I stroll out from the safety and calm of the serviced apartment's compound, proferring a friendly salute to the uniformed guard at the barrier, turn right on to the narrow suburban lane, skirt around a cow pat and head off for a saunter to get my neighbourhood bearings. The sky is cloudy and a delicious cool breeze wafts through the air, lifting a layer of dust from the street and kicking up some of the litter that lies everywhere.
I hit a bigger street and head left. On the other side of the road is a large government-owned wasteland, home to a family of boar scavenging among the discarded rubbish. Stray dogs roam the sidewalks, clean, short-haired and not looking remotely rabid or threatening. I give them a wide berth nonetheless. Three cows amble down one side of the road, sacred and unflinching amid the honking two-wheelers and 4WD gas guzzlers.
This area is relatively up-market, with many grand two-storey houses complete with shaved lawns, columns and often glitzy facades. Trees are everywhere, lining the streets and providing more shade from the heat during the summer months.
The pavements are lethal; sloping, crooked, litter strewn and, in many places, just missing. Gaping holes can shock the unwary pedestrian, where drainage covers have slipped, cracked or just disappeared. This naturally limits the amount of sightseeing as my eyes are constantly cast downwards – a pre-emptive strike against the next potential accident: big hole, cow/dog/human(?) faeces, beast, tree, parked vehicle, electrical wiring ….
While this is a predominantly quiet residential area, I spot one of hundreds of modern franchised coffee bars, several premises offering spiritual and/or medicinal support and small kiosks hawking local sweet coffee and tea and 'chats', snacky looking things.
I vault another missing drainage slab and walk up to a main street (17th Main). Traffic here is denser, noisier and more chaotic. Drivers honk endlessly. No one listens. So what’s the point? But there is a constant cacophony. There seems to be a kind of hierarchy among drivers as to who gets to go first. This is simple: buses/trucks, then vans, then 4WDs, then cars, then auto rickshaws, then motorbikes, then push bikes. Two lane roads become 3-lane racetracks. No space is wasted by drivers. It kinda works. In three weeks I haven’t seen a single crash, bump, scrape, and the cars don’t carry the obvious scars of daily pile-ups or collisions. I watch the bikes and scooters enviously. Now is the time I’d love to hop on my bike and go explore, but I’ll have to be patient as very much paperwork is required for this.
I cross the main street – there is some regulation by traffic light – and head north, vaguely towards downtown Bangalore, which lies some 8-9 kms distant. This is a sprawling, low-rise city. Auto rickshaws are plentiful and cheap; buses are frequent and even cheaper. S and I paid 10 rupees each (about 14p) to ride a bus halfway across the city to go to the big central market last weekend. We had seats and there was a Bollywood video playing to while away the long stretches when the bus barely budged an inch as the traffic choked all movement.
My district of Koramangala is up-and-coming, teeming and hip. Trendy restaurants and coffee hangouts line the leafy boulevards, cheek-and-jowl with small trading kiosks selling everything from batteries and calculators to toilet paper, maps and tape. The people are friendly (one guy who latched on to me for about 20 minutes in town was decidedly too friendly!), interested and polite. You attract stares as there are very few Western faces on the streets. Bangalore is not on the India tourist trail. It’s very much a working city, enjoying huge population growth as the IT and service sectors hire by the thousand. Hence the upscale bistros and brand new shopping malls, with their 10-screen cinemas – and a serious escalation in rental prices.
After 20 minutes, I arrive at Forum Mall, the nearest Western shopping experience, with its big 4th-floor movie complex, well-stocked supermarket, MacDonalds, coffee bars, branded fashion houses, a large bookstore and much besides. It’s packed, and people are buying. Among the younger locals here, the youthiform of slogan-ed T-shirts and denim probably outnumbers the more traditional sari, and there is gold a-plenty on fingers, arms and toes.
The mall is air-conditioned and, when the periodic blackouts occur, generators kick in within seconds to keep the power, lighting and muzak going. It’s a little reminiscent of Budapest’s Mammut Mall, but you do get the feeling here that people are spending money.
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