Keeping Up with India

The last few weeks of my time in India have been punctuated by some very diverse experiences, as I tried to make clear in my last, rushed post from the dusty town of Hospet in Karnataka before my bus took off. For most of the last week, I lounged on Palolem beach in south Goa, one of the nicest beaches that I have ever had the pleasure of lounging on, and really did nothing but read, play volleyball, swim, and, for one day only, rent a motor scooter and buzz around southern Goa (I had some pretty ambitious plans, but they ground to a halt, as did I, as soon as I felt the hot, muggy weather and saw the idyllic beach, ringed by palm trees, internet cafes, little hippy clothing shops and beach-side restaurants). The experience of lounging Goa was one that I desperately needed; it relaxed me, let me catch up on sleep and get back to the basics of a good book and lots of free time. But it is not the subject of my post.

Instead, I would like to write a bit about an aspect of India that may come across as surprising for my Western audience, that being my two experiences with the hip, young, affluent Indians. Especially in metropolitan areas, the middle class, and even upper-middle class has really noticeably begun to spread its wings, riding on the back of India's booming economy and IT sector in particular. In such places as Delhi, Bangalore, and Pune, the 4-million-person city where I am currently, late-model cars clog streets that were not built to accommodate so much traffic, and where street stalls and local shops once lined the roads, now McDonalds, coffee chains and Western clothing stores have become ubiquitous. In city centers, no longer are saris and dhotis commonplace--in fact, I am often the only person in sight wearing Indian-style kurtas, while everyone else wears t-shirts and blue jeans (even in 110 degree weather!). This new and ostentatious middle class drinks beer and cocktails, goes out to restaurants frequently and even enjoys a nightclub or two, as I learned first-hand this past Saturday night in Pune. While the image of the Indian middle class may be hard for Westerners to imagine, given the stereotype of Indian destitute poverty, in cities here it is very much a reality. Although this affluence has left the towns and villages untouched, it is clear that urban centers are become middle-class oriented and middle-class dominated.

The aforementioned two brushes that I have had with Indian urban affluence have come in Bangalore, where my friend Suma and I stayed with her 30-year-old cousins for a week, and here in Pune, where we have been staying with a friend whom we met together in Mussoorie. Suma's cousins, Ananth and Ashita, work as an interior/commercial designer and an executive at Nike headquarters, respectively. Rahul, our friend in Pune, works as a freelance journalist, writing pieces for several national and regional papers, while his wife Shubana is an executive at Infosys, one of India's largest IT companies. They are both lovely hosts, and they have both wined and dined Suma and I to a degree that was totally unexpected. And, because of them, my experiences in Pune and Bangalore have been far from what I expected, at least when I decided to travel to India--different, but still lots of fun.

I think that Pune and Bangalore are very comparable cities. Both have grown massively over the last 10-20 years, more than doubling in size. Both are fairly affluent, or at least boast sizeable middle classes, which in the case of both is at least partly due to the IT industry--the two cities are number one and two in India in terms of IT investment. They are of comparable size, and both have lovely weather, being up in the hills of the Deccan plateau instead of on the hot and muggy south Indian coast. Neither one is renowned for its historical monuments and tourist attractions, but both have strong reputations as excellent places to lounge, to bar hop, and to enjoy nightlife (and I have!!).

In fact, my salient impressions of both places have been the excellent food that I've eaten, the cocktails that I've enjoyed (for Western prices!! I never thought I'd drink a 5 Dollar Rum and Coke in India!!) and the Disco where I went dancing with Rahul, Shubana and Suma this past Saturday night. There have been some amazing places...from the Cosmo lounge and the thirteenth-floor restaurant Ebony in Bangalore to Rahul's brother's South East Asian restaurant here in Pune. Very chic and modern decor in all the places, very stylish clienteles, all of it much more posh than I could have afforded in the States. As I said, I have been very surprised to enjoy this kind of existence in India of all places, where I thought I'd be roughing it on the streets!! So, everyone out there worried about me--please don 't: I'm living it up more than you are back home!

