Buses burned: 3

Location: Howrah
Reason: deteriorating health caused by 25 days of hunger strike

Christmas canoe trip

This past weekend, as a Christmas gift to myself, I left Bangalore for the first time. Along with six others and two guides, I went canoeing on the Supa reservoir, a vast lake created by a hydroelectric dam in the Kali River. For three days we made camp on an island covered in tall bamboo. At the end of each day we paddled out from the island’s alcove to watch a double sunset as the show in the sky met its reflection in the water. We returned to a bonfire each night and dinner cooked on open flame. At night as the bamboo swayed under the breeze, the whole island creaked with the sound of hundreds of old wooden doors slowly opening and closing.

For three days my entire world was perfectly serene, except for the torturous snoring coming from the other half of my shared tent. Each night, the quiet calm of our island camp was hewn by what sounded like the shrieks of a pig drowning in mayonnaise. Crows picking over our cooking area scattered at the sound of the snoring. Droves of small furry animals -- the big-eyed Disney type -- drowned themselves as they fled the island in terror. But even something this loathsome I could get past. Here’s how: Whenever faced with a snorer, clap your hands together a single time as loudly as you can. The snorer will wake up, but will have no idea why, as there will be no conscious recollection of having heard the clap. Meanwhile, feign sleep. Repeat as necessary. The snorer won’t have a clue.

Iodine

This Friday I’m leaving Bangalore for the first time since I arrived. I’m taking advantage of the long holiday weekend (yes, Christmas is a holiday in India) for a 3-day canoeing trip on the Supa Reservoir. To prepare for the trip, I went from store to store yesterday trying to find things I knew I would need, such as a sewing kit to patch my backpack, industrial-grade insect repellant, and a dry bag to keep my camera safe.

My last stop was visit to a pharmacist to pick up iodine in case I needed to treat the reservoir water for drinking. As happens every time I need to buy something that I can’t point at, the pharmacist and I went through the usual custom of me saying one word over and over again, each time adding a slightly different inflection -- “Iodine? . . . iodine? . . . iodine?. . . . iodine? . . . you know . . . brown . . . *cough*, *cough* . . . ack!” as I tried to recreate the horribly painful childhood experience of having the back of my throat painted by a Q-tip dripping with iodine.

The pharmacist went to the back of the store and returned with something I didn’t recognize, but was definitely not iodine. I pointed at the brand name on the box and reemphasized that it was iodine I was looking for. He then insisted that it was iodine in the box, it just had a different name here. I looked back at the box. There was a drawing of a sleeping frog on the back. “Iodine is an element. The name doesn’t change.” He considered the point, then shuffled off to the back of the store again. When he returned to the counter, he smiled confidently, said “iodine!” as if to convey that we were finally on the same page, and then presented me with three boxes of Viagra.

In re burned buses

I’m afraid I may have been a bit misleading in a previous post when I suggested that angry mobs tend to burn buses following traffic accidents. What I failed to mention is that a traffic accident is in no way a prerequisite to a bus burning. Buses get burned for any number of reasons, most having nothing to do with the bus. Yesterday, for example, a bus was set on fire while its driver was sleeping in the back, and on November 30 a bus was burned to protest the vandalism of a statue. Both are obviously not traffic-related offenses.

The burning of buses is far too fascinating to ignore, so I’m going to keep a running tally of how many buses are set on fire during my stay here.

Buses Burned: 2

A day at the races

I met a couple from South Africa two weeks ago when I crashed a charity fundraising event put on by the Bangalore Expat Club. They were new to Bangalore, having just arrived from Vietnam three weeks prior, but it was clear they were already at ease in the place they’d be calling home for the next two years. They’re both the savvy traveling type that can relocate from one country to another more effortlessly than I can move from my kitchen to my couch. With such sophistication about them, I was naturally surprised when they invited me to join them at the Bangalore Turf Club for a day of horse races.

When we met at the racecourse the following weekend, we noticed new televisions being installed throughout the club’s ground level. The new televisions were not being installed to upgrade the facilities, but on account of an incident that occurred during a race the day before. After opening with a big lead over the competition, the race’s second favorite horse slowed during the straight before the finish line, apparently after its jockey made several furtive glances back at the distance he had put between himself and the competition. As the lead horse slowed, Hidalgo, a 33-to-1 outsider, passed for the win.

Enraged by the apparent throwing, the crowd reacted by smashing all of the ground floor’s 30 televisions. When they ran out of televisions, the mob went after the jockeys, who had locked themselves in the room for weighing horses. In the 45 minutes before the police arrived, the mob ransacked the jockey room, destroyed betting windows, and generally made a mess of things.

And so here I was walking into the Turf Club the very next day, and it was as if nothing had happened. It was business as usual; the events of the day before had been shrugged off like poor weather. But given the keenness for mob action in Bangalore, I suppose it wasn’t all that unusual either. When buses are involved in traffic accidents, they tend to be set ablaze by angry mobs long before the police arrive. This has happened four times since June; it seems to be something of a civic duty.

Though there were no televisions broken or vehicles burned during my day at the races, I did spill my drink after losing on a horse named Jedi Knight. Hardly newsworthy, but tragic nonetheless.

A monkey

I walked out of my apartment last week to find a monkey going through my garbage. I tried to get close to take a picture, but he hissed at me as if to encourage me to think otherwise. When I considered that my younger sister was both born and married since my last rabies vaccination, I quickly saw the wisdom in the monkey’s notion of keeping a safe distance.