I haven't been keeping up with the blog as much as I wanted to in India and I can't believe I'm saying this but I going to sympathize with Brooke Lougrin (an SYA classmate of mine) who said that she didn't have time to keep up with her blog because she wasn't at the Park but actually out and about doing stuff. While I may feel like I haven't done much and will have to leave a good portion of my to do list unfinished, I feel like I've always been moving since I've gotten here (if only if circles). I wanted to post my editorial for the Travel and Shop magazine where I interned earlier, but despite having not explained the scope of my internship I still want it to be my last post while here in India. I will continue to post about my adventures when I'm back in the states even though that seems kind of silly considering blogging should be to keep people updated in the here and now and not be a re-cap I think. Anyways, here is my editorial. I was upset that the version that went to print didn't include the bit about Mumbai and picked up with "I am connected to this city...", but more so I'm upset that they changed "this city" (in the part I just referred to) to Bangalore. I choose "this city" because of it's ambiguity. After all, the entire editorial is about whether to say Bangalore or Bangaluru and I wanted to reveal my choice of name at the end after I had given an explanation. So I will first show you what I wrote, the edited version and then what was printed. (In the editor's defense, he did help me clarify the last paragraph which I left rather ambiguous because I had a word limit and was already beyond it. This is one thing that I love about journalism and a job in general, you can't just bull shit your way through things: if you don't give your best and believe its your best someone is going to call you out on it and tell you so).
All me...
Bangalore or Bangaluru?
I came to Bangaluru perhaps expecting to find myself in Bangalore. Of course I had heard of the city but not until I booked my flight to come here did I discover that its name had officially changed. So Bangalore or Bangaluru, I wondered.
When I traveled to Mumbai I too struggled with how to refer to it. Many stores had the name Bombay attached to them and still more people called the city by its former name. I felt a certain affinity with the city after witnessing the 26/11 attacks from elsewhere on Indian soil and realized that the very real tragedy occurred to the modern city that is Mumbai, not to the bygone city of Bombay.
While Bangalore too suffered from terrorist attacks last year, I was not acutely aware of them. I am connected to this city not by an event, but by a person.
Thomas Friedman is a Pulitzer Prize winning American journalist who wrote the book The World Is Flat in 2005 after visiting Bangalore. Some years ago I became a devoted reader of his column in the New York Times, but had not opened his book until just a few days ago.
I had intended to read the book before I came, but as look would have it I couldn’t find a copy, that is until I spotted a hawker selling a boot-legged version on the streets of New Tipsandra. The book explains that several factors, the IT boom among them, are flattening the global playing field. As Friedman testified, places like Electronic City are no different from comparable work places in the West.
It may appear that the city hasn’t changed all that much since then, but flipping through the pages of this magazine I find Bangaluru.
Edited version (I really liked)
Bangalore or Bangaluru?
I came to Bangaluru perhaps expecting to find myself in Bangalore. Of course I had heard of the city but not until I booked my flight to come here did I discover that its name had officially changed. So Bangalore or Bangaluru, I wondered.
When I traveled to Mumbai I too struggled with how to refer to it. Many stores had the name Bombay attached to them and still more people called the city by its former name. I felt a certain affinity with the city after witnessing the 26/11 attacks from elsewhere on Indian soil and realized that the very real tragedy occurred to the modern city that is Mumbai, not to the bygone city of Bombay.
While Bangalore too suffered from terrorist attacks last year, I was not acutely aware of them. I am connected to this city not by an event, but by a person.
Thomas Friedman is a Pulitzer Prize winning American journalist who wrote the book The World Is Flat in 2005 after visiting Bangalore. Some years ago I became a devoted reader of his column in the New York Times, but had not opened his book until just a few days ago.
