Halebidu: Incredible Hoysala art, More Jain Stuff

Our final stop on the Belur circuit was Halbedu, where two architecturally important temples are located on the old Hoysala trail. There are two major temples in Halebidu - the first temple we went into was Hoysaleshawara, located about smack-dab in the center of town. It's a temple dedicated to Shiva, and was largely funded by his wealthy followers in the old Hoysala empire. It was built partly as an in-your-face gesture to the Vaishnava supporters who built the Chennakesava Temple at Belur. Ah, competition.



As at the Chennakesava Temple, the majority of the structures within are constructed from easily worked soapstone. Soapstone was dispensed with in favor of granite in the successive Vijayanagara dynasty - it's plentiful, and you can build really big stuff with it - but soapstone is tops when it comes to the creation of intricate and supple detail.



These bulls are Nandi statues, which can be seen in spades all over Karnataka. Nandi is the bull that Shiva rides, and the gatekeeper of Shiva and Parvati, his consort. The worship of a cattle god in the guise of Nandi can be traced all the way back to the Indus Valley civilization, which venerated dairy products and (thus) the cow. Cliffs Notes Version: this is why you have to drive around cows on the street in India. Nandi statues are often put at the entrance of temples dedicated to Shiva - he stands as the sentry, or gatekeeper to the inner sanctum.


I love the roofs in these Hoysala temples. You must spend some time looking up around here.

The temple dates all the way back to 1121 CE, and, like most Hindu temples, functions as a sort of building cum-learning device. Images from the Ramayana and other iconic works of Hindu literature are portrayed in vivid detail all over the walls. It was nice having Summa along to point out what each image represented and to narrate the stories for me. Sure as hell wouldn't have figured it out on my own. (As with most Indian tourist stops, the "guides" who follow you around usually know less then you do).



These rows of symbolic images mirror the temple at Belur. None of them are identical. The same goes for the repeating rows of symbolic animals.



My beloved makara (mythological guardian beast) makes another appearance here. Note the ornate swans above them, symbolizing beauty.


The door to the temple. I like the guys with their arms around each other here. Men do this all over India. Nothing gay about it.

Halebidu was sacked by Muslim invaders in the 14th century, but the temple (rather miraculously) avoided incurring much damage. It was renovated and now exists in a remarkably intact state.



This temple is remarkably steep around the edges. Probably helped keep the water away from it. This is not exactly a dry region.


Liked this austere looking woman a lot.


The second major temple at Halebid is the Kedareshwara temple, dating from around 1319 BC. It hasn't maintained its original form inside, but the outside more then makes up with it. The same repeating "bands" of animals are here, but most remarkable are the story-telling figures on the outside walls. They are portrayed with an inordinate and totally charming amount of personality. My camera decided this would be a fabulous time to die, so I was forced to switch to my Iphone camera. I'm pleasantly surprised, actually.


Details on the walls. Incredible. You could look at this for days.



Shiva dancing his cosmic dance.



I love the Dravidian method of portraying lions and other animals.



A very get-to-the-point portrayal of Yama, the God of Death. There's an even more distressing portrayal of the terrifying goddess Kali elsewhere, but the camera wouldn't cooperate.



After these temples, we made a brief stop at the nearby Jain basadi. They seem to get even fewer visitors then the other spots. Had to go wake up the guard so he could open the gate to let us in to the last one. There were a couple of these, and it's hard to find their names. The man who administered the temple was very small, and dark, and his eyes had the yellow of jaundice in them. He spoke no English, but my companions spoke Hindi (naturally), and by means of this we were able to communicate. He was deadly serious about his job and his position, and directed us to the remarkably shiny pillars within. They were made of soapstone, and so smooth and burnished by age that they reflected back blurry and mirror-like. He began making strange hand gestures in front of them. "It's a special feature of the pillars," Sumanjay explained. "He is saying that if you move your hands, or your arms, in a certain way, it will make a funny reflection."

This the daughter did. "It works!" she said. "He claims that it makes you look like an aspect of Shiva, with all the arms." I watched her wave her arms a bit. She was correct: the reflection came back with many arms. Other motions produced a snake, a tiger, and a spider. I somewhat doubt this was intended by the Hoysala architects. Time has, I think, given these pillars their special shine. But it is certainly an added feature.

