bros in Wrigleyville.

There is a stray dog for every 37 people in Bangalore. These dogs have a distinct personality. Not that American dogs don't have personality, but with dogs in the US, you never know what kind of temperament you're going to get. Here, they all act the same. Sometimes they run around in packs, and it's a little impressive to watch them all turn a corner together as if they're headed to the next bar. They wait for cars to pass before running out into the road, but sometimes if the car gets too close or is the right/wrong color they will bark and chase it. I can picture bros leaving Sluggers to walk to Barleycorn while cat-calling and whistling every girl that passes, or jaw-jacking the guy wearing a baseball cap from any team other than the Cubs. You can always tell which dog is the leader of the group, whether it be 2 or 6 of them running around. The alpha leads the way, focused. He knows where he's going, and he knows his pals will follow. The annoying guy who can't seem navigate the area on his own is running along beside the alpha, occasionally nipping at him for attention. And sometimes the dogs have just had a rough day and need to lay down and take a nap (pass out). I watched a dog last week stagger around the street, walk over to the sidewalk, puke, and then continue on his way. I feel so at home sometimes on my 3AM ride back to the hotel.

Why are there so many stray dogs? I don't know exactly. Why are there so many bros in Wrigleyville? My driver said that the old policy used to be that the city would capture the dogs and put them down. Before you scream animal cruelty, remember that these dogs are wild, and people here live in small houses to begin with. They dogs are mangy and you can't just walk up and pet them. Not that you would want to. There is no reason for anyone to adopt them, so they would end up getting put down anyway. A few people have dogs as pets, and occasionally I'll see someone sitting or walking their dog, but 99% of the dogs you see outside are strays wandering about. The new policy by the city is supposedly that they will capture, sterilize, and release the dogs. Hopefully the population will eventually die out naturally. But from what I can tell, they aren't doing a very good job as most of the strays still appear to have all their parts.

Cows have the right of way, most of the time.

My driver takes me basically the same route to work every day. I'm getting comfortable seeing cows and dogs and goats sifting through trash on the side of the road in certain neighborhoods. (Yes, there is a LOT of trash on the side of the roads.) Occasionally, a full sized cow will just be chilling in the middle of the road. The cars here are small, and the cows are huge, because they wander about and eat whatever they want, which is usually garbage. Not much nutritional value there, so I'm guessing these cows aren't ideal for milk or butchering. In any case, the cars just drive around the cows...no big deal.

"Where did I park my bike?"

"Next to the cow."

On the final stretch of road to my office, its basically a highway with an overpass. We take a left "exit" and then go under the overpass. There are no real stop signs or street lights along the highway, so during rush hour, there are police on duty directing traffic, just like you might imagine in Chicago if the power failed downtown and the street lights went out. So as we're sitting there waiting for our turn from the police, I catch out of the corner of my eye, a small herd of cows walking along the road beside us. Obviously the cows can't understand the police officer, but surely they wouldn't just wander out into oncoming traffic, right? Wrong. They did.

Brown Cow in road

The cars, motorcycles, and rickshaws all slowed and swerved around the cows. The big trucks kept rolling, just like the hierarchy I had heard about. And the cows, with traffic buzzing by all around them continued to move forward through the vehicles. At one point, one of the bigger ones was shuffling along when he(?) was suddenly cut off by a large construction vehicle. The cow stopped suddenly and then turned to look back at the rest of his crew like, "Whoa guys, did you see that? I almost ran into that truck!" After the truck passed, he continued on his way, even hurrying up a bit as if he realized he should get out of the road. Once he reached the other side, he slowed to his normal walking pace.

I was in awe. I noticed my driver was amused. I mentioned to him "my friends in America would have found that very entertaining. I can't believe the cow navigated traffic so well." He said, "the cows are often more sensible than people when it comes to moving through traffic. I countered by saying, "I suppose if someone had hit the cow, it would have done more damage to the car, and the cow might not have been harmed, because they are bigger than the vehicles." He ended the conversation with this gem: "If a person had hit the cow, the people would be very angry and aggressive with him because cows are like gods to us."

Hope you guys enjoyed this week's post. I'll talk to you again soon.

Transportation is Hard

Welcome back. Let's dive right in, shall we?? If you read my first post, you're all well aware of the delay I encountered getting here due to the Lufthansa strike. Since arriving, I've experienced some even more interesting/amazing situations with transportation.

I'm staying about 15 kilometers (approx. 10 miles) from the office I commute to every day. Because this is an official business trip, my company has hired me a driver to pick me up outside the hotel ever day at an agreed upon time, and drop me at work. He then picks me up at the end of my shift and brings me back. I'm sure this isn't cheap, but hey, it's a business trip, so they were counting on this.

Good thing I have a driver too, because the roads are crowded, and traffic is wild. I mentioned previously that my trip from airport to hotel at 2AM was a bit crazy, and that was with no traffic on the road. When my driver picks me up at 5PM, it's rush hour. School buses are out, rickshaws are out, other people commuting to/from work are out, and there are moped and small motorcycles galore. The rules of the road here basically dictate that the bigger vehicle has the right of way. It's everyone else's responsibility to navigate around them. I'm told by someone with local experience that the hierarchy of the road is basically this: elephants (haven't seen any....yet) --> trucks (like, work trucks) --> cows --> small cars --> rickshaws (golf carts acting like taxis) --> motorcycles/mopeds --> pedestrians.