I had intended to read the book before I came, but as look would have it I couldn’t find a copy, that is until I spotted a hawker selling a boot-legged version on the streets of New Tipsandra. The book explains that several factors, the IT boom among them, are flattening the global playing field for aspiring workers. As Friedman testified,places like Electronic City are no different from comparable workplaces in the West.While the IT sector may still be booming, flipping through the pages of this magazine I find a unique city like nowhere in the West.Because let’s face it, no matter how flat the world gets you’ll never be able to get a fish curry from Koshys anywhere but in Bangaluru.
What appeared in print...
Bangalore or Bangaluru?
I came to Bangaluru perhaps expecting to find myself in Bangalore. Of course I had heard of the city but not until I booked my flight to come here did I discover that its name had officially changed. So Bangalore or Bangaluru, I wondered. I am connected to Bangalore not by an event, but by a person.
Thomas Friedman is a Pulitzer Prize winning American journalist who wrote the book The World Is Flat in 2005 after visiting Bangalore. Some years ago I became a devoted reader of his column in the New York Times, but had not opened his book until just a few days ago.
I had intended to read the book before I came, but as look would have it I couldn’t find a copy, that is until I spotted a hawker selling a boot-legged version on the streets of Bangalore. The book explains that several factors, the IT boom among them, are flattening the global playing field for aspiring workers. As Friedman testified,places like Electronic City are no different from comparable workplaces in the West.While the IT sector may still be booming, flipping through the pages of this magazine I find a unique city like nowhere in the West.Because let’s face it, no matter how flat the world gets you’ll never be able to get a dosa from Koshys anywhere but in Bangaluru.
Also note that New Tipsandra is changed to Bangalore. While I feel this small name change makes the reference less personal, I do understand tourists (let alone Indians from Bangalore, Bangalorites?) may not know Tipsandra.
As much as I dislike the fact that the editor has the final say, I suppose if I had followed directons and stayed within the word count this wouldn't have happened.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Cost-benefit, food.
Last night the group went to a Tapas Bar. Ana, one of the volunteers, had read in Time Out magazine that a famed house-music DJ (aparently that's a european term, I had never heard of it although the other American had) would be playing, but apparently he was scheduled for Wednesday adn Saturday night. Time Out magazine is a rival and competitior of Travel and Shop magazine (where I'm placed) so the situation put a smile on my face. I actually saw several copies of the Travel and Shop magazine on a display table at the bar. I saw from the cover that they were the current issue which I was published in--needless to say I defentiely got a rush from that! But more about that later... I had planned to go to a movie last night, but the group decided to go to one on Monday night instead. I didn't get a cell phone here because I wanted to go in-congito and be able to just put my head down and go un-noticed but that plan has seemed to backfire on a number of occasions, India is certainly wired. I suspect living with the group of volunteers is good preperation for the five room mates I will have come September (that's less that a month away!) at GW. I actually originally had a single, but decided that not only did I want room mates as part of the college experience (and it seems that once you're a sophmore you would pick your roomates as opposed to be thrown in with someone random which I think is half the fun) and didn't want to find myself alone at night, who knows what I would have ended up doing. While I certainly like to plan stuff and am defenitely comfortable going off on my own, having a defult group is a nice safety net. After all going to a resutrant alone can not only be akward but lonely as well. But having room mates means that I have to go with the flow a lot of the time and not just expect to do what I want to do. So after sitting cramed in a 30 minute auto rickshaw ride with five other people, we make it to the Tapas Bar.
The first menu to come is the drink menu which I suppose makes sense. There was a specialty lassi on the menu, but the waitor said they didn't have it so he made me a kiwi smoothie instead. For the drink I paid 110 rupees. At the local juice bar I pay 10 rupees for a drink. So what did I pay a hundred extra rupees for? For starters there is the option of starters. The bar was also a resturant so I could have food at my convience, which I did (fuselli arabia and unlike in Hampei the tomato sauce was not just ketchup, and then there was the key lime pie which for some reason was drizzled in honey which didn't quite work). But okay at the juice bar I can turn around and get 5 pani poori for 5 rupees or walk a block up the street and get 7 or 8 on a plate with a spoon and my choice of pani or sweet sauce for 13 rupees. And talk about convience, the latter is in an Indian sweet shop so I can get gulab jamin for just a few rupees (minus the plate and presentation, but who wants drizzled honey anways?)
