Jet Propelled from Overseas

Thuy, Jay, and I left Chennai one week before everyone else.  Our flight was scheduled for 4:00 AM.  Yes, that AM as in really, really early.  We planned to arrive at the airport at 1:00 AM, which is also really, really early if you're waking up for it; really really late; if you're staying up for it; or one more hour until the bar closes, if you're in college. For us, it was really, really late as we woke up at our usual time on Wednesday and stayed up all day.

As I told you, the trip was to carry supplies and furnishings to Chad and Valli's flat in Chennai.  So going back, we should travel relatively light, right?  Wrong.  All those souvenirs we bought add up and we spent Wednesday try to get each of the six suitcases under 50 pounds.  Seriously, we were leaving India with just as much stuff as we brought.

A Land of Contrasts

Indians often describe their country as "a land of contrasts."  Well, that's true.  But every country is a land of contrasts.  In the United States we have unspeakable wealth and despondent poverty.  We have the highly educated and the illiterate.  We have devoted philanthropy and criminal greed. We have NPR and Bravo. What distinguishes India in this regard is that these contrasts are juxtaposed.

The Beast

The creature lay patiently, unseen, waiting for the right time to strike.  Too early and the intended victims would be expecting it.  Too late and it wouldn't matter.  Then, when the victims were full of confidence that they were no longer under threat, it struck viciously and claimed three victims.

Not until the end of the second week did we get what we had expected earlier - traveler's diarrhea.  We took purified water wherever we went and only drank bottled or canned beverages in restaurants.  By the end of the second week, we weren't even thinking about diarrhea.

But that's when it hit three of us.  We picked it up in either Bengaluru or Mysore.  It lasted about two days.

One of the things that westerners should do, when traveling around India, is carry toilet paper and hand sanitizer.  Trust me, you want to do that.

Independence Day

August 15 was Indian Independence Day.  As you no doubt remember from the movie Gandhi, Indian independence was achieved without the revolutionary war typical of many struggles against colonialism.  Gandhi, the movie, was achieved without the song and dance numbers typical of a movie set in India.

Food

Breakfast at home

The question frequently posed to travelers upon their return is "How was the food?"

Food in Chennai and South Indian food in general is vegetarian and spicy.  The main starch is rice and rice flour is used to make idlis (a spongy dumpling) and dosas (rice crepes).  Accompanying the starches are various vegetable curries that I identify as green, yellow, or orange.  Some restaurants serve what they call North Indian food.  As far as I could tell, it consists of wheat-flour breads (naan, pooris, etc) with the same green, yellow, and orange vegetable curries.

Brindavan Gardens

Brindavan Gardens was established in 1927.  It is adjacent to the Krishnarajasagara Dam and was designed as a beautification project for the area next to the dam.  The park is famous for its fountains, one of which is Bellagio-like and spouts water in sync to music.  We arrived at the gardens in the evening, as the sun was going down.  As I mentioned, this was on the Independence Day weekend and the place was packed.  How packed?  The country has 1.2 billion people and they were all at Brindavan Gardens.

Mysore Palace

Mysore is not far in distance from Bengaluru.  In fact, when people speak of visiting Bengaluru, it's often "Bangalore and Mysore."  Maybe because Mysore rhymes with the old name.  So we decided to take a short (4 hour) drive to Mysore.

"McSpicy Attack" just doesn't sound right

Along the way we stopped at a recognizable highway establishment, McDonald's.  This McDonald's, however, is unlike any that you've been to (unless you've been to India).  The person taking your order greets you with a "Namaste," with her palms pressed together.  At this Mickey D's, there are no Big Macs, Quarter Pounders, or Big N Tastys.  No sir, that would be sacrilege.  The menu offered chicken nuggets, McSpicy Chicken, and Mc SpicyPaneer, a patty of cheese that's breaded and fried.  The closest thing that we have to that is fried mozzarella sticks.

Diogenes' Quest

A poll, published in The Hindu,  determined that young Indians perceive the main threat against India's future to be corruption.  The corruption, at all levels of government, is pretty bad.  The only person who seems to be on the up-and-up is Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister, and people say that's the reason he can't get anything done.