The little man led us to the back of the temple, which featured a Jain image rather similar to that of the hill. A naked, "sky-clad" man with his eyes closed in seemingly blissful reverence, his legs stumpy, his body soft and feminine. It was a temple not in use, or not in anyone's memory: the stairs climbed up to the top of the statue's head so that worshippers could dump milk and ghee and honey over him during festival times. I was most interested in the bats: the bats that clung to the door that protected the statue, and fluttered half-heartedly around in the light of day. I thought of rabies, of course - rabies, swift and fatal, a disease that (doubtless) was not entirely easy to treat in India - but the bats appeal won out. When they flutter, though, one understands why ladies in the olden days were afraid that they might get tangled in your hair. The guide watched, stone-faced and weathered, as we oohed and ahhed over the bats. They were nothing new to him.

I stood outside of the temple, for a moment, and watched the landscape around me. It was a classic scene of the Deccan plateau, replete with tall coconut palms, and water buffalo in the field just over there, and fresh tropical flowers in reds and yellows, and little woven reed-huts of the local people. A rice paddy lay a little away, and there were women working in it, almost at the end of their day. The Deccan, is, I think, a landscape that is naturally pleasant and amiable to mankind. It is the sort of gentle and fertile landscape that is written into our DNA, and is the kind that sustains us. "Goodness," Sumanjay said, as she came up behind me. "I have had more then enough temples for the day, I think."

We loaded ourselves into the car, and so, back to Bangalore. Night time was falling, slowly and with a lot of orange, all around the Deccan, and it was a tropical sunrise and of the sort that I remember from my very earliest childhood in Florida. The hills of the region switched their lights on, and we passed by village after tropical village, full of kids in uniforms heading home from school, and men and women shushing their bullocks about the hindquarters with little palm flails. The huts were often made of woven palm, and resembled to a remarkable extent the sort of thing one might find at a tropical resort in California or Hawaii. "In the USA, we have huts like those in expensive tourist resorts. People think they add character."
"Really?" Sumanjay said. "They are nice huts, and very pretty, but they only last about three years. They're just home, or storage, out here."

We passed by the region that was known to harbor dacoits, but thankfully, it was not entirely dark as of yet, and we would have been able to made evasive manuevers if any had leapt out of the bushes at us. I for one did not harbor anything particularly valuable, other then a few thousand rupees and an Iphone. Of course, such treasures made possible by American decadence were doubtless more then enough to succor the average dacoit, who made his living in the most hand to mouth fashion possible. I thought of the thugees, the renowned (and charismatic) strangler-bandits of the raj era. They were finally brought to heel by one of the British administrators, who, quite cleverly, put them in a prision and set them to making crafts and greeting tourists, in lieu of hanging them. Smart man.

I managed to stay awake all the way back to Bangalore. I think this was four hours, but I am not sure. It is hard to figure out just when one has entered the area of a flat Indian city. There are always countless villages, and the highways are either invisible, taken-out, or otherwise rendered unusable. The street signs are few and confusing, even to Hindi and Kannada speakers, and the villagers rarely are able to give anything approximating directions. The rains of the monsoon make everyone confused, and make everyone (eventually) lost. "The road is terrible, he says, and so he'll divert and try to find a new one."

We got lost in this endeavor, of course. I guess we were about 50 Km from Bangalore, but with Indian cities, this means nothing whatsoever in terms of what time you will actually get home. There is the traffic to consider, and Bangalore's is some of the worst in India. The city began as a laid-back garden village, a Raj administrative center in the salubrious climate of the Deccan, and it's sudden and explosive growth after the IT explosion was tragically unplanned. So during peak hours - which of course, we were returning in- the entire city turns into a massive and rowdy traffic snarl, full of auto-rickshaws, motorbikes, cars, buses, and God knows what else all seemingly converging on a single point, and all of them blasting their horns as loudly and as often as possible. We knew we were back in Bangalore, or at least sort of back in Bangalore, when the village traffic began to give way to slightly larger buildings, and then even larger, then even larger, and then we were in the Majestic region. Or at least we thought so. Sumanjay and the driver were no more sure then myself, and they conferred in break-neck Kannada about the matter, as I sat a bit pissed off against the door handle, and cursed Indian traffic. My dinner time was passing away, and this was, to me, a tragedy.

