Electronics City

When we left home last May the trend in Americas high-tech industry was to outsource any possible job overseas. The manufacturing of hardware products was being sent to China, while software related projects were being moved to India, especially to the city of Bangalore. I had read the name Bangalore so often in the San Jose Mercury newspaper, and overheard it spoken during endless hallway conversations at work, that I was intrigued to find out what the buzz was all about.

Bangalore, like other big cities in India, has its share of posh restaurants, trendy pubs, genuine Western brand name shops, stylish nightclubs and large shopping malls. Shiny European cars cruse the streets while local shoppers crowd the sophisticated lifestyle shops on MG Road.

Arriving in the city, we found the absence of holy cows on the streets allowed our attention to shift to other things besides that of avoiding their excrement with each step. Bangalore, nicknamed the Garden City, has more greenery and parks than we've seen anywhere in India and the presence of so many trees helps serve as the city's lungs. As a result, pollution, while still present, is less overwhelming than the other large cities we visited. We spent a Sunday afternoon observing locals at Lalbagh Botanical Garden. Families picnicked while lovers strolled hand and hand amongst a riot of flowers in full bloom.

On two occasions, we were invited to dine with locals in their home. Their professions were varied; software engineer, real estate developer, art professor and manufacturing businessman. Our casual conversations shed light on the current state of Bangalore. Each couple was leading a modern existence similar to that of someone living in the west. The sophistication of the city offered these working professionals a comfortable lifestyle full of modern convenience.

As a result of the high-tech boom, these people were living in contemporary surroundings; however, the heart of Bangalore did not seem to reflect the new modernization as a whole. It was surprising to witness power outages and spikes in a place we'd expect to find a stable power supply. Internet cafes were still using beta versions of Windows 98 and evaluation releases of Windows 2000. The software installed on these machines would crash often and the net connection was slower than in the backwaters of Kerala. "Is this really the Silicon Valley of India," I thought. "After all that I've heard about Bangalore, this can't be true!"

Trying to get any business done in central Bangalore was as inefficient and time-consuming as anywhere in India, if not worse. Shipping a parcel in the district with all the trendy Western brand name shops and posh establishments was the worst experience that we had in all of India. Small towns like Kochi, and big cities like Ahmedabad were smooth going compared to the additional logistics and hoops we had to jump through in Bangalore. An international shipment that would routinely take not more than 30 minutes elsewhere turned into a two and a half hour nightmare here.

We noticed that a lot of people in Bangalore were left out of the new economic boom, and that the gap between rich and poor was widening quickly. The poor still line the streets begging for anything while the wealthy walk by in their latest fashions with barely a glance. As our expectations quickly wore thin, Bangalore began to look just like any other dirty, polluted Indian city. The high-tech tech firms have, for the most part, sheltered themselves from Bangalore proper, establishing their offices about 20 kilometers away in a new technology zone called Electronics City. These companies are building a new village of their own far away from the inner-city challenges of Bangalore.

Bangalore is a testimony to what so many have said about India: "It's not a poor country, but it's a country where many poor people live." The news media would have us believe that India will soon become one of the world's leading economic powers, and perhaps that will be not the case for this nation as a whole. With the economic prosperity that comes with the high tech boom as well as rapid growth in other industries, India may well reach her own glory, but only within a strictly limited population of people. Everything we hear about India's economy, modernization, and success is something that only a small percentage of her one billion strong populations will have an opportunity to experience.

While traveling throughout India over the past three months, we continue to find it difficult to describe the country in a word or a sentence. She shows us many faces and moods that change just as soon as we think we've figured her out. As to where she is headed in the future, we'll just have to wait and see. Somehow we know that Bangalore will experience drastic change, yet at the same time, it will not change at all. I believe this to be true with India as a whole.