Cost-benefit, transportation.
Wednesday 5 August 2009
Why hello there. I suppose I’ve been rather inconsistent with this blog (or simply have been putting up any entries). To tell you the truth I feel like I’m getting a crash-course in time management. I work from 9.30-6 everyday and most stores/ art galleries/ cultural events close their doors at 7.30 and are a 40 minute, 200 rupee round-trip auto-rickshaw drive away or 45minute- 1hour, 20 rupee bus ride away. While I am a big fan of public transportation, several factors are hindering me from taking advantage of it. For starters Bangalore is a HUGE city. A lot of people complained that Vizag was too small, but let me to you after four months there I felt like I could navigate it but at the same time still had places to explore. To make matters even easier, there was only one main bus station in Vizag that almost every bus went to and was relatively near to my house. Here in Bangalore there are an infinite number of buses and more often than not I find myself taking one bus to get to the bus that will take me back to Indra Nagar, the larger neighborhood that I live in—forget me finding a bus back to New Tipsandra, although I do see buses driving down the main road. The next inconvenience is the time. I suppose if I knew which bus to take then I wouldn’t have to take a half-an-hour detour every time I used public transportation, but then I still would have to wait for the correct bus number to arrive at the bus stop and who knows how long that would take! While I’m surely up for the adventure because I get out of work so late I really don’t have time to spare on the way there. As a result I usually find myself on the bus on the way back later at night which poses a problem if I get lost—the auto rickshaw drivers increase fares significantly after dark. I’m finding this issue of transportation to be a real challenge. I tend to grow accustom to cities by walking to and from places and allowing myself to wander off the designated course and in doing so find my bearings, eventually. And that is the key, I need time. I will probally get lost the first three of four times, but then that fifth time I will find my way. Case in point, I walked home from work one day and decided to cross from one main road to the next on a small side street instead of the road I had originally been shown. I then found myself winding through the neighborhood and at some point crossed over the street that I should have turned on to. I must have been too far down on the street to know that that was where I wanted to go. As a result I kept walking and kept walking. About an hour and a half later I approached a busy street and to my surprise found a T.G.I. Friday’s and decided at that point that I should probably grab an auto rickshaw home. Hungry and tired, I was disappointed with myself but was also quite simply lost. A week or so later while I was on an early morning run I once again found myself unfamiliar with my surroundings but soon recognized that I had been on the same street the night I had gotten lost. After running a little further, I stopped and asked some one where 80ft road was (the main street I use to locate my house) and was directed to return from where I came. I asked a bunch of teenage girls at a bus stop who I knew would speak English as to not cause a scene. Yes, I asked someone the night I got lost but didn’t clarify her directions as you should always do with Indians (because the head wobble can truly mean anything). I was happy to have found my way, if only a week late but I can’t help but wonder if all the hassle was really worth the self-gratification that I got.
There are two guest houses that the I to I volunteers reside in and a Chinese man named Jackie lives next to the other house (known as Katary’s, the surname of the owners, mine is Shirley’s, the first name of the lady of the house—although she does have a husband?). The Indian IT company where Jackie work mandates that all new employees of his level must work in Bangalore for a year before returning to the company’s branches around the world (in Jackie’s case China). Jackie used to take an auto rickshaw to work every day but got fed up with not only the price, but the mere haggling for the price (although I found many auto rickshaw’s in Vizag willing to set a fixed price if I rode with them to school every day—yes, I did miss the school bus quite often.) So Jackie bought a bike and he figured that after three months it will pay for itself, not to mention the fact that’s he getting regular exercise. Therefore the benefit of his bike outweighed the cost. But does my situation turn out as favorably? Does the benefit of my wandering (a sense of direction, perhaps?) outweigh the cost of my wandering (both literally in terms of rupees spent on transportation, specifically the more expensive auto rickshaws, and time lost)? If I will only be superficially comfortable with Bangalore’s layout after x rupees and three weeks, should I even bother if I’m here for a month?