Bengaluru by Night

By now, it had been two weeks since we ate beef.  Beef is rare (pun intended) in Chennai.  Indeed, very few grocery stores carry any kind of meat and it's usually expensive.  To  top it off, the chicken looks nothing like the antibiotic and marigold-fed chicken that we buy in the US.  So, after a week of South Indian food, many of us were ready to taste American cuisine again.  We headed to the Hard Rock Café – Bengaluru. 

Through our connections (Rajan's daughter) we got reservations.  To get in the door, we had to go through a metal detector.  This gives you a feel about India's concern over terrorism.  Furthermore, the Hard Rock Cafe attracts Americans and would be considered a soft target for those who wish to kill us.  The place was packed, both the restaurant and bar.  The diners were a mix of foreigners and locals.  Like us, American tourists and expatriates look for something familiar that's a break from the green, yellow, and orange vegetable curries.

Bengaluru by Day: Part 2

Cubbon Park is a big green area in the center of Bengaluru.  Originally encompassing 100 acres, it was created by the British in 1870.  It is now 300 acres. We headed to the state library at the center of the park.  Now that I look at the on-line maps, we took the longest possible route to get there.

Bengaluru by Day: Part 1

In India, it's pronounced "Hay-chh P"

After arriving in Bengaluru (Bangalore) late last night, we woke up for a day of seeing the sights.  The city is smaller than Chennai and seems more organized, in terms of zoning.  Modern buildings stand next to others of the same design and age.  In contrast, the modern buildings in Chennai are adjacent to, ummm… less modern buildings and houses.   In Chennai one can see an office building or shopping center next to old, crammed storefronts and houses.  The difference is mainly due to the recent, rapid growth of Bengaluru, thanks to the presence of American and European information technology (IT) companies and outsourced support for other firms.  The list includes many recognizable names: (Dell, Hewlett Packard, eBay, Unisys, IBM, Honeywell, and Accenture) and some unrecognizable names like European software and telecommunications companies whose names I won't write because you won't recognize them.  OK, I forgot the names, but you still wouldn't have recognized them.

Road Trip!

We went to Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore) over the Independence Day weekend to visit Rajan (Sheila's brother) and his wife Manju.  We started the trip, of course, by putting our clothes back into their suitcases and loading the van.  Essentials for the trip included droid phones and a tablet to keep the boys occupied with video games on the eight hour drive.  You can get a lot of mileage out of Angry Birds and Pumpkins vs. Monsters.

Passing a pedestrian on our way to Bengaluru

Once we left Chennai we drove past farmland.  The lack of population density is quite a contrast to the crowded streets of Chennai.  Although the "highway" was two narrow lanes in each direction, the traffic was pretty light and the surface was much, much smoother than the city roads.

A New Landmark

In prime real estate in Chennai, stands a large, unfinished, multi-story complex of over 1.6 million square feet.  It is the former future Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly and Secretariat Complex.   When finished, the buildings were to house the state assembly, as well as offices of the chief minister and cabinet minister.  It was to be a breathtaking structure.

Artist's rendition.  Source: The Hindu

Double Vision

"What level are you on in Angry Birds?"

We visited cousin Sheila, her husband Navneeth, and their son.  Nikhil was very much looking forward to this because he wanted to meet their son who is also named Nikhil.  Even though our Nikhil is around 20 years younger than his Indian cousin, he insisted that he is "Nikhil number one."  So we just went with "Big Nikhil and "Little Nikhil," or "Your Nikhil" and "Our Nikhil." to avoid confusion in speech, there was no confusion in sight.

"He is heavy!  He's not my brother."

Chennai's Sights, Part 2

On this day we had a few errands to run and relatives to visit. As I've complained about before, no place that we have to go is close to the next place that we have to go.  So we spent a good few hours going from one place to another.

Museum Theater (Theatre, if you're Indian)

After lunch, we went to the Government Museum, aka the Madras Museum (someone didn't get the name-change memo).  Established in 1851, it is the second oldest museum in India.  You can tell that its Wikipedia page was written by an Indian because it states that the museum "was shifted to the present site in 1854"  (Indians don't move, they shift).

This is another tourist attraction at which one must pay to use a camera.  And at this place, someone actually checked our receipt to verify that we paid for a camera permit.