Belur Temple: Makaras, Soapstone Masterpieces, A Little Rain

Our next stop was the Chennakesava Temple, about 40 KM from Hassan. Hassan is souless, muddy, and distinctly unwelcoming, but it is also a decent connecting point if you're intrepid enough to use public transportation to get from temple to temple. (I wasn't).


The incredibly smooth and circular pillars within. Hard to believe it's all soapstone and not some sort of poured metal.

The temple is Hoysala, like most of the historical monuments in this part of the world, and was commisoioned by the remarkably tasteful King Vishnuvardhana in 1117 CE. No one is entirely sure why he comissioned this temple- theories range from an architectural brag over victory in battle to a sudden (and pricy) conversion from Jainism to Vaishnavism - but everyone is happy that he did. Chennakesava is one of the true highlights of Dravidian art. The sculptures within remind the viewer of black and incredibly supple metal, as they have been polished and aged to a metallic gloss. They're actually made from soapstone, which provided a soft and easily worked medium for the small army of artists who worked on the complex.


Here, be interpreted.

Although the temple is rather small, the unbelievable detail of the figures - deities, animals, and people - within makes it a remarkably absorbing destination. You could spend hours in here with a magnifying glass and discover thousands of new things, and never get bored. The statues within were intended to represent every facet of life, from the mundane to the superlative and divine, and the temple succeeds in its mission: you'll find images of chariots, dogs, and day-to-day goings on interspersed with images of Shiva, Narasimha, and other iconic Hindu figures.

Well, if you could get the opportunistic and ignorant "guides" who prowl around here to leave you alone. (They are as common as cockroaches in India and just as impossible to kill or permanently drive off. Resign yourself now.)



The entrance to the complex features this huge Vijayangara-era Gopuram. It definitely bears a remarkable resemblance to the one in Hampi's Virpukasha complex.



The Belur temple is based off the standard Hoysala temple plan, with about twelve times more complexity then is the norm thrown in to liven things up.



One of the weathered but eternally charismatic statue on the outside of the temple.



The temple is built on a jagati or platform, which allows the worshipper to do a circuit around the outside of the building before entering. It's also a convenient way to get from entry-way to entry-way.



The Vimana shrine at the back of the building features a beloved icon of Vishnu. It was just being locked away when we got there, though we were allowed to stick our head in for a "donation" of 100 rupees or so. The ornate offerings of flowers are changed often - the idol itself is relatively small, but of obvious intrinsic importance. The icon has been in its position since around 1117 AD.



These guys, adorned in flowers, decorated the area near the sealed doorway. Hoysala art is a skillful combination of the ornate and the soft - the figures have a pillowy softness about their faces and hips, set off by the incredibly delicate and intricate appearance of their jewelry and background. The locals should be proud: it's a testament to them that this place has survived mostly unscathed since the 12th century.



Note the door guardians or dvarapalaka. I am extremely taken with these creatures. They're called makara, and can be found in spades in most Hindu temples. (They're also common in Indonesian Hindu art). They are usually considered to be aquatic beasts, and some theorize they are representations of a) a river crocodile, b) a river dolphin, or c) TRUNKO, a mysterious cryptozoological beast.

Guess which theory I like best. Come on. Try.



The temple's 48 supporting pillars are all quite obviously different from one another, giving the structure a sense of variety not pleasant in many such religious structures. A few of them have such an incredibly fine and smooth circular shape to them that it is hard to believe they were produced without the aid of machines. It is a shame that stone working is largely an entirely lost art. Some of the pillars feature madanikas, or "celestial damsels," all of them representing a different concept. They may also be popular because their breasts are immense. Not surprising, as they are intended to represent the ideal female form, modeled upon the apparently very foxy Queen Shantaladevi.



This cobra vehicle is used to wheel out the representation of Vishnu on festivals. The cobra represents Adishesha, a thousand hooded snake associated mostly with Lord Vishnu. The snake is a primeval image associated with water: his thousand hoods represent time and the divisions of time within it.