Why hello there. I suppose I’ve been rather inconsistent with this blog (or simply have been putting up any entries). To tell you the truth I feel like I’m getting a crash-course in time management. I work from 9.30-6 everyday and most stores/ art galleries/ cultural events close their doors at 7.30 and are a 40 minute, 200 rupee round-trip auto-rickshaw drive away or 45minute- 1hour, 20 rupee bus ride away. While I am a big fan of public transportation, several factors are hindering me from taking advantage of it. For starters Bangalore is a HUGE city. A lot of people complained that Vizag was too small, but let me to you after four months there I felt like I could navigate it but at the same time still had places to explore. To make matters even easier, there was only one main bus station in Vizag that almost every bus went to and was relatively near to my house. Here in Bangalore there are an infinite number of buses and more often than not I find myself taking one bus to get to the bus that will take me back to Indra Nagar, the larger neighborhood that I live in—forget me finding a bus back to New Tipsandra, although I do see buses driving down the main road. The next inconvenience is the time. I suppose if I knew which bus to take then I wouldn’t have to take a half-an-hour detour every time I used public transportation, but then I still would have to wait for the correct bus number to arrive at the bus stop and who knows how long that would take! While I’m surely up for the adventure because I get out of work so late I really don’t have time to spare on the way there. As a result I usually find myself on the bus on the way back later at night which poses a problem if I get lost—the auto rickshaw drivers increase fares significantly after dark. I’m finding this issue of transportation to be a real challenge. I tend to grow accustom to cities by walking to and from places and allowing myself to wander off the designated course and in doing so find my bearings, eventually. And that is the key, I need time. I will probally get lost the first three of four times, but then that fifth time I will find my way. Case in point, I walked home from work one day and decided to cross from one main road to the next on a small side street instead of the road I had originally been shown. I then found myself winding through the neighborhood and at some point crossed over the street that I should have turned on to. I must have been too far down on the street to know that that was where I wanted to go. As a result I kept walking and kept walking. About an hour and a half later I approached a busy street and to my surprise found a T.G.I. Friday’s and decided at that point that I should probably grab an auto rickshaw home. Hungry and tired, I was disappointed with myself but was also quite simply lost. A week or so later while I was on an early morning run I once again found myself unfamiliar with my surroundings but soon recognized that I had been on the same street the night I had gotten lost. After running a little further, I stopped and asked some one where 80ft road was (the main street I use to locate my house) and was directed to return from where I came. I asked a bunch of teenage girls at a bus stop who I knew would speak English as to not cause a scene. Yes, I asked someone the night I got lost but didn’t clarify her directions as you should always do with Indians (because the head wobble can truly mean anything). I was happy to have found my way, if only a week late but I can’t help but wonder if all the hassle was really worth the self-gratification that I got.
There are two guest houses that the I to I volunteers reside in and a Chinese man named Jackie lives next to the other house (known as Katary’s, the surname of the owners, mine is Shirley’s, the first name of the lady of the house—although she does have a husband?). The Indian IT company where Jackie work mandates that all new employees of his level must work in Bangalore for a year before returning to the company’s branches around the world (in Jackie’s case China). Jackie used to take an auto rickshaw to work every day but got fed up with not only the price, but the mere haggling for the price (although I found many auto rickshaw’s in Vizag willing to set a fixed price if I rode with them to school every day—yes, I did miss the school bus quite often.) So Jackie bought a bike and he figured that after three months it will pay for itself, not to mention the fact that’s he getting regular exercise. Therefore the benefit of his bike outweighed the cost. But does my situation turn out as favorably? Does the benefit of my wandering (a sense of direction, perhaps?) outweigh the cost of my wandering (both literally in terms of rupees spent on transportation, specifically the more expensive auto rickshaws, and time lost)? If I will only be superficially comfortable with Bangalore’s layout after x rupees and three weeks, should I even bother if I’m here for a month?
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