At Home in Hampi

Hampi, a small but touristy town, sits in the middle of the Vijayanagar ruins, the ancient capitol of the largest Hindu empire in India's history. The town cuddles in between Hampi Bazaar and the Tungabhadra River. Hampi Bazaar is the main thoroughfare that leads to the ever-present Virupaksha Temple. Pilgrims visit the town to take in the holy sites or to dip themselves in the Tungabhadra during the annual Sankaranti festival. Indian tourists and foreign travelers crowd the town, feeling at home in the many guesthouses and dharmasalas that provide low cost accommodations. Time passes slowly in Hampi and its visitors are left to explore its vast surroundings at a leisurely pace. In my case, it was the perfect place to rest and recover after my Malaria illness.

The surrounding environment is a combination of both natural and man-made wonders. Boulder-strewn landscape and ancient stone-carved ruins provide the overall tone. The huge rocks look as though they have been cast out of some giant's hand, and lay in precarious arrangements, balancing gracefully on top one another. The landscape reminds us of Sedona, Arizona, or sections of Utah in its color and form. The river flows ever-slowly, flanked to the west by emerald green rice paddies, banana plantations and rows of coconut palms. To the south, the rocks are skillfully carved into pillars and temples, all with early Hindu deities carefully cut into their sides. In a cloudless sky, a bright blue hue contrasts with the vivid green and red-brown of the earth. The sun is sharp and strong and the days are hot and dry. In the afternoons our motivation evaporates like a drop of water. Because of the afternoon heat, we find ourselves rising before sunrise to make early morning explorations to the ruins scattered throughout the area. Our afternoons are reserved for sitting under large mango trees sipping chai.

Our lodging is more a room in a family home than an official guesthouse or hostel. The house is located a few streets in from Hampi Bazaar, on a quiet lane lined with other family homes and only few businesses. From the rooftop terrace we enjoy the soaring view of the 50 meter high gopuram (tower) of the Virupaksha Temple. Our room is bare and basic, with tiny windows and a hard iron bed. The short street makes up a friendly little community where everyone knows each other and all their associated gossip. Because these are family homes, most tourists and touts hardly step into the neighborhood, leaving us in a quiet, cozy atmosphere, which we found delightful.

Our landlords are gentle people who go about their day according to their own schedule. Each morning and evening, the wife draws fresh Rangavalli, or sacred patterns, in white sand at the front gate of the home. These patterns are both simple and complex in their design, and offer a pleasant distraction from the dusty streets. In the mornings, after the daily Rangavalli is drawn, she lights incense and gathers her bowl of tikka powers, in red, saffron and white. She stops to clean each doorway entrance, offering cleansing smoke, and fresh adornments to each threshold. Her husband, a bank manager in town, dedicates one hour each morning for his daily puja (prayer), chanting and meditating before eating a late breakfast and heading to the office around 11am. The wife fills her day with a never-ending assortment of daily chores, washing clothes, dishes, endless sweeping and looking after her guests. Her son is a businessman who works at a trading company in Hospet, a larger town located 13 kilometers from Hampi. We became quite friendly with this family, and as a result, our relationship deepened beyond that of a mere paying guests.

Chandra, the eldest son, suggested we climb Matanga Hill to watch the sunrise. The next morning, he woke early and guided us to the hilltop before returning home to shower and commute to work. We were invited to join the family for dinner, a mouth-watering meal of chapattis, banana shicarani (like a chunky lassi), sambar, and two other vegetables dishes, commonly called subji. The home cooked food was a welcome change to months of restaurant cuisine, cooked with love and intention along with fresh ingredients. They offered us their dining table in their own home to use as a desk while we worked, concerned about our comfort in the small and sparse room we were renting. We spent Lyn's birthday in Hampi, and that morning the wife treated us to steaming hot idli and chai for breakfast – Lyn's favorite breakfast food. All of their kind and friendly gestures didn't come close to justifying the nightly rent of 250 Rupees (about 6 USD).

