A Passage to India: Bangalore
India is going to be everything that you expect it to be, that we the people :) hold to be self evident and undeniable. You will encounter the sacred, famished cows navigating their way placidly in the midst of the busiest traffic on the planet, the rigid standards of hygiene will need to be slightly readjusted, the women will be beautiful and food in its own league of spicy. However, India will be at the same time the greatest and most pleasurable discovery, the land of plenty, Holi colours, delights for the palate and the place of unfathomable beauty that evades description.
Our first stop and an absolute love at first sight was Bangalore, which is also known as the Silicon Valley of India. Places in India do tend to have more names, similar sounding but not quite, so do not insist it’s Bangaluru and not Bangalore. It wouldn’t make any sense since no one seems to care for the constant renaming:)  What’s in a name? :) It is also called the Garden City, and it is easy to understand why, with its lush vegetation that is breathtaking. It is a cosmopolitan city, merging class, religions and languages, and as a major IT hub, extremely welcoming towards foreigners. Once ruled by the sultans and later by the British, now it appears to be ruled by its ever smiling youth, who hustle and bustle relentlessly on the unavoidable scooters. In the streets, every day seems worthy of a celebration, of seizing it firmly and making it memorable. The Bangaloreans are zipping around the city, fearless in the face of the even fiercer rickshaw drivers (they alone deserve a separate post, don’t get me even started… :)), with girls and women at the back and their bright sarees fluttering in the wind like banners of joy. All of them helmetless, naturally.
It is important to come prepared for the fact that Bangalore is a shopping paradise. No point in fighting it. The enormous shopping malls are so well-equipped and supplied, that money permitting, you needn’t ever venture outside of them. But what elevates the experience to a whole new plane, is the drama of street shopping. For that, well you need more than just money. You need a lot of patience and time to find what you need and the skill of disregarding the chaos, noise, smells and the scorching, merciless sun. But if you jump over these hurdles, then comes the best part– bargaining. In Bangalore the haggle over the final price has been lifted to the level of such mastery, that you are more often than not left gaping in awe. You can fret and push, stubbornly negotiate, raise your hands in protest, turn your back and start to leave, but the street vendors have seen it all and they know best. You may leave the stall with a desired item and with a smug smile of a winner, but only to be informed by your significant other that your passionate bargaining has saved you the astounding 20 cents. Yeah, currency exchange is a bummer… :) In any case, the feeling is absolutely worth it, while learning more about the local life and the people has no price tag.
The architecture of Bangalore leaves nothing to be desired. The impressive government buildings properly convey that India is a huge country. Spirituality, deep and unaffected, is definitely in the air. The temples are a motley mixture of dancing deities, sensual females, moustached males and inspiring hybrid creatures such as Hanuman, a monkey god or Ganesha, the elephant-headed god. The Christian churches are an aberration in this surroundings only at a first glance. The second one already reveals that the people of India have found a creative, productive way of incorporating them into their own mode of life and belief system. The graceful Pietà sculpture will be adorned with marigold flower garlands, and Madonna will reside in a neon lit container. The mother of Jesus, not the performer :)
I’ll do my best to escape the traps of orientalism, but the obvious has to be stated. India is a magnificent, magical country, with a pulse of its own and through its veins flows  the unimaginable wealth that have been making it a place of excess for centuries. The most spectacular palaces in the world happen to be here, and I may as well start with the Bangalore Palace.
Once upon a time, it was a place of sumptuous garden parties, where high tea was taken very seriously, where chairs made from elephant legs were the norm and where the stuffed elephant heads could eavesdrop the giggly conversations of the jet set among which the Mysore royal family mingled. Today, it can be rented for  an ostentatious, over the top wedding reception, or it serves as a grounds for the concerts of The Rolling Stones, Metallica, The Prodigy… I wonder what the ancestors in the portraits might think of their music? The times they are a-changin’ for sure ?
