Indian tidbits

I was meaning to write this post, since a month ago. The irony is that this post, in which I wanted to capture my first impression of India after leaving Finland, is being written while I am in Finland. Anyway, I guess, better late than never!

This was the first time I was flying with Lufthansa and despite all the media hype, I didn’t find the inflight experience even close to that of Air France. Oh, the only good thing, they don’t lose your luggage. After somewhat 9 hours of flying, in which I had an Irish lady in her late forties as my neighbour- flying from Dublin, conversation with her was the only best part. Though she was traveling with her two teenage daughters, on her first trip to India, she didn’t get seats alongwith her daughters and ended up seating next to me. Later I realized how emotional this trip is for her, when she said, she is going to visit the grave of her late aunt, who was buried somewhere near Nanital in 1930, and she was named after her that aunt. She had been planning to take this trip for the last ten years and finally managed it. I was happy to answer all her questions about India and she was even more happy and excited about the trip. Too bad, I wasn’t able to tell her a place where she can go and experience Diwali, I just said expect it to be our Christmas.

The flight landed at time at Delhi’s international airport at time. The first happiest moment for me whenever I come back to India, is when I see the sign that says “Only Indian passport holders” That alone makes up for the surly man at the immigration counter or the clumsy lady who takes forever to feed the passport number. Next when I came out, the thing which stood out was lot of visible police personnel at the airport. They were on their regular security duty at the airports. “Time for the reverse cultural shock to begin”, I thought.

Delhi was hot like peak summer of June and not only to me but to other Delhi residents as well. I had heard lot about Delhi Metro and a few days later, I did make the first trip on it. Well it was as good as it was said and seemed totally out of place in Delhi. Only when the train stops and there is a clash between those who are deboarding and those who want to come in, you seem to get the familiar sight of Delhi. The speed of train, I thought, could still be increased a bit to make it more effective. In one of the station, where I had to change lines, I had a brush with the security paranoia during Indian festival season. I had only one minute to make the connection, so as it I usual, I made a dash and within seconds I was surrounded by three police person, who could not make any reason of my trying to dash. It seems no one ever runs in Delhi’s metro stations. Well, I still managed to get that train as those people quickly realized why I was running? I wonder with such highly effective (?) security, why our cities are bombed by terrorist at will?

After some twenty days in hot Delhi, it was my time to go to Bangalore. The weather when I landed at Bangalore brought smile at my face. As soon as I reached airport, the smile turned to frown when it started raining. As I was passing by airport road, I was getting reminded of the old places. Nothing has changed in that road in last two years. I saw my old house, where I had lived for one year. It was the same, except it has got a green canopy at the terrace. The restaurants where I used to eat, the udupis, neighbourhood ATM and the old office building where I used to work were all same. The city buses had changed their colour from deep blue to sky blue. I had very little time to dump by bags and reach office. Thanks to Mowgli, I had his motorcycle and also the description of the location of new office, which he had told me over phone. Though he has not been in Bangalore for quite some time, his location description was still valid. While I was passing the outer ring road, I had to stop 4 times to ask someone if that is indeed outer ring road. That road, which two years ago passed through deserted places had huge gleaming glass buildings on both sides of it. On them the name plates were of the biggest names of the global corporate world. But since it was indeed the outer ring road, I did reach my office. The description was perfect, thanks Mowgli.

On reaching the new office building, I went to the reception desk for getting a temporary access card, as I was sure my old one won’t work. The receptionist asked “new joinee”? After this I had to show her my old ID, which she could not recognize. I just said that once upon a time we had ID cards like this. Just two years had changed everything here. Inside the building, I got a temporary place to work and when I read my mails, I knew that I might have to come back to Finland.

Two days later on my first weekend, I wanted to catch up with everything I had missed out in Bangalore. I went to see the new malls which have come up in Bangalore, Forum, Garuda and their multiplexes. I was amazed at the height of economic activity in Bangalore. The number of jobs these places were creating, right from the security guards, parking attendants to those handling the inventory and ringing up the purchase. Atleast I could see the economic success trickling to all those who wanted to get a share of it. Economics indeed is the blue print of development.

I wanted to see more of these hot beds of economic activity, there were many other things left to explore in Bangalore, including getting to watch a movie in those multiplexes. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any more weekends in Bangalore but when I am going back there very soon, I have a list of things to do.