We made a trip to Bangalore. I was bored of the every day life and ready to go. Longing for European atmosphere, longing for the western world. A hard-to-define dissatisfaction and longing for something else.
Whereas Mysore is seen as traditional, Bangalore is international, modern, big. More people, more traffic, more everything. I was dreaming of a mall; walking in a cool, air-conditioned white space, watching and touching some boring coloured (cotton!) western clothes. Vero Moda seemed like a dream. And secretly, I wanted to be there alone. That also being part of the European experience. Not having to follow the group, not having to explain and especially not having to wait for anyone else.
Before going, I checked the events on the internet and found out that there was a British comtemporary dance group performing that evening. Wow, maybe my longing for Europe would be nicely satisfied just by visiting Bangalore!
We stayed those three days with an Indian couple my boyfriend has known for about ten years. The kind of friends that actually feel more like a family. We were extremely well taken care of. It was very comfortable, but at the same time I got irritated because the same educational Indian experience kept going and things didn't go the way I wanted them to go. There's always too much sugar in tea for me, the dinner is after ten which means too late, and everyone is minding each other's business. You know, petty little things like that. But there were (and there still are) moments when I just wanted to scream and run away and just go to that mall all by myself and feel like a three year old again.
The new home is starting to feel like... home, in a sense of being too usual. The exotic has started to become ordinary. Looks like the mind has found a steady partner for trouble-making from nostalgia. As if the boring things like grey cotton shirts of some grey mall somewhere in Europe were all of a sudden better at being usual and boring than the so called boring and usual things over here. Of course this would happen anywhere, sooner or later.
There I was, having typical Indian meals with this group of people that felt like a family. We were watching English movies on tv and yes, the language was chosen in order to make me feel more comfortable. The way the Indian people take care of their quests! It's just amazing.
After getting overwhelmed and exhausted in a big Bangalorean supermarket we decided to go out with my friend Naveena and see the contemporary dance show that I so much wanted to see. I heard that the venue would be "quite far away" from where we stayed. One and a half hour should be enough for travelling, I thought. Turned out it wasn't. Ten minutes before the showtime we had just finished a 1hr 20 minute bus drive and were searching for the spot to catch a rikshaw for the rest of the way. That would have taken another 15 minutes even if lucky. Trying our best to avoid getting hit by the buses that where driving around mercilesly, we decided to give up and took a bus back home.
After three hours of bus driving an Indian home was all I needed. The unstructured ambience, a soft matress and a movie channel. Watching that tv I felt like home again. It felt so comfortable with these people. Finally relaxed, I had given up the battle at least for a while. Actually it felt like there was no battle anymore.
We did go to the mall, all four of us together. I never made it to Vero Moda or anything like that, by at the end it wouldn't have made any difference. I got pizza, a nice non-Indian food, and once again got a glimpse of understanding that in a way it is all the same anywhere. Sure, Indian pizza comes with extra masala. But still. The base is the base and cheese is cheese. You can miss the European cheese or the American cheese but back there it was just the same old. Just a pizza cheese.
After our bus drive Naveena told me that ten years back she had walked to work as there were just a few bus lines in the city. There had been more lakes in Bangalore, before they had been filled up and transformed to platforms for bus stands, buildings and other big city things. On her daily walk to work Naveena had passed a lake and seen lotus flowers growing in the water.
In ten yers Bangalore has grown tremendously. At the same time, the roads have remained quite narrow which is why the traffic is slow and chaotic and exhausting. As she told me about the past I imagined how the surface of the lake had reflected the early rays of the morning sun, how she had been walking on the most propably sandy road, looking at the pink lotus flowers, smiling and hearing the birds happily singing her peppy good morning songs. And there I was again! Imagining something more appealing somewhere else than the current situation.
Next morning we drove back to Mysore. When leaving Bangalore, it was the rush hour again and the traffic was jammed as usual. I heard that the subway is under construction. Finally, I thought. Back home I started thinking about the lost lakes of Bangalore. According to Wikipedia, most of them were constructed in sixteenth century. Yep! Man-made. Someone had been dreaming of lakes! And then then someones had been digging the land to make those lakes! And after some centuries, someone had been dreaming something else, etc.
