I am writing this one at 12:35am (ie midnight plus 35mins) on Thursday morning. I am adjusting to Indian time slowly by going to bed late and getting up late. This has had the effect of reducing the time advance from 5.5 hours to 3.5 hours and I am coping quite nicely. I got a really good night’s sleep which was only disturbed once, at 3:30, when a kind lady texted me to say that Arsenal had beaten Liverpool for a second time inside a week and 6-3 this time. Never mind it was good news and the room was getting hot anyway so it was time to turn the air conditioning on. I cannot sleep with it on since it is very loud and the alternative “Raffles” fan is even louder.
The driver took me in at 10am today rather than the midday of yesterday so I experienced a little more of the Bangalore traffic rules. Airport Road, the main drag between our apartments in the Diamond District and LogicaCMG Offices (and quite by chance the airport as well), is a dual carriageway with two lanes marked on each carriageway. I do not know why they bothered because the Indians fit four vehicles abreast along them at busy times, which seems to be most of the time. The traffic is a mixture of 4-wheel drives, small cars, vans, lorries, 3-wheeled automated, rickshaws, motorcycles and bikes (hundreds of them!). Here are some of the things that I have observed about Bangalore’s, unwritten traffic rules:
• Use of the horn appears random to foreigners but in fact is part of some secret code understood only by Indian drivers
• You can overtake on either side
• Threading your way through the lanes to your best advantage is quite acceptable
• Do not stop at junctions unless there are red traffic lights or a policeman on patrol – just push in because somebody will tell you that you may, using one of the horn-codes
• If three lorries in convoy wish to do a U-turn in front of you then let them – they are bigger than you
• Lights at night are used by most cars, optional for rickshaws, rare on the backs of lorries and just not used by bikes
• Crash helmets for motor-bikers are optional and virtually not used by passengers and pedal cyclists
• Ladies can ride pillion side-saddle, with no crash helmets of course
• Pedestrian crossings are enforced on main roads by combining them with speed bumps – well it does give the pedestrians a sporting chance
• Pavements are rare, but when available, with few exceptions are a “hazard” challenge with deep drainage ditches, trees, dogs, protruding rocks and the odd sacred cow, together with sacred pooh of course.
It all seems to work fairly well, although I did see one accident where a small taxi was stuck under the tail of a lorry. Not fatal, I suspect, but a bit nasty; I did not look too closely. My host commented, “Those taxi drivers are mad – they have target times to get from A to B, which makes them do stupid things”. I cannot disagree with the comment that they were mad, but it was the implication that the others were sane that I found more challenging.
Anyway, by keeping my elbows in, I arrived for my second day in one piece. It was 10:30 or 4am UK time, so I had nearly 4 hours of peace in which to work before the e-mail floodgates opened again with a vengeance. I managed to get some rupees via our company’s travel unit and was able to repay my kind colleagues who had subbed me yesterday. Come mid afternoon and the highlight – Fire Drill Bangalore-style. To start with the fire alarm could not be heard in our office and we only knew about the drill when we spotted the commotion outside. We were all marched out and aligned into columns with placards saying “First floor”, “Second Floor” etc. It was easy for me because there was one saying “Visitors”, so I had a queue to myself. So there we were in the hot afternoon sun with load speaker blaring, policemen whistling and telling us all to keep off the grass. It is not like a UK fire drill where you can have a couple of decent impromptu meetings or an uninterrupted mobile conversation. It’s far too noisy for that and they want you to pay attention. We were treated to demonstrations of how to evacuate injured staff using stretchers made of bits of clothing or the four, six and even eight hand lift and also how to use the array of different fire extinguishers. That was all very well except that I had evacuated promptly and with no hat. With the ten minute threshold to sunburned head rapidly approaching and no sign of it finishing, I used some impromptu design myself, using one handkerchief and four knots. Fortunately I was packing a new one today. So if the video shows a weird foreigner with strange white headgear, then it’s me, but I do not have sunburn.
Back in the office and it’s the decision about what to do for supper, lunch having been washed away in a flood of e-mails from the UK. A colleague recommends a good Italian restaurant. I then break it to the driver that he has to take me there and wait for me to have a meal. He tries to persuade me that it’s an easy walk. There is no way that I am going to attempt to cross that traffic in the dark. Driver is not amused when his efforts at persuasion fail. The smile disappears and I am left to open my own door. He has to take a long detour to get across the road himself, so I am taken over rough roads a jolted around a bit as a punishment. He finally arrives at a place just opposite the Diamond District and I’m told it’s “up there”. Having failed to find it, I return to driver for more directions. He re-consults the map that my colleague has provided… profuse apologies and we are off again. This time he is in a better mood because my insistence on being driven is now considered reasonable.
Meal is excellent; 3 courses of the highest quality plus a bottle of water and a tip - all for the princely sum of £8. I return to the apartment to meet a colleague who has previous made the Scarlet Pimpernel look conspicuous. It’s good to have some company, but what a bonus. Not only is he a bit of a computer whiz, who shows me how to set up my internet connection, wireless no less, now there’s posh! Being a Sikh of Indian origin, he also speaks fluent Punjabi so he can communicate with the houseboy. I now have the desk in my room and instructions not to put any salt in my omelette. The last bonus is that we are going to dine together tomorrow night, so that is another issue sorted out. That will help the blood pressure. I also got my washing back, all clean and neatly pressed. We even had time for an impromptu meeting when we realised that we have both been addressing the same problem, but from opposite ends.
All in all it was not a bad second day. I will give you a report on the accommodation in my next missive.