Adjusted to Chaos

Deductive Logic 101:

IF hell is other people,
THEN India is hell.

I am in India.

THEREFORE I am in hell.

But actually I am not in hell. I am the only white person in a sea of brown. Once the nervous system adjusts to the unholy amount of stimulus it receives here, it's really a lot of fun. At first, traveling across a new foreign city is like a Flintstones cartoon where Fred is running through the house and passes the same table chair and window ten times before cutting to the next scene. It's interesting to go past the same places as before, and rather than a continuous blur of billboards, shantys, stray dogs, things start to stick out. Unless you're in the dunes of the Sahara, there are always landmarks. Some things are just plain redundant, and this is still confusing. For example, yesterday, I saw Mahatma Ghandi five times around town. First, he was rummaging through a pile of trash, next he was standing on a corner smoking a cigarette, then he was in heated debate with one of his countrymen, after that I saw him in a shirt and tie with a briefcase on his way to work. The last time I saw Ghandi was on the way back to my place, where he was tilling some of the red soil outside of his house, getting ready to plant something.

Transportation here is an artform. The idea of a westerner accustomed to western rules of the road trying to manage any vehicle whatsoever is plain ludicrous. Streets are often 6 lanes wide, but there are no lanes. People and animals are wandering in the middle of the smoke and din, crossing wherever they please. Crossing the road on foot is an artform in its own right. About a dozen times a day, I wait for a slight lull so that I can stroll directly in front of busses, cars, bikes, scooters. It's unnerving at first, but then again, how can a billion people all be wrong? Another reason why having your own vehicle here is that autorickshaws, or "autor's" cost about 20 cents a kilometer, which means that any trip around town costs less than a dollar. Autorickshaws are the more humane version of their predecessor, the people-powered kind. They are little three-wheeled covered go-carts with a bench seat in the back, powered by flatulent two-stroke LPG engines that spew black, dusty noxiousness into every cranny of town (and onto me as well... who needs talcum powder?). They go everywhere and have to be the best way to get immersed in the city. I take somewhere in the range of 6 autors a day.

Last night I had my first conversation with a white person since I got here. I went on a chatboard about Bangalore and posted a message saying I was here and bored. A software programmer from New Zealand responded. We met up and had a couple of beers at the Guzzler's inn on Brigade Road in the semi-posh part of town. As it turns out, no one who comes here for work isn't bored and isolated. Apart from this blog and a few emails, it was the only chance I've had to get all these pent up observations and feelings out of my system. Very cathartic for the both of us.

Things here are fascinating. The spectrums of views, sounds, smells, and tastes are all brand-new to me. There is nothing to do but to stay sharp and try to take it all in.