Bangalore
Trip Start
Oct 04, 2008
1
15
38
Trip End
Ongoing
Bangalore, Karnataka, India
Monday, January 26, 2009
The high tech area I visited was enormous. The bus just kept passing more and more tech company buldings. My destination was a whole fenced-in complex of buildings called ITPL (International Technology Park). They had 2 banks and perhaps 12 restaurants in the food court. The whole area was landscaped and architected. They had a whole fleet of about 15 buses leaving just from this park while I walked by. Buses just for this park - in addition to the many city buses like the one I took
Fruit/veg section of Big Bazaar
. And this was just one park in a whole region of tech parks and buildings. Security at the gate required me to have a destination so I had to put food court! I had to buy some food and get my pass stamped to assure them that I had bought food! I felt a bit weird approaching groups of people so I just watched and explored. There were a lot of women here, perhaps 50%. I spoke to a few workers on the bus home and they were doing various tech jobs. An unexpected highlight in Bangalore was my visit to ISKCON. This is the International Society of Krishna Consciousness (Hare Krishnas). It was quite a large complex. They want to make it kind of like a theme park. They had it set up to receive thousands of people. They took shoes and bags at a well organized check in. They had these marble raised squares that each person in line stepped between. With each step forward, you were supposed to repeat the Hare Krishna mantra (Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare; Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare). They played the sound of a man saying it over the loudspeakers. The crowd chanted it quietly together and stepped forward. It was amusing to go along with this and try to chant it with an Indian accent. All you have to do is change your "R" to an "L" (or half way in between perhaps closer to an "L") and your "I" to "EE". Haley Kleesna Haley Kleesna Kleesna Kleesna Haley Haley Haley Lam Haley Lam Lama Lama Haley Haley. Then at the top of a final set of steps they handed me a couple nice ladu sweets. Then they asked for a donation (good sales technique to give a small gift first) then the path led to the Rama/Krishna shrine. The next room was huge like a big cathedral and had beautiful paintings on the ceiling. The shrine at the front was ok but not so great. Then they had a bunch of KRNSA (the sanskit way of writing it with dots underneath RNS) books in different languages. This English one was really good. I don't much like reading their holy book, the Bhagavad-Gita, because it's just a big, long, winding random story about Rama defeating demons. But the other book explained how Krishna is so beautiful and perfect. He is the "supersoul". Offering him love and attention is so wonderful. The most amazing thing is that just by chanting the simple mantra, you can achieve transcendental realization. The Hare Krishnas also provide tons of food to the homeless. In Bangalore they had a massive, automated, factory kitchen providing millions of meals per day. At the end of the tour, this glowing, kind man handed me a little card with a nice picture and the mantra on it. They also had lots of info on the man who had brought the Hare Krishna religion to the West, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. He was largely responsible for spreading the Hare Krishna religion in America and around the world. He wrote many books, gave many speeches and travelled a lot, esp in the last 10 years of his life.
The main city park and legistlative buildings were beautiful. The downtown area was rather spread out and mixed with residential buildings. The area with cheap accommodation (I stayed just south of The Majestic area) is rather far from the park or downtown which was rather inconvenient.
Bangalore had lots of bananas, dosas and idlies. I don't like dosas and idlies (the sauces usually make me nautious) only that's all they sell in almost all food places until about 4pm! What a strange restriction! It was hard to find any non-fast-food place and hard to find something to eat before 4pm! Bananas are sold on the street almost every block for low prices so I ate lots of those!
I really like the feeling of Bangalore. It feels prosperous yet relaxed. Not as bustling as Mumbai. Or poor yet booming like Kolkata. Or rich and a bit too proud like Delhi.