It's been a rare opportunity to have such intimate exchanges with locals while we have been traveling within India. Most of the time there are assumptions about money and business associated with such dialog. Often the warm smiles disappear, replaced by an indifferent gaze, once they realize that we are not interested in their offerings. How many times did I witness this in the shops around Hampi Bazaar alone? An innocent conversation turned to blank stare when we made it clear we weren't shopping. The families' honest interest in making us feel at home was a key reason why we stayed in Hampi longer than anticipated, resting, relaxing and exploring the mind-boggling, sublime landscape that surrounds it. Hampi is well known on the tourist trail in India, but even here we were able to move away the well-trodden center and crowds by staying in this lovely families home as well as by exploring the vast ruins before mid-day. Hampi is indeed one of the most fascinating places we visited in India.

Bit by a Bad Bug

On January 7, I was admitted to the JSS Hospital in Mysore. While celebrating New Years in Kochi I was bit by a bad bug and contracted Malaria as a result. While Kochi has historic and cultural charm, it also has a serious mosquito problem due to its open, dirty sewers and stagnant water. It wasn't until leaving Kochi, on the night train to Mangalore on January 3 that I began to feel weak and chilled, and brushed it off as just a flu or fatigue. Even though we traveled in an air-conditioned compartment, I experienced heavy sweating throughout the night. When we arrived in Mangalore the next morning, we still had a full day of travel to reach our destination of Belur. This involved rickshaw and two more buses. By the time we arrived the chills were getting worse and my head was feeling quite heavy.

This wasn't the first time I felt flu-like symptoms with achy joints, fever and chills during our journey, but to be sure, I went to a small medical clinic across the street from the hotel. The doctor there diagnosed me as with either the flu, conditions resulting in a change in climate, or the effects of drinking some bad water: he wasn't really sure. When I asked him about Malaria, he said that wasn't the case and prescribed antipyretic and antibiotics for the next two days. At the clinic, the cost of diagnosis was free, and most of the patients were poor villagers, who waited in long queues for their turn to see the doctor. While diagnosis is free, patients must pay a percentage of the prescription cost, as set by their medical benefit system. My prescriptions turned out to be 52 Rupees, about $1.20 in US dollars.

I was stuck in the hotel for obvious reasons, and wasn't able to fully explore the town of Belur. Finally, on January 6, my fever calmed down and I ventured out to visit Channekeshava Temple, well known for it's intricate and beautiful stone carvings. However, once the antipyretic wore off, the chills and fever returned stronger than before, and my body temperature shot up to 103 degrees. It was becoming more obvious everyday that this was not the flu or some other simple illness. The following morning, January 7th, Lyn hired a car and driver to take us to Mysore, the closest city from Belur with appropriate medical facilities. The chills were so bad during the four-hour drive that I asked the driver to stop just so I could stand in the hot sun to "warm up" for a few minutes.

Upon arriving in Mysore, we went straight to the Government Hospital Emergency Room and paid the 10 Rupees to register. As hard as it is to imagine an Emergency Room closing for lunch, this was the case, and no doctor was available during the 1PM to 2PM break. A young doctor advised us that if we wanted better care, we should try JSS Hospital. That's all we needed to make the move to another facility. Fortunately, JSS was not far away and our driver high-tailed it in that direction. Upon arrival, I was given a bed in the ER and the nurse immediately took my temperature, which registered 104 degrees, the highest yet. Because of the high fever, and perhaps because I was a foreigner, the doctors seemed concerned and went straight to work, asking questions about my health and immediately began an IV and gave me a shot to reduce the fever.

JSS Hospital is a medical collage, and therefore many on its staff are interns. I was passed around from intern to post-grad, and then to a senior professor who made the final decision to admit me to the hospital immediately. After a rather tedious admission process for a room in the private ward, the nurses took my blood to send to the lab. A short while later, the intense-looking post-grad came to collect me for a trip to a private lab in town, as the hospitals own testing facility would take another day for the results. After the 20-minute wait at the private lab, the results came back: I tested positive for Malaria. We drove back to the hospital and I began a "rapid treatment program" with IVs mixed with anti-Malarial medications that would last the next 5 days.