Puja offerings inside the temple.

I have got more photos of the outside of the temple, primarily because the lighting was better. Also, there's a lot of incredible stuff outside as well. This is a representation of Sala killing the tiger that attempted to kill his guru - the story that served as the origin of the empire's name "Hoysala". (Some say the Sala myth was developed considerably after the founding of the Empire, to make everything seem more legitimate. Well, I like the damned legend better).


Kneeling elephant statues. Elephants played a major role in pretty much every Indian kingdom of any note - Hampi features a series of incredibly elaborate elephant stables. I imagine the Hoysalas kept a mahout or two on the payroll as well. It is nice to know that such lovely statues can weather generations of tourists sitting upon them and yelling "TAKE MY PICTURE/SKETCH ME (prior to cameras)" to their friends.



Incredibly detailed rows of beasts and deities adorn the temple's outside. The repetition of fine detail is indeed impressive. This is a structural feature you'll find on most Hoysala-era temples. The style is, apparantly, called most correctly "horizontal treatment with friezes" which is not particularly sexy. The elpephants symbolize strength, the lions courage, and the horse symbolize speed.


I just like this picture.

A storm was coming in over the plains of the Deccan, and we got a small mist of raindrops as we walked around the temple grounds. This was refreshing in the way of Indian rainstorms - a welcome and natural respite from the stuffy and lingering heat of the day.



I wondered, mostly, why this place doesn't get more tourists. There is nothing quite like it in India - the Hoysala art style is distinctive - and it is exceptionally well maintained and taken care of. I suppose it comes down to infrastructure. A three hour drive over bad and livestock-heavy roads from Bangalore isn't something most people want to spend their vacation time doing. The only tourists seem to be a small scattering of Hindus on a spiritual outing, although I imagine their numbers climb when a special festival is afoot. A pity. On the other hand, I can't complain about having this magnificent place mostly to myself. I love little more then being able to tool around incredibly old stuff and be left entirely alone, just me and the occasional burst of raindrops.

Andhra Food: A Spicy Bone of Contention

Andhra food is a matter of pride. Every Hyderbadi I know defends the food of his or her native land with zealous and slightly insane pride. It is deadly to mention that you have partaken of biryani in a Hyderabadi's presence. "What kind of biryani?" they will ask as they move in closer to you, a look of growing insanity in their eye.

"A biryani biryani, with meat in it," may seem to be the correct answer. But of course, it is not.

You must reply "Hyderabadi biryani," and furthermore, the biryani must have hailed from a reputed restaurant or source of such. (They may be found overseas, but they are rare).

If the biryani is not Hyderabadi, or not vetted - well, so much for you. "How can you eat hat crap?" your Andhra friend will say. "We have got the best biryani, the best food in India, the world, and you subject yourself to that swill? What kind of a fool are you anyway?" After the verbal abuse, the Hyderbadi will inevitably whip out a pen and paper and write down the names of at least four or five places in which one can find real Hyderabadi biryani, and will cluck a few times in sorrow and horror. And then they will send you on your way.

And the people of Andhra Pradesh really do earn their bragging rights. There is the vaunted biryani, of course, but there is more to Andhra food then that. The cuisine is extremely sophisticated, has a long history, and involves a profusion of excellent local ingredients, including fresh dairy, fresh seafood and vegetables, and tons of blow-your-face-off hot green chilies. Andhra food today is a synthesis of local food - not dissimilar to that of the rest of South India - and the Mughlai food brought by the old time rulers of still predominantly Muslim Hyderabad. Rice and lentils are the main carbohydrates on offer, although papad (lentil crackers) are also popular. In Telgana, Western Andhra Pradesh, people even eat uppudi hindi or broken rice, a dish more commonly associated with Indochina. Pickles and chutneys come in a bazillion different forms and are considered entirely integral to a good Andhra style meal. The people of Andhra's coast lines prefer coconut and sesame oils to ghee and palm oils - it's a flavor that's pretty easy to detect in many of the region's speciality foods.

My favorite expression of the region's culinary genius comes in the form of Andhra "carrier meals."