Signs that made us laugh

Does anyone know which part of the body is the "Thum"?

Chennai's Sights, Part 1

We decided to spend today sightseeing in Chennai proper.  The city center is closer to the flat than the zoo or Mahabalipuram.  But in terms of driving time, it's not much shorter.  As mentioned in the traffic entry, it takes forever to move around Chennai.  Fortunately, the places we decided to visit were in the same area, so it only took us a few hours to go from one place to another.

Temple entrance

Kapaleeshwarar Temple is in the Mylapore section of Chennai.  The original Kapaleeshwarar Temple was built in the 7th century CE/AD by the same dynasty that brought you Mahabalipuram.  The temple was destroyed centuries ago, allegedly by the Portuguese.  I'm just pulling these "facts" from Wikipedia, so they may or may not be true.  What is true is that this particular Kapaleeshwarar Temple ain't no 1,400 years old.  This iteration of the temple may be 500 years old (Wikipedia again). 

Dakshina Chitra

Located on the coast south of Chennai, Dakshina Chitra is a heritage village set aside to preserve the art, architecture, and handicrafts of South India.  The preserve contains replica houses from several parts of the south.  Artists display and sell their wares and sometimes they demonstrate their crafts.  These crafts include pottery, tapestries, and paintings.  Dakshina Chitra is the only tourist attraction in all of India with a gift shop.  OK, maybe I'm exaggerating.  It's the only tourist attraction in all of South India with a gift shop.

The Accidental Tourist Attraction

Despite being Americans, most of us look like the average Indian: brown skin, black hair.  Thuy, however, does not.  That meant that she had to pay the non-Indian entrance fee wherever we went.  This could be 10 times the Indian entrance fee, e.g. 20R for Indians at the zoo, 200R for Thuy.  OK, so 200R is a little over $4 and not a big deal in America.  But the difference, to Indians, is huge.

I did make the suggestion that Thuy claim to be from the northeastern part of India that borders Bhutan and Burma.  Many of the northeastern natives have phenotypic, cultural, and religious similarities with far-east Asians.  Interestingly, the Chennai edition of The Hindu (one of India’s national daily newspapers) ran an article about the large number of northeastern Indians who’ve moved to Chennai seeking jobs in the automotive industry.  So there was a glimmer of credibility to my lie.  Alas, the idea had no traction.

Mahabalipuram

Indian Ocean at Mahabalipuram

Mahabalipuram lies one hour south of Chennai on the Indian Ocean.  The city dates to the 3rd century CE/AD and was a major trading port, as demonstrated by fourth century Chinese and Roman coins in the archaeological record. What makes this site famous is the presence of stone carvings that date as far back as the seventh century CE/AD.

According to the Oracle at Wikipedia, some archaeologists believe that Mahabalipuram housed a sculpture school which explains the large number of artisans required to complete these works.

Zoo Station

Vikram and Nikhil at the zoo entrance

With shopping and the party finished, we were now able to enjoy some of Chennai’s sights.  On Monday we chose to visit the Arignar Anna Zoological Park (aka the Vandalur Zoo), because it's closed on Tuesday.  AZP is the largest and oldest zoo in India and lies southwest of our flat.  Traffic leaving the flat quickly thinned out and Suresh deftly maneuvered through the remaining autorickshaws and lorries (see that, I used a British/Indian-English term) to get us to the zoo in 30 minutes.

Admission is 20 rupees (<50 cents) per adult and 10 per child.  For non-Indians, however, admission is 200R.  Taking pictures, however, will cost you 25 rupees for a still camera and more for a video camera.

Family Reunion

"Are we all Facebook friends now?"

Day 7 of the trip was the climax of the first part of our stay.  The objective of this part was to get the flat ready and presentable for the open house on day 7.  Indians don't the term open house and I forgot how Chad and Valli phrased it on their invitation.  I think it was something like "Come see our new place and eat."  As in many cultures, food is the center of Indian social events.  When visiting friends or relatives, they hold you down, pry your mouth open, and shove food down your throat.  Failure to do that would be considered inhospitable.

