8 June 2008

D. Nagaraju took me around to see some of Bangalore today. We visited Lalbagh Botanical Gardens, and a museum of Science and Technology, which interestingly has one of the first exhibits as the Wright’s Brothers plane. We also visited some shopping districts. The major streets are similar to any major city with shops as you would see on a corner in New York with some fashionable goods. Mixed in the more expensive neighborhoods are KFC, McDonalds, Ruby Tuesday, and other fast food/American joints. The major shoping districts are on Commercial St., MG Road, and Brigade St. Some interesting sights also included a stand for Fish Curry and urinals built into the wall along the sidewalk so people don’t urinate on the walls as much.
I met with Dr. Nadeem in the afternoon and moved my belongings into the Scientist Home which is the designated International Hostel. The room is a bit of a cut in luxury with no A/C, a leaky faucet and bucket instead of a shower, and some pretty worn beds, but I had okayed all this as it was also 1/5 the cost of the other room and I’m not a picky person. I also met my neighbor, Bayer Darmel. He is an Afghani Pharmacy Masters student with his BVSC already done. He has been at this school a year away from his wife and child and has another year to go. He is very social, has a good sense of humor, and is great company. He is even coming to Purdue when he is done in Bangalore to continue his studies. He keeps a pet bunny named Angel that is an adorable white rabbit with blue eyes. A woman flagged me down in the road and told Dr. Nadeem and me that an Art of Living meeting was going to take place that afternoon. This is the same group that teaches yoga to the vet class at Purdue so I thought it would be fun to see what the course is like. Their meetings are pretty lively. There is a lot of singing and towards the end people get up and dance. Smiling is also strongly enforced. Definitely the most lively meditation session I’ve gone to. I signed up for the basic weeklong course later in the month. I went to Sapna Delight for dinner and had the tomato black pepper soup and paneer tikka (one of my first dry dishes since coming here). Paneer tikka was paneer cheese sandwiched between onion and bell pepper with spice. It tasted best with some sauce (Ketchup). While leaving I saw my first rat, which seems as though it took a while for being in a city. It was a cute brown one, a bit smaller than my pet female one.