A carrier meal is exactly what it sounds like. You are given a banana leaf, and a bunch of little thali dishes, composed of some form of vegetable and dahi and ghee and sambar. Then, a man comes around carrying a few metal pots, in which are contained the day's dishes. These are usually some form of rather bitter daal, a stir-fried vegetable, and something involving potato. Another man comes by to provide you with papad (lentil crackers), roti, and rice, with a dollop of liquid ghee to top it off. To supplement the meal, most non-vegetarians order some spicy (and bright red) fish fry, or perhaps a fish curry, or maybe even some of Andra's beloved fried chicken. The food keeps on coming until you tell it to stop or keel over, whichever comes first. Andra restaurants are usually busy and social establishments, with a mix of businessmen and women, families, and random hangers on (like myself), all eating ferociously with their right hands and shouting happily at each other over matters of great import. The carrier meals at lunch are usually scandalously cheap. 200 rupees is pushing it.


Bheema's
Asha Building,
Ground Floor,
31, Church Street,
Bangalore - 560 001



Bheemas is located on Church Street, and is a favorite haunt of Bangalore's umpteen downtown IT Professionals (whatever that means). Like everywhere else in India, it is a deserted ghost town until about 1:00 sharp, wherin it almost instantly fills up with the famished and highly paid. Like all Andhra style food, Bheema's serves up its veg carrier meals on a banana leaf - and eating with your hands is pretty much mandatory.

I ordered the carrier meal. Everyone orders the carrier meal. It's 225 rupees for a constantly-replinished spread of Andhra dishes, and it's even (theoretically) somewhat healthy. The stir-fried vegetables are tasty. The daal was a bit bitter for me - I like Nagarjuna's version better.



Buttermilk and curd served with a little bit of chili, salt, and onion. It's amazing how refreshing buttermilk can be in hot weather. There's also a sweet dessert of vermicelli with milk and lots of sugar. Papad and rice are mandatory. You can get some liquid ghee drizzled on the rice or not, your choice.



Apparently this is not sambar but is in fact charu, which is...pretty much the same thing. Don't ask me.



I also ordered aloo gobi, which turned out to be both excellent and not needed considering the amount of food already on offer. Still, a lovely representative of a dry dish that is often man-handled.



Nagarjuna Residency



Nagarjuna is an institution in Bangalore. The firm runs at least four or five other restaurants and a hotel besides, and it's attractively outfitted dining rooms turn into total nut houses around lunchtime. The guys carrying the carrier-meals look harried, but the food is totally worth it, featuring spices ground fresh daily and obviously intensely fresh dairy, vegetable, and fish products. This is definitely Andhra food at its best, and you're missing out on an essential Bangalore culinary experience if you don't make it over here. I love the tomato-sesame oil prepared chutney that's served with the veg and the daal here a lot . It's probably awful for you. Whatever.



I wanted the roast fish but they didn't comprehend this madness and brought me fried fish instead. Which was excellent, so much the better. No bones here, just tasty and perfectly cooked meat in a spicy and crispy filling. Excellent.



If you ever wondered where they get the banana leaves, the bug fuck insaneBangalore central market may provide an answer. They're purchased in bulk from various leaf sellers, who probably keep up banana leaf plantations somewhere or another in the tropical countryside. I like to think they are scrupulously washed prior to use. It's nicer that way.

Thippasandra Road Redux, Treat Restaurant, et all

Church street by night, Oh, Bangalore.

2008, Spring. I used to live on Thippasandra Road. It's a little lane in Indiranagar, in the classic guise of most cramped, tight, Indian streets. A shop of every variety is up there - all the buildings are two levels and most contain at least five separate establishments in postage stamp sized surroundings. There's cows on the street, stray dogs, and the usual Indiranagar combination of rich folks driving their Mercedes through the commotion, street people selling crap on the street, and mid-level people just trying to get by, usually by means of tiny 10 minute photo booths, cellphone sales emporiums (everyone has one, no exceptions) and real-estate offices and travel agents a plenty.

