The Subcontinent by Slacks: Zen and the Art of Driving in Bangalore

Meet Munish. Munish is a guy in his late 20s from a town just outside Bangalore. His job is to help "mobilize" teams of Indians to perform outsourcing work and also includes coordinating / entertaining the silly Americans that decide to come stop by. Over a beer or two last Friday, after a ride on the back of his motorbike to a bar, he laid out for me his philosophy that "Driving in Bangalore is like Zen." Now its true, a zen master I am not, but if you asked me to describe the exact opposite of Zen, driving in Bangalore would be pretty high on the list. The first thing that hits you is the cacophony (1) of horns, all of which seem to have the same meaning of "get the fuck out my way, I'm not stopping". The next is the mix of 'vehicles' on the streets: hulking fifty year old busses, belching Tata trucks, fleets of three wheeled tuktuks / rickshaws, motorbikes carrying at least two people, dudes pushing carts of fruits and your usual smattering of dogs, goats, chickens and (of course) cows. Finally, there is the driving style: a combination of kamikaze swerving, aggressive honking and obeying traffic signals (which is without a doubt the strangest part). "No," Munish agreed, "driving in Bangalore is not a state of Zen, it requires a state of Zen." And that seems like a pretty good intro to India.

I arrived here last Wednesday after a tumultuous (2) flight and things have been going really well. Outside of the traffic, Bangalore is a pretty decent city. The weather is great for India, a very comfortable 60-70 degrees with minimal monsooning (knock on wood). There's a lot of hustle and bustle with tons of little shops selling everything from chips to walkmans to ironing (done with an actual block of iron). There is a dizzying array of food places to try (from street stalls to serious 5 star tasting menus) and the central area sports a number of bars and pubs (which for all the night owls out there, are open till a whopping 11:30pm). The place I'm staying is a pretty nice serviced apartment featuring something approaching high speed internet, something approaching a shower and best of all its only about a 15 minute walk to one of our six palatial (3) offices here.

Had a few good days in the office here and am trying to come up with a coping mechanism for these 11pm conference calls (smart money is on booze). Wandered around Bangalore this past weekend, checked out some decent temples which were cool, though the Hindus' idea of what to do with cows and my ideas are starkly, starkly different. Also visited a few cool parks which featured both cricket and an Indian wine tasting (what's that? haven't heard of Indian wine? there's a reason for that). Had drinks at a 5-star hotel on Mahatma Gandhi road which was a pleasant, if expensive, affair. But most importantly, got an Indian cell phone (+91 974 019 9983) so fire up Skype, Google Voice or your work phone and give me a call.