But, getting back to the reunion.  Most of the relatives who arrived live in Chennai.  A few more made the journey from Bengaluru, Kutralam, Madurai, or elsewhere in India.  They had not seen Geetha and Jay in 24 years and were probably very curious about "Our American Cousin." They may have been curious about me too.  Some of them knew that I underwent chemo- and radiation therapy, and may have been wondering if I glow in that dark.  That would explain why someone switched off the light whenever I entered a room.

Where the Streets Have Your Name

Habibullah Road is in the T. Nagar neighborhood of Chennai.  Chad grew up on Habibullah Rd when it was a quiet, residential area.  In recent decades it's been transformed into a crowded commercial area. We paid a visit to the Sivasailam family compound.  It's shrunk in the past few years as family members in the US have sold their parcels of property.   However, Chad's brother still lives there.

"Does this mean we can charge rent?"

Adjacent to the family house and intersecting Habibullah Rd. is Sivasailam St.  For me, this was the most memorable part of the trip.  Unless you're named Main, University, or First, it's rare to share your name with a street and even rarer for it to be named after an ancestor.  That's why I thought it was important for Vikram and Nikhil to be photographed next to the street sign.  Naturally, with a van load of Sivasailams, everyone had to be photographed with the sign.

Crosstown Traffic

The Traveller 3350WB by Force Motors

For our shopping and sightseeing trips, we had a 12-passenger van driven by Suresh.  We sat comfortably, except for the long trips when sleeping on the seats was near impossible for adult-sized people.  The van had a crucial feature - air conditioning.  Unfortunately, the A/C had two settings, "Off" and "Duluth in Winter."  Later in the trip, we tried putting duct tape over some of the vents, to moderate the temperature.  That didn't seem to work very well.  Blocking the vents may have just forced the air to come out of the open vents much faster.  I think that's the Bernoulli Principle, or maybe it's Venturi.  At any rate, it's some Italian physicist. 

Shopping

We spent much of the next few days shopping for home décor items and other stuff for the open house.  India lacks the necessary stores, like Target, Wal-Mart, and Costco.  Somehow though, Indians manage to buy stuff.  Shopping, however, is an adventure for the non-Indian.  First, there is traffic (covered in a subsequent entry).  Once you arrive at the store and (maybe) find parking, the second part of the adventure begins.

Stores and stalls. (Photo by Thuy)

Just Touched Down on an International Runway

Dulles to Doha: 12h 40m

Doha to Chennai: 4h 30m

"I'm just resting my eyes in between showings of Hop.

We may have experienced a sliver of day 2 when we changed planes in Doha, Qatar, but we lost most of it during eastward air travel. The first leg lasted 12 hours, during which we ate, watched movies, played video games, slept, ate again, and watched more movies.  I believe that Nikhil watched Hop and Up twice each, while Vikram played chess against the Qatar Airways computer.

Kittens, cats, sacks, wives. How many were going to Chennai?

• Seven passengers
• Seven carry-ons
• 750 lbs of luggage

"We're gonna need a bigger boat."

The Super Shuttle van arrived five minutes after their 15 minute pick-up window closed.  Not to worry, we had budgeted a lot of time to travel from Geetha's parents' house in Clarksburg, MD to Dulles, VA.  We lined up the 15 suitcases, each one near the 50 lb limit, on the sidewalk and waited for the van.  When it arrived, the driver took one look at the enormous mass of bags and declared that they will not fit in the van.

“Then get another van to carry the bags,” I insisted.  “The reservation agent assured me that all the bags and passengers will fit in this van.”

“No, they will not fit,” he replied.

We went back-and-forth until he called his dispatcher, who said that everything will fit in the van.  The driver ended the call and looked, puzzled, at the large mass of luggage and the back of the van.  While he was doing that, I opened the side door and started loading some of the bags on to one of the bench seats.  With some creative geometry and Nikhil sitting on Geetha’s lap, all the passengers and luggage were in the van and ready to hit the highway – at rush hour.

The Assignment

MISSION CODENAME QUARTERMASTER

• Purchase supplies for Geetha’s parent’s flat in Chennai, India
• Conduct multiple reconnaissance missions on target.com and bedbathandbeyond.com
• Execute purchasing operations (i.e. shop)
• Pack and transport supplies to Chennai
• If time permits, see some of southern India

THE TEAM