I counted four different gyms on that stretch. I joined one, briefly, back in 2008. The weight room full of steroid-afflicted men with enormous thighs, eager to show you how to do a pullup, and then the women next door, doing half-hearted aerobics to Bollywood musics. Signs on every lamp-post advertising services to help you Gain Or Lose Weight, your personal choice, no one is adequate.There's lights hung on the street at night, everyone stays up late, and the vegetable man wakes you up with his shouting at 6:00 every morning (throwing rocks at him won't stop him, give up now). There's potholes in the street, but less then in most other parts of Bangalore, and there's street kids, but less of them. Thippasandra is up-market.

The stray dogs get to know you when you're there for a while, for good or for bad. One dog on the street seemed to hate white people, especially blondes. He'd raise himself up and bark and chase me sometimes. I'd come home at night, to Thippasandra 5th Cross, and the street dogs would follow me home. I'm wearing spike heels and I'm drunk and a little high and the dogs are click-click-clicking behind me, and I click faster myself, and they speed up too, and then I'd slam the metal door behind me and stare at their yellow eyes for a moment. The dogs, all smiles and wagging tails, now that the chase was over. Bastards.

I went down to the Katary Villa on 5th Cross, this visit, 2010. I used to live there. It's a guest house catering to volunteers and interns from the Western world. It was nice for a while, to have partners in crime and people who had been in India for a while and knew the ways of rickshaw battles and angry dog avoidance. I came back here from Delhi, after I'd been in India for about three months and decided to stay longer. It was kind of a mistake - I had adjusted throughly, and the guesthouse devolved (as these things are wont to do) into drama. Still, it was a good sociological experiment, I guess. India stresses a lot of people. It freaks them out. The food bothers them, they find their volunteer jobs at orphanages horrifying (so many beatings!). The seams of the Villa started to show, too. You'd hear the woman who ran the place shouting late at night at her "girls."

The girls, as we figured out, were actually India's modern variant on indentured servitude. Poor girls from rural areas, dead or indigent parents, sent to Bangalore to work as house-servants. Katary did seem to be giving them access to education, and a better life then they would have had in backwater Tamil villages. The primary emphasis seemed to be on finding them a decent husband. They weren't really allowed outside the house sans supervision. The younger girl would sneak upstairs and raptly watch hyperactively violent Tamil movies on the upstairs television, when the afternoon was quiet and she wasn't needed around the house. She'd shush us when we walked in (so she wouldn't get caught), or she'd pretend to be doing some mundane cleaning when Katary would shuffle lugubriously up the stairs (she was very fat, and lame) once or twice a day. She'd often ask to use our cell phones to call her family, back home in the visit. All of this was done carefully, as subterfuge. Katary, it seemed, knew all and saw all. She was a devoutish Christian - hangings of the Last Supper were strewn around the place, and an American evangelist channel was playing often on the downstairs television. I wondered what the girls thought about the beer and whiskey bottles we left strewn most days around the table, if they wondered about the constant reek of hash and cigarettes that emanated from our living quarters. I shall probably never know.

I went back to Katary. It was night-time, and Bimbo, the house dog, was not in evidence. A light was on in what used to be the old boy's bedroom. They had built a new rain shelter up on the roof. No one was coming in, or out, and no noise emanated from inside. I peered up at the house and almost began to tear up. It was a strange moment.

I did not knock on the door.

Treat Restaurant
3047, 80ft Rd, HAL 2nd Stage,
Indira Nagar,
Bangalore - 560038.
Tel : 5282137



Treat is located on Bangalore's 80 Foot Road, only a convenient block or two away from the entrance to Thippasandra. It's a two level establishment - there's an affiliated Chinese restaurant upstairs- but I only ever ate at the Punjabi bit of the business. And it's excellent Punjabi food at reasonable prices. The dining room is quiet, clean, and serene. The servers are friendly and unusually subtle by Indian standards. The tandoori items are delicious. I've ended up defaulting to Treat after a long or tiring day more times then I'm entirely sure I want to admit. I love sitting in the upstairs room and watching the night traffic go by, and eating with my hands. It is so delightfully quiet.



They do great tandoori murgh here. Good old tandoori chicken, marinated in yogurt and spices. They get good chicken, and the meat is tender and carefully spiced. Nice when eaten with the pickled onions and mint-yogurt chutney provided at the table. You can eat with your hands and gnaw at the bones and the servers will regard this as par for the course. Eating customs are among my very favorite aspects of India. Get the lamb chops or the boti (lamb chunks) kebab here as well.



Tandoori gobi (cauliflower). I love this stuff. I have had a life long love affair with fibrous vegetables. Especially when marinated in yogurt and roasted. They also do good tandoori baby corn here.



I can personally suggest the bhindi (okra) masala. The restaurant is a particularly bad offender in what I call the Roti Upsell. The Indian mind finds the notion of a meal sans roti or rice completely unbelievable and untenable. I don't usually have bread with meals. They always look at me after I've finished eating, with big concerned eyes. "But madame, this is a gravy dish. You will not take roti?"
"Rather not, thank you."
"But madame. It is a gravy dish." (His eyes getting bigger, his face more astonished).
"I know it's a gravy dish. I's perfectly all right. I will take no roti or naan."
"But madame...."
"It's fine. Really."
(He walks away, convinced the foreigners are insane.)

There is a reason Atkins has made no inroads into India.

The India Readjustment Period (And How I Did It Anyway)

Bangalore Got Many Malls. and bikes.

I came back to India, and for the first day, I thought, "Why in the name of God am I here? What was I thinking?"

I am told this is not an unusual reaction from those who return to India. It is, as you can imagine, an even more common reaction from first-time travelers. A couple have (or so I am told) reached their hotel room, called up a nearby travel agency, and booked the first flight again. The cab ride through Old Delhi was more then enough for them. Jai Hind.

My reaction did not surprise me, of course. India is a slap in the face, a kick in the groin, a lascivious nudge on the sidewalk: India is something you cannot just step off the plane and wham-bam readjust yourself to. The experience is there, and the memory is there, of course. But they do not come on automatically, at the flick of a switch. To get these faculties back, the ability to Survive in India, that is a process and a matter of timing, a matter of patience.

You have to gain the ability to block out 89% of the sensory information you receive on a daily basis. You have to regain the ability to pay rapt, intense attention to the other 10%, because that is information that you will save you from being ripped off by rickshaw drivers, pillaged by gypsy children, and mowed down by Punjabi long-distance truckers. You have to regain situational blindness, the ability to un-see, the ability to look through and ignore and totally disregard most everyone you meet on the street - of particular import for the solitary female traveler. These are things that are possible, and instinctual if you have been before, but they are not easy, they are not easy to regain.


Abandoned house (and car) in Bangalore.

I was interested to find how guilty I was, how embarrassed I was simply to be seen there. I had just come from the ultra-modern paradise of Singapore, and before that, had spent two and a half weeks in the wealthy and incredibly quiet environs of Perth, Australia. And here I was in India, bypassing rabid rats and kids missing essential body-parts, and thinking to myself, "And I'm here to look at this, why? I'm not helping anybody. I'm not here to save anybody's life, console the sick, build schoolhouses, or feed the hungry from the largesse and generosity of the Mighty West. I am, all things said and done, on a holiday."

After all, those of us who reside in nice and quiet Western countries very rarely find ourselves questioning our presence, our existence, where we are and where choose to spend our time. We feel we have a right to be wherever we want, doing whatever we please: we exist in a state of extreme comfort. Even in a dangerous area in the USA - say, in my adopted home of New Orleans - I feel a certain amount of legitimacy. Someone may fuck with me, true, but they're fucking with me in a place we share, and in a culture we share, and makes me doubly indignant and pissed off if and when it happens. In India? There's a small twinge in the back of the mind. I'm an interloper. What if I deserve to get screwed over, for intruding, for staring, for ogling? What the hell am I doing here?

I had to learn how to cross the street, again. Crossing the street is by far the most nerve-wracking and personally distressing experience one is likely to have on a regular basis. Many third-world travelers like to say, with a tone of wonderment, "The traffic does look awful. But I've never seen anyone get hurt or killed. It must not be all that dangerous."

This is a classic logical fallacy.


The Bangalore palace grounds.

In fact, the traffic fatality rates are worse then you could possibly imagine. A person who crosses the street in India is playing live-action Frogger, and there are no extra lives. I relearned by crossing in packs - waiting for groups of people to gather, then shuffling across with them. Easy enough.

