First Impressions

Whew! I titled this “First Impressions” but there are so many new things all at once. Some I expected, some not. Some are startling, some just odd. Here’s a sample.

The airport is less than one year old, but there’s already an addition: an armed soldier protected by a row of sandbags: one of the legacies of last November’s attacks in Mumbai.

Traffic isn’t bad at 2 AM. Cars move quickly, especially through red lights. Our driver flashed his high-beams whenever running a red light at 50 miles per hour. At least he used his lights!

Bangalore has beautiful, huge trees lining the sidewalks. Our driver said it’s only a remnant of what Bangalore used to have when it was known as “The Garden City.” Wherever we see grand trees on the sidewalk, we know that there were others where the street and the houses now are. That’s a little sad.

Approaching our apartment, I saw garbage in the streets and broken down buildings; what would our apartment look like? To my relief, it’s a relatively new building, pretty well-maintained at the end of a cul-de-sac. The apartment is huge (three-bedroom, three-baths) and very clean, if a little sparse (almost nothing on the walls.)

Wyeth is paying for a car and driver, primarily to take Ann to and from work. However, we are free to use his services to take us anywhere, including going out of the city on the weekends. He’s the one who met us at the airport.
Sometimes, Ann and I are a little slow on the uptake. At one point, our driver said that he doesn’t celebrated Holi, a Hindu spring festival that took place the day after we arrived. He brought us chicken and rice the first night that his wife had cooked, and it wasn’t typical South Indian food (which is usually vegetarian.) His clothes looked more like Muslim clothing than Hindu and we wondered, is he Muslim? Then we recalled his name: Ubed-allah. Yes, he is Muslim, and it should have been pretty obvious. As I said, Ann and I can be a little slow on the uptake sometimes.