So on a good day, my commute to work is maybe 40 minutes. On a busier day, it might take an hour. But usually it's somewhere in between. Most days I can't even look out the windows to watch the scenery passing by because I get so nervous for everyone out on the road. I've been here almost 2 full weeks now, and I've had multiple crazy encounters in such a short time. I have about 6 more weeks to go, so I'm not exactly sure what will happen next.

Commuter Day 1 (Wed, Sep. 12) - My first time commuting to my new 2-month office. I had made arrangements through my company before leaving Chicago that I would be picked up at 4PM for my first day (I think I mentioned before that I'm working Chicago hours...6PM to 2:30AM local time). I was told by a co-worker who just returned from India that it takes about an hour to get to RMZ Ecospace (a corporate business park in SE Bangalore) from my hotel. I gave myself extra time for day 1, just in case. A few minutes before 4PM my room rang, and the front desk informed me that my driver, Azmathulla, had arrived.

Azumath (I think that's how he pronounces it) is very professional and polite. Again, I'm treated almost like royalty, though I'm just a lowly desk-worker. He opens the door for me, closes the door for me, and calls me "sir" every time we chat. The car is small, but it is a real car...not a junky taxi or a rickshaw. So here we are weaving our way through traffic on winding roads...he could be taking me anywhere, but I have to assume that he's done this before because he asked me which location I was going to (we have 2 operations centers in Bangalore). We're cutting off motorcycles, I'm in awe of the random cows, goats, and dogs rummaging through the trash, and suddenly we skid and rear-end the Land Rover-sized vehicle in front of us.

Azumath puts it in park and hops out of the car (in the middle of crazy traffic) to discuss who is the bigger idiot in this wreck. Apparently, the other guy started to go left as the light was changing (remember, the lights are not followed closely, and left on red in India is light right on red in America). My driver was planning to go left also, but the big vehicle decided otherwise and stopped suddenly. No damage to the "Land Rover" and our car only cracked a headlight cover. The actual headlight was fine, but still. So I sat in the car while they worked it out and thought to myself, "this must be totally normal. Traffic is nuts, so obviously people get in crashes all the time." Well in any case, there was no insurance information or money exchanged. Azumath just got back in the car and we continued on our way. Other than pulling a U-turn in heavy traffic right in front of the access road to get me to work, the rest of the drive was otherwise uneventful.

Day 2 & 3 didn't have any such hiccups, but I was told by my driver and colleagues that the local city bus drivers were all on strike. Apparently they had just received a 4 or 5 percent pay raise, but they wanted more. Somehow buses on strike lead to less crowded roads, I guess. I don't know if people just stayed home, or if they all hopped in taxis instead. Either way, less buses somehow translates to less traffic...clearly, this doesn't apply in Chicago.

On Monday and Tuesday of this past week I didn't have any true traffic issues. Wednesday was the start of a traditional Indian celebration called Ganesha Chaturthi. Ganesh or Ganesha is the Hindu elephant-god. In a nutshell, the people of India will buy idols of the god and sing songs and chants specific to the festival. They keep the idol in their homes up to 10 days (or less, based on family tradition) and then they take the idol to a large body of water and submerge it. The link above gives more details, and the story is interesting if nothing else. Needless to say, it made for some good scenery on the commute with all the large, colourful (see what I did there?) Ganesha idols being sold along the road.

On Thursday, there was yet another "strike". This one was across the entire country for a recent hike in diesel prices imposed by the government. This strike was different than the bus strike from last week. In fact, this would be called a full-on protest in America, just short of a controlled riot. It was a planned event from 6AM to 6PM. Basically no cars were to be on the road during this time, and my colleagues at work told me to stay in my hotel all day. The hotel is near a stadium and some government offices in the center of Bangalore, so it is ground-zero for protesters. The hotel (and shopping mall it sits on top of) took extra precautionary measures to protect against anyone who might be inclined to throw rocks if the strike escalated.

From the local paper. A protective net draped over my hotel.

Finally, I've never really ridden a motorcycle. I rode a dirt bike around on some country roads in Nebraska at a friend's house one summer, but that's it. Until today. My company sponsored a weekend tournament for soccer (futbol) and throwball. The guys I've been working with on this training project invited me to come out, and of course I want to see more of the city and experience life outside my hotel room. Friday afternoon at work, Sai and Aravinda agreed that it would be best for Sai to pick me up and give me a ride to the fields on his "motorbike" (they are just not as suped-up as American crotch rockets or Harley's). Luckily everything went fine. No crashes, no falling off the bike, but I think my boss and girlfriend will both not be thrilled when they read this. I'm okay ladies! It was a little nerve wracking knowing that I was now on the low-end of the road hierarchy. Morning traffic wasn't bad, and Sai said he would take it easy, so I'm sure that helped. But I still am not comfortable with the constant beeping of cars and other vehicles alerting you that they are coming up beside you, so don't make any sudden moves.

My new team in India. L to R: Aravinda, Sandesh, Jayanth, Saicharan, and Sooraj.

That's all I've got for today. I'll keep posting these about once a week if I can. I usually have more time on the weekends, obviously. Hoping to get out and get some local photos and give you a quick run-down on the food lingo next week.

Take care!