I had to learn how to look through people again. This behavior is considered incredibly rude and snobbish in the USA and in most parts of the Western World. It's basic survival as a foreign female in India. Men - be they horndogs, beggers, or touts - are not supposed to approach strange women in traditional Indian culture. It is perfectly within your rights to remind them of this on a regular basis. Same goes for female beggers and con-women as well. You've got to look right through them. Pretend they're not there. Don't even flick an eyelash. A lot of foreign travelers make the mistake of saying "No thank you" or "Well, not today," or even "Fuck off or I will kill you and your family." All of these phrases translate, in the Indian begger/tout/horn dog mind as, "Oh, please, would you follow me for the next mile and a half and refuse to leave me alone? Please please would you?"

This is also a bit like saying, "Oh, yes, I am indeed a walking ATM! So terribly clever of you to have noticed."

No, you have to look right through them. Thankfully, this comes easy to me. Everyone who knows me is aware that I'm something of a prodigy in the "ignoring stuff" department. Some of us are more talented then others, right?


Chaat corner I used to frequent, back in 2008.

The guilt, that was harder to shove away. I wasn't here for any reason, really, other then my own curiosity. Sure, I had a blog, and was doing some private research on Hampi and the Vijayanagara Dynasty. I was doing food blogging, and making an effort to seek out interesting local foods and food-sellers for the somewhat hazy benefit of the General Internet. But I wasn't there to fix anything or help anybody, like Tom. I was an ogler. Charity's never come naturally to me, anyway. I'm an observer and a speculator. I make comments, usually wry ones. I'll walk into any bug-fuck insane place and I'll wander through any bazaar and I'll eat anything put in front of me, but getting involved? Nah, that shit is scary.

So I walked down the street self-concious, for the first few days. People stare at you all the time in India, unabashed and astonished staring. I was in Bangalore - a generally gentle Southern city with a lot less edge then Northern hot-spots like Delhi or Agra - and people almost always left me alone. But the sensation of sticking out, of being so obviously The Other. That's hard to readjust to.

And it's necessary to experience. I think all white upper-middle class people from the USA or Britain or Australia (or any majority Caucasian country) have got to do something like this, just to have a little taste of what it's like to be the Freaky Minority of the week somewhere else.

I had a discussion about this with the lady who ran my homestay.

"Indians stare more then anyone else, and at everything, but especially at you guys, you white people. It's horrible. I don't know how you foreigners handle it, the constant staring, all that looking."

"To be honest I get to a point where I stop noticing it. It's just part of life in India. Sort of like feral dogs, sewage pits, and evil auto drivers. But I'm not sure Indians are the only people who stare."

"Would people stare at a foreigner like that in your city, in California?" she asked, obviously incredulous.

"Probably not. We have pretty much everything in California. Even the bad stuff. But, trust me. If a woman wearing a sari, like you, walked into a small town in a place like Nebraska...well, Nebraska, it's like...the Bihar of the USA, right? Middle of nowhere, backwards, empty, very few people. You'd get stared at all day long. People would point at you and giggle, and follow you around, and take photographs. You'd stand out like a sore thumb."

She was shocked. "Even in the USA, people would still do that?" She hadn't really thought about it, of course. For her, the USA was a cosmopolitan place, mostly defined by the hyperactively diverse opposite coasts. But there's that whole giant middle to consider. My Indian friends would be freaks from Planet Hind there. I'm the giant freak from Planet New Orleans here. Same, same, different different. It's good for both of us, I think, to get a little taste of it.

I'm writing this from Old Delhi, about three weeks later. Of course all that initial anxiety and worry and guilt went away. It took exactly five days - I was curious about how long it would take for the tension and uneasiness to melt away, if it would. I woke up on the fifth day, walked into the street, got into a shouting match with four rickshaw drivers until I met one who wasn't actively evil, bargained for a couple pineapples on the street, and ate a masala dosa with sambar at a local South Indian joint. Everyone in the place was staring rapt at the Pakistani Cricket scandal unfolding on the TV screen above us, including me, and I was drinking lots of local filter coffee, and it was raining just a little bit outside. I stopped noticing, for about an hour, that I was in India, and then I stepped outside, and remembered. And it was "Oh, okay. India. I can do this." And that was that.