Being in this kind of environment is fairly amazing for me, because it seems like a very new phenomenon. Lifestyles are changing so quickly here, and many are having a hard time keeping up. New cultures and trends clash with traditional values, and everyone is left trying to find out where they stand in the new society. People like Rahul, Shubana, Ananth and Ashita represent not only a new generation, but an entirely new cultural phenomenon. In India, the metropolitan areas are jumping from a conservative culture to a postmodern culture--imagine, if you will, the West jumping from the Victorian age to the present in one generation, and you will have some idea of what this is like. There is a lot of discussion and disagreement about whether this is the death of Indian society, or a vast improvement, and in this argument I can honestly see the value in both sides. For me it is a bit sad to witness a sea of blue jeans, to go to a disco and hear western rap music played, and to see shopping malls constructed coming up all across cities in what is an ancient and sophisticated society that has functioned without all these things for thousands of years.. But then again, who am I to judge what is culturally decadent and what is enriching? And I am happy to know that this modernization has improved the lives of countless millions of Indians, even if it has yet to reach the furthest points of Indian society. But, as my experiences in Bangalore and Pune have shown me, whether I want it to or not, and whether Indians themselves want it to or not, India is a country which is on the move. Where it ends up is a question that will entertain me for a long, long time.

Like A Rolling Stone

Hello everyone after a very long hiatus!! I am currently sitting in an internet cafe in the dusty, grimy, noise little southern Indian city of Hospet, in which there is literally nothing of interest. I figured that, while I have nothing to do but wait for my 12 hour, cheap local bus to the tiny beach resort-strewn state of Goa (bus leaving in an hour...I'll have to type quickly), I might as well dust off the old blog and let everyone know that India has not quite killed me off yet.
There are many things that I could theoretically blame on my month long break from blogging, including but not limited to: language school, too many going away parties, the Taj Mahal, Delhi's 110 degree heat, Salman Rushdie, monkeys, India's frequent power outages, early trains, late trains, ancient ruins, you get the picture...after all, this is the country that runs on IST (Indian Standard Time, which runs as late as is convenient), and where, grammatically speaking (in Hindi at least), no one can ever be late--lateness just happens to you. But, in reality, I'm writing in English, where one cannot get away with using the passive voice constantly, so I will have to actually come up with a viable excuse. The best one that I can think of is that, while in Mussoorie I didn't have anything interesting to report, since I left Mussoorie there has just been too much to say. That and, jumping back to my Hindi-speaking self, laziness happens to have happened to me.
So What have I been up to? You may have noticed that I've somehow moved almost a whole subcontinent away from where I was a month ago. I am no longer taking Hindi lessons, having completely and unquestionable mastered the language. I'm officially on the move, wreaking havoc on South Asia--as I have been for the last two weeks or so. I've steamrolled through Agra and Delhi, to take in the Taj Mahal and the oppressive heat, respectively. I've spent an entire week bumming around the super posh and super chic city of Bangalore, in the southern part of the country, enjoying the city's happening nightlife--that is, until 11:00 PM, when all the bars, clubs and lounges are simultaneous invaded by breathalyzer-wielding policemen who pound the floors with their nightsticks as people try to buy time to finish their cigarette and their beer. Most recently, I've spent three days in Hampi--a kind of South Asian Machu Picchu, except set in between banana plantations instead of on a mountain--but no less fascinating and captivating, even if it is a bit less dramatic. And now I'm off to Goa to rent a scooter for a few days and motor my way from beach to beach across the 50 miles of coastline in the state.
A lot has happened to me in the last month, and that is in addition to completely and unquestioningly mastering Hindi. I've had lots and lots of South Indian dosas, kind of fried pancakes eaten with this spicy soup called sambaar and pale green coconut chutney. I've been attacked by cows on at least two occasions, and survived them both. I've been attacked by rickshaw and taxi drivers on many more occasions, and haven't quite survived all of them: even if I've still managed to escape with my life (sometimes just barely), my wallet seems to be conspicuously lighter after unknowingly paying five times the fare to go somewhere. I've been through the standard line of questioning ( "Whatisyourname? Whichcountry? Marriage? Whynomarriage? Whatyourfatherworking?) at least once or twice per day since I last blogged, and I must say, I've come up with some pretty creative responses. I've gotten lost many times, been very uncomfortable, spent long chunks of time exhausted, had the Delhi Belly on several occasions (do you really want me to explain what happens to your belly in Delhi? Use your imagination)---in short, its been an exhilirating and unforgettable trip; and there are still four weeks to go!! (during which, I will dare to promise, I will get off at least a couple more blog posts.)