Whereas Mysore is seen as traditional, Bangalore is international, modern, big. More people, more traffic, more everything. I was dreaming of a mall; walking in a cool, air-conditioned white space, watching and touching some boring coloured (cotton!) western clothes. Vero Moda seemed like a dream. And secretly, I wanted to be there alone. That also being part of the European experience. Not having to follow the group, not having to explain and especially not having to wait for anyone else.
Before going, I checked the events on the internet and found out that there was a British comtemporary dance group performing that evening. Wow, maybe my longing for Europe would be nicely satisfied just by visiting Bangalore!
We stayed those three days with an Indian couple my boyfriend has known for about ten years. The kind of friends that actually feel more like a family. We were extremely well taken care of. It was very comfortable, but at the same time I got irritated because the same educational Indian experience kept going and things didn't go the way I wanted them to go. There's always too much sugar in tea for me, the dinner is after ten which means too late, and everyone is minding each other's business. You know, petty little things like that. But there were (and there still are) moments when I just wanted to scream and run away and just go to that mall all by myself and feel like a three year old again.
The new home is starting to feel like... home, in a sense of being too usual. The exotic has started to become ordinary. Looks like the mind has found a steady partner for trouble-making from nostalgia. As if the boring things like grey cotton shirts of some grey mall somewhere in Europe were all of a sudden better at being usual and boring than the so called boring and usual things over here. Of course this would happen anywhere, sooner or later.
There I was, having typical Indian meals with this group of people that felt like a family. We were watching English movies on tv and yes, the language was chosen in order to make me feel more comfortable. The way the Indian people take care of their quests! It's just amazing.
After getting overwhelmed and exhausted in a big Bangalorean supermarket we decided to go out with my friend Naveena and see the contemporary dance show that I so much wanted to see. I heard that the venue would be "quite far away" from where we stayed. One and a half hour should be enough for travelling, I thought. Turned out it wasn't. Ten minutes before the showtime we had just finished a 1hr 20 minute bus drive and were searching for the spot to catch a rikshaw for the rest of the way. That would have taken another 15 minutes even if lucky. Trying our best to avoid getting hit by the buses that where driving around mercilesly, we decided to give up and took a bus back home.
After three hours of bus driving an Indian home was all I needed. The unstructured ambience, a soft matress and a movie channel. Watching that tv I felt like home again. It felt so comfortable with these people. Finally relaxed, I had given up the battle at least for a while. Actually it felt like there was no battle anymore.
We did go to the mall, all four of us together. I never made it to Vero Moda or anything like that, by at the end it wouldn't have made any difference. I got pizza, a nice non-Indian food, and once again got a glimpse of understanding that in a way it is all the same anywhere. Sure, Indian pizza comes with extra masala. But still. The base is the base and cheese is cheese. You can miss the European cheese or the American cheese but back there it was just the same old. Just a pizza cheese.
After our bus drive Naveena told me that ten years back she had walked to work as there were just a few bus lines in the city. There had been more lakes in Bangalore, before they had been filled up and transformed to platforms for bus stands, buildings and other big city things. On her daily walk to work Naveena had passed a lake and seen lotus flowers growing in the water.
In ten yers Bangalore has grown tremendously. At the same time, the roads have remained quite narrow which is why the traffic is slow and chaotic and exhausting. As she told me about the past I imagined how the surface of the lake had reflected the early rays of the morning sun, how she had been walking on the most propably sandy road, looking at the pink lotus flowers, smiling and hearing the birds happily singing her peppy good morning songs. And there I was again! Imagining something more appealing somewhere else than the current situation.
Next morning we drove back to Mysore. When leaving Bangalore, it was the rush hour again and the traffic was jammed as usual. I heard that the subway is under construction. Finally, I thought. Back home I started thinking about the lost lakes of Bangalore. According to Wikipedia, most of them were constructed in sixteenth century. Yep! Man-made. Someone had been dreaming of lakes! And then then someones had been digging the land to make those lakes! And after some centuries, someone had been dreaming something else, etc.
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