Honestly? I’m lazy. I’ve been working hard, and generally the time
where I think abstractly enough for blogging tends to be at awkward
times, like in an auto or while walking across campus. However, I
need to write this down. Not only will my Aunt Donna be upset if I
don’t update, but this is for me as well; life here has
changed the way I see the world, really for the better. The result is
that as I blogged like crazy at the start of my trip, so too will I
blog at the end, starting here.

Since my last posting, there’s been a world of things I’ve done. I
can drink tap water now, for starters. I don’t make a habit of it,
but if it’s all that’s available, it’s all that’s available. That’s a
big one, honestly.

A friend of mine and I were talking today, and I brought up that in
coming to India, I steeled myself for The Big Things. I haven’t
really felt any major culture shock, and that is due in large
part for me mentally preparing myself for going from Champaign, IL to
Bangalore, India. However, there’s a million and one small things,
the type that doesn’t rear its head and make itself noticed. For
example, there is something off about India for the first
couple of weeks I was here. I couldn’t tell what it was, but
something felt wrong on a basic, fundamental level.

“What was it?”, asks the audience.

Stairs. Holes. Ledges, bumps, all manner of things that would get
any business or government in the US in large amounts of trouble with
regards to handicap accessibility. India is not the
place for the wheelchair-bound. As a walking person, it’s something
you don’t notice, but for us Americans, our world is typically flat.
Sidewalks are smooth, there are generally smooth(ish) inclines
anywhere you need to get to with minor elevation changes, and public
places either have complex ramps or an elevator for large elevation
changes. It’s really a small thing for me, but it was bugging the
hell out of me until I figured it out. It’s one of a million things
that have struck me about this city.

This city is very much organic; I don’t see any reasonable way that
anyone regulates, taxes, or does much of anything with at least 75% of
the individuals and businesses here. Better question: I don’t know if
there’s any authority that knows that 75% of the individuals and
businesses here even exist. Sure, they know there’s a lot of
people here and it’s a big city, but beyond that, what then? After
much of the touristing I’ve done here over the weekend (more on that
later), I imagine the proper question is: do I know the identity of
every cell in my body?

Alex told me to “live like a pimp.” I probably will… once I’m not in neighborhoods where I’m stepping over cow dung in the street while children play on a pile of trash piled up so high against their house they can roll a wheel up to the roof. On the flip side, I can get a samosa and an orange Fanta for 26 rupees. If you’re paying attention to the titles of my previous posts, the Fanta is 20 Rs., thus leaving a very tasty samosa for 6 Rs. (12 cents, for those keeping score). Final verdict: In the slums, I’m going to take advantage of my relative wealth while not being an ass about it. They need the rupees more than I would like a Fanta, so everyone wins there. Once I get out to the better off bar district, I can do as Alex requests

Leaving by the main, south entrance to the institute takes me out onto a busy street lined with barbed-wire concrete walls for miles. However, this morning I discovered The Back Entrance, to the north. Walking out there, I managed to discover the fore mentioned street poo and the children with the trash heap. I also discovered a busy many blocks of little shops, including the one I got my Fanta and samosa from. There’s also a few Airtel and Vodafone shops there I’ll probably get a cheap (1200 Rs) pay-as-I-go phone to use around town.

The IIS campus (a.k.a. “The Tata Institute” to local cabbies) is almost something out of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The crew beams down to a planet, where everyone speaks decent-enough to flawless English, and everything’s the same as Back Home, But Different. Where they bother with landscaping, it’s lovely. Where they don’t, it’s native jungle that hasn’t been cleared away (their “quad” is a thick forest with some walking paths through it). All the women here are wearing saris. All the women. Sometimes it feels like a restored university in the Fallout universe- almost everything’s rusty, and there are Random Concrete Things just off the beaten path through the forest that suggest there might have been a building or something large there. There are other walking paths that trail off into nothing, with a set of broken-down stone stairs set into a small hillside… simply in the middle of nowhere. It’s as if the institute simply picked its battles with time and budget… and Time here is not one to be trifled with lightly.

I suppose I should start now at the beginning of my trip then, if I wish to blog my travels. My parents took me to O’Hare airport in Chicago today, where they treated me to a marvelous lunch at the Hilton, before seeing me off at the security checkpoint. I managed to put in a couple hours of productivity at the gate while waiting, and then boarded the aircraft. Upon boarding, I discovered I had my part of the row to myself: the isle and the window seats are both mine, all mine!. The headrests have video-on-demand services that are pretty clever; I have a pull-out remote in my armrest that is:

• An airphone
• A remote control for the audio/video system
• Controls for my reading light, flight attendant requests, etc.
• A game console controller, looking like an attempt to fake an SNES controller with the layout.

Yes, that’s right, the in-flight entertainment includes a personal video game console system. Cool.

This has all been going disturbingly well; my flight from Champaign
to Temple, TX last year was much more eventful (in the bad
way): the flight from Champaign to Chicago was plenty late enough to
make Atul and I miss our flight by seconds. However, here, everything
was… smooth. It took me as much time to go through O’Hare security
into the American Airlines terminal as it took me to go through
security at both Champaign and the Killeen, TX airfields (where I spent
more time putting my shoes back on than any other part of the
process). I’m rather impressed with everything so far.

Now I’m somewhere over Ontario. This is the first time I’ve
ever crossed an international border in my life. The map says the
Great Circle for this trip will be taking me through Russia. I’ve
always wanted to go to Russia. Perhaps sometime I’ll take a plane
that will land there, instead of keeping me 33,000 feet above it.

A while back, I blogged while taking the Amtrak from Champaign to
Chicago, the City of New Orleans. It’s one of my all-time favorite
songs, and it’s simply about his journey, real or imagined, on a
train. I’m not aware of anyone having written anything with such
feeling and romance for an airplane. Perhaps the starving artists who
are most capable of such things don’t have the money to take long-haul
international flights like the one I’m on enough to get any
feeling. The rumble of the engines and the sound of this giant
aluminum tube cutting through the air at hundreds of miles per hour
don’t feel as… “organic” as the gentle nock-nock of the train car.
Humans understand Big Strong Things pulling Heavy Stuff distