I had some spare time this morning, so I took a stroll through the neighborhood where my hotel is. The highlight of the adventure was the near three-way collision between an autorickshaw, a bicycle carrying about 3 dozen coconuts, and a scooter whose passenger was carrying a 20-inch television. I have a hard time imagining that someone would decide that it’s a great idea to hop on the back of your buddy’s scooter and take your television, let alone in this traffic.
I walked down the main road where my hotel is, and turned left onto a larger road and was amazed at how calm the traffic was at 8 in the morning; I only heard about a 7 honks per second, whereas normal traffic hovers around 35. I went about a block and turned down a side street and headed back towards the hotel.
India is amazing. To a Westerner, there is a lot of noise and commotion, and things seem disorganized and messy. But, if you look closely, there is beauty everywhere: people take care of everything they have; sweeping and cleaning, putting on their best clothes, and making sure their belongings are as tidy as possible. A valuable lesson for anyone.
As I’m sure is the case with most visitors to India, my first real impression of the country came on the taxi ride from the airport to the hotel; my first activities consisted of finding my way through the airport and getting my luggage; hardly an opportunity to stop and take in your surroundings.
I had heard countless times about the traffic and activity on Indian streets, but nothing can prepare you for what it is like.I’m in Bangalore on business, and I have been working with people from India for most of my professional career.In my experience, they have been intelligent and hard-working, but most notably, they have been very process-oriented.With this in mind, the complete chaos of Indian traffic is a paradox beyond comprehension.The only rules of traffic that I’ve been able to identify are (a) there is no incident small enough not merit the honking of a horn, (b) traffic signs and lights are for sissies, and (c) although the idea is that the flow of traffic is roughly split between left and right and, in general, one drives on the left-hand side of the road; lanes are meaningless.Even this last one seems to be more of a “guideline” than a rule, and there have been more than a few occasions where I was in the sole car going the wrong way through oncoming traffic because it was slightly more convenient for the driver.
As a pedestrian, the experience shifts from being nerve-wracking to utterly terrifying.I wouldn’t say that traffic tries to hit pedestrians; it’s more that it doesn’t really try to avoid hitting pedestrians.While it appears to be frowned upon, it doesn’t seem to be a major concern.My strategy is to shield myself in a crowd that I estimate is bigger than any driver is willing to hit.Twenty to thirty appears to be the magic number.
With the goal of having me survive my visit to India, my company has assigned me a driver, Murali, who drives me everywhere I want to go – day and night, 7 days a week – and who waits for me while I shop, or eat, or try to hopscotch my way across a street (and he probably also laughs at my ignorance, but he doesn’t get paid for that part).Murali’s charter includes showing me around Bangalore and the surrounding area, taking me to any kind of restaurant I like, and keeping me alive.
On my first weekend here in Bangalore, Michelle came across from Chennai by train.She arrived around 1:00pm, and after some minor confusion on how to meet each other, we met halfway around the world from where we’d last seen each other.
My driver took us around Bangalore, showing us some important government buildings and taking us shopping.Afterwards, he took us to a restaurant where we were going to have some drinks and dinner.
We arrived at the restaurant around 5:00pm, and were told that they won’t serve dinner until 7:00 because they had to fuck first, but we were welcome to have drinks while we waited.Michelle and I stood in stunned silence for a few very long moments while we tried to understand what the hostess could possibly mean.Finally we realized that they were planning to fumigate (fog, not fuck, apparently) the terrace to clear out the various flying nuisances that are common in the area.Relieved, we accepted and settled into a table and ordered some drinks.A few minutes later, we found ourselves in a suffocating cloud of DDT or whatever they fumigated with.Ever since, my elbow has felt funny, and I’m pretty sure it’s because I’m growing a second head there.Stupid DDT.
The next day, Murali took us to the city of Mysore, about three hours - 100 kilometers - southwest of Bangalore.On the way, we stopped at a Muslim temple where orphans were attending Karan school, we went to a Hindi temple where I was blessed by a holy man, and to a bird sanctuary where Murali arranged for a private, covered boat to take us around a lake where we saw a stunning array of birds and were much closer to crocodiles than I would care to ever be again.Oh, and we saw monkeys.
To recap: traffic is crazy, if you’re not honking, you’re doing something wrong, DDT makes my elbows feel funny, and monkeys and crocodiles are cool.
I mentioned to one of my team members the paradox of how process oriented the team is, yet how chaotic the traffic is. He laughed and said, “Yes, we are very process oriented only in the office. In traffic, we follow the Agile method.”
A new realm of possibility was opened up for Mack this weekend. We already established that Skyline Lake was the coolest thing Smackimus had ever seen, but there was one missing ingredient for the Total Awesomeness (TA) that Mack always knew existed: snow.
Anyone who has spent time with Mack knows that Semi Awesomeness (SA) is the baine of his existence. In any given situation, he is giving 110% to find a way to make it rule more. This usually results in him pissing someone off and Semi Awesomeness quickly becoming No Awesomeness, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to stop trying. At long last, Total Awesomeness has been found. It was established when Jim and I took Mack and Bromley backcountry skiing last weekend. Bromley was already well established in the backcountry ways, but this was a new one for Mack. While he had been snowshoeing with us in Minnesota, it lacked a certain element of speed. Backcountry allowed him to chase us at full tilt while jumping off cliffs into snowbanks.
The top two maneuvers that established TA were the following:
The End-O. There was a reasonably firm top layer of snow on some of the slopes we were skiing. Just firm enough for a dog to stay on top of, but not firm enough to hold the skiers. Jim and I figured out pretty quickly that the best way to manage the dogs (read: keep them from running into the path of a skier and taking a metal ski edge to the jugular) was to have Jim ski in front with the dogs chasing him, and have me ski behind, keeping the dogs between us. Mack was chasing Jim at full tilt, staying on the surface of the snow. Suddenly, he post-holed both front legs up to his chest and did a complete flip. He didn’t miss a beat and just kept on chasing.
The Huckleberry Dill. Jim witnessed more of this than I did, but I think I can convey the incident with some degree of accuracy. Mack was blasting through the woods and came to a small ledge maybe 8 feet high. Naturally, he hucked off the top of it, tucking his paws up under his chest for maximum aerodynamics. After a few moments, he stretched out his paws to ready for a graceful, feather-light landing into the snowbank below. The only unexpected element was that the snowbank was seemingly bottomless and Mack disappeared into to a puff of snow. Poof.
The highlight of the adventure was the near three-way collision between an autorickshaw, a bicycle carrying about 3 dozen coconuts, and a scooter whose passenger was carrying a 20-inch television. I have a hard time imagining that someone would decide that it’s a great idea to hop on the back of your buddy’s scooter and take your television, let alone in this traffic.
tries to hit pedestrians; it’s more that it doesn’t really try to avoid hitting pedestrians.
but we were welcome to have drinks while we waited.
but there was one missing ingredient for the Total Awesomeness (TA) that Mack always knew existed: snow.