The professor surrounds himself with interns and doctors, each of whom is an expert in internal medicine, pharmacology, virus, epidemics and so on. They seemed to be brilliant and knowledgeable, exchanging information and ideas and coming to a collective decision on the treatment to be given, with the professor at the center of the team. The intense-looking post-grad said to us that he felt that Indian doctors were better trained than any doctor in the west because conditions in a developing nation present them with the full range of medical problems, the type that doctors in the west don't often see.

Nurses, on the other hand, are completely different story. They are friendly, kind and caring, but when it comes to executing doctors' orders, there seemed to be some confusion. They had trouble finding a vain in my arm for the IV, and to my irritation, I was stabbed several times before they got it right. We both found it best to double-check the medications and dosages to be sure they were correct.

The ward itself was small and not very clean, let alone fully sanitized. The bathroom was cleaned often but only with water, a dirty towel and a brush made from twigs. The ceiling of the bathroom dripped some unknown fluid that created stalactite, like you would see in some dark cave. Giant cockroaches ran free and mosquitoes entered through windows without screens. India is such a place where Malaria patients have to worry about mosquitoes inside a hospital where they are treated. The signs in the hallway read "Keep Quiet!" but it wasn't possible as other patients' moans and coughs, cries of newborn babies, and the voices of families gossiping in the hallway went on all day and night.

The hospital does not provide meals in its ward facilities. The only way to obtain food is to have someone bring meals in or venture out yourself to a nearby restaurant. Furthermore, patients or their family must run to the pharmacy at the doctors' request to purchase all medical supplies such as IVs, injection sets, and medications. I was fortunate to have Lyn with me in the ward throughout my illness to run for food or medications. I can't help but wonder how a single person would handle the logistics alone.

The fever started to go down immediately after I started the anti-Malaria drugs through the IVs. This treatment took three days to complete, with two more days of oral meds to complete the total elimination of the parasites from my bloodstream. The team of doctors headed by the professor visited me every morning, checked my body temperature, pulse and blood pressure, received reports from nurses and gave them further instructions. They conducted another blood test on the 5th day, which came back negative: the parasite was eradicated. Based on the result, I was discharged on the morning of January 12. Although I was impressed with the speedy and decisive handling by the professor and his students throughout my treatment, we were back to typical India when it came to the discharge process and all the associated paperwork, and waited over three hours before I could set a free foot out the door.

The diagnosis and treatment costs at JSS Hospital are considered low because it is a medical college, and as a result many of the patients come for poorer backgrounds. The private ward cost 250 Rupees a day with a 2,000 Rupees advance to be paid before admission. Having the money to pay for the advance is a decisive point for many of the patients wishing to stay in the private or semi-private room. Mysore has several other hospitals, which we heard offer a better overall environment, but which also come with a higher price, up to five times that of the medical collage hospital.

The total cost to treat my Malaria, including diagnosis, treatment, blood tests, medications, and the private ward, was less than 250 US dollars. JSS may not be the cleanest, or the most modern but the diagnosis and treatment given to me was on par with what I'd expect at home. The high cost of health care in America has become a huge social issue. High insurance costs, even higher costs for medical treatment have left many individuals without healthcare at all. While I've read that India also faces huge increases in medical care in the future, it's good to know that villagers, even in a small town like Belur, have access to some form of healthcare.

It is not a positive story to write about being hospitalized for Malaria in India. But looking back at the experience from a position of recovery, I gained insights into another aspect of Indian life, despite the unpleasant circumstances.

