Bangalorean Day

I am currently sitting at the lovely "Cafe Coffee Day" to write-- it's one of the more Western places in Bangalore, and has computers for use for 60rupees per half hour. I don't like it, particularly, but the monsoon has brought irregularity to Visthar's connection, so I'll take what I can get! However, if my spelling and punctuation are erratic, be aware that I am working on a keyboard that is perhaps slightly past its prime. And then, I just received a complimentary cappuccino and airline-style packet of cookies, so perhaps not all is lost :) There is some sort of techno Europop restyle of 7 Nation Army on the loudspeakers, a bit too loud for 2 in the afternoon. It's an interesting mix of east and west, to say the least.

Cafe Coffe Day stands in a nice counterpoint to the rest of the day, which up until this point has been a lovely day of wandering the city and tagging along as Barbara, the Swiss girl teaching English at Visthar, shops for small things to take home with her when she leaves at the end of the month. It reminds me of how hard it was for me to leave Bangalore two years ago, and I feel for her, and I understand the love in her eyes as we ride around in a rickshaw through the heart of the city. We went to City Market for spices: saffron, turmeric, garam masala and chilie. City Market is easily one of the busiest, dirtiest places in Bangalore, the meeting place where everyone gathers to exchange in day to day commerce -- fruits and vegetables and flowers strung in chains and cooking vessels and simple clothes and spices. It is dizzying, with people shoulder to shoulder, and the merchants shouting over each other their products and prices, and bullocks blocking the way, insence burning too thickly to cover the smell of rotting produce. On the ground, fruit peels mix with straw, making it slippery in the monsoon drizzle, which seems not to stymie the men carrying huge baskets of pomegranites on their heads but only me. Barbara bought a cooking vessel for making idli, and as we sat, we had a long conversation with a Muslim steel merchant about President Obama, who he is in favor of (though, had to clarify that Obama is not actually Musilm-- a worldwide misconception?), the excitement of travelling in Rajasthan, and marriage. Thankfully, he was 26, two years our senior, and not married, so he gave Barbara and I a pass for being too old to be unmarried. We are usually not so lucky :) He was a little surprised that we had no arranged marriage in the US/Switzerland, and recommended that we look into it - much better success rates than love marriage. These are conversations I relish, these moments of meeting across the divides of culture and class and gender and religion to have a small cup of chai and a discussion about the things we love.

Bangalore is a place in constant transition -- transition that moves much faster, in my estimation, than most places. There is a constant requirement of focus, and consideration (cross the street now? No, huge truck coming... now? No, no! Now? Run! The rickshaw will stop!) It makes the city exciting and exhausting, all at once -- and it makes returning to the gentle peace of Visthar so wonderful at the end of the day. The pollution of the traffic and the city lingers in your hair, and on your clothes, but also some of the beauty. It is that beauty that brings me back, over and over and over again.