Burning Santa Claus

The new year of 2005 began for us in Kochi (or Cochin) in the southern state of Kerala. The fort city on an island was founded as a result of European colonialism in the 16th century. The town, two bridges away from the mainland, is made up of a diverse mix of Portuguese, Dutch and British architecture. Chinese fishing nets line the western shore. Jew Town, with its small population of Jewish Indians is famous for it's operating synagogue and spice markets. Hindu temples and mosques dot the island. Each of these different neighborhoods co-exists next to each other within an area of nine square kilometer that makes up the island. This town is a melting pot, a microcosm of interwoven cultures created over the course of history.

We arrived in Kochi two days after the Sumatra earthquake and tsunami. The damages in Ernakulam (the mainland town) and Kochi were minimal, though the island of Vypeen just north saw several people swept away by killer waves. Everywhere, people were mourning the tragedy that was still unfolding. While hotels and shops were operating normally, ferries connecting the island to the mainland were halted and no fishing boats took to the seas. People were taking all precautions where the ocean was concerned, afraid of recurring high waves. The annual New Years carnival was cancelled in an act of respect for the recent events. As a result, Kochi became a quiet town with only a handful of tourists. The local community tried to keep a cheerful attitude, laughing off the possibility of a "second tsunami," saying, "We're safe here. Don't worry, just relax and enjoy Kochi!"

The sea breeze doesn't blow through town much, and the air hangs thick, hot and humid. The mosquitoes begin buzzing around our lower limbs as dusk falls away to night. But the multicultural atmosphere and creative environment that promote various art forms contribute in making Kochi a vibrant place to visit. Several cafes promote local artists in their attached gallery space, showing a range of paintings, prints and sculpture. The traditional Kathakali Dance of Kerala is performed nightly at locations around town, one of the best being the Kerala Kathakali Center, which also stages Indian classical music and other traditional dance forms.

We rang in the New Year by attending a Kathakali performance, with all proceeds donated to tsunami relief efforts. Kathakali is a dance-drama, with possible beginnings as early as the 2nd century AD. The path leading to the theater has been swept and cleansed with water. Rangavalli patterns have been drawn with white powder on the damp earth and adorned with flowers. Incense wafts through the air and takes over our sense of smell as we arrive. Oil lamps sit on the right, left and center of the stage while more incense streams into the air, intensifying the sacred feeling all around us. The oil lamps are set alight and the performance begins as dancers and musicians enter the stage. The performace radiates with trance-like heated and tense energy and we soon find ourselves engulfed in a state of enthusiastic appreciation.

After the performance, we wait for midnight. The town is quiet, almost deserted when local Christians start to gather at Saint Francis Church with bibles in hand. The cathedral was established in 1503, when a Portuguese expedition led by Pedro Alvarez Cabral landed here. It's said to be the oldest church built by Europeans in India. We enter and choose a pew at the back of the lofty room, sitting quietly, absorbing the quiet, peaceful atmosphere and saying our own silent prayers for the New Year.

One of the common ways of celebrating the New Year in Kerala is to burn an effigy of Santa Claus. The day before the straw man is made, dressed in red and white with a Santa mask and hat completing the ensemble. As midnight approaches, neighbors gather around the Santas scattered around the town. We join a group gathering behind Saint Francis Church while the sounds of hymns echo from inside the cathedral. At the stroke of midnight, instead of a giant ball dropping from Times Square, the locals took flame to Santa's beard. Santa soon went up in smoke. Firecrackers and Atom Bombs exploded from within his belly while a crowd of neighbors, men passing on motorbikes, and western tourists surrounded the madness, all yelling joyous wishes for the New Year ahead.

After Santa exploded and burned, everyone exchanged Happy New Year greetings, hugs and kisses among each other, happy and smiling, just like any New Year's Eve party we would have attended back home. The mysteriously rising energy of the Kathakali Dance, the solemn hymns flowing out of Saint Francis Cathedral, and the comical display of Santa Burning Man found their way into our unique New Year celebration in Kochi and lead us into 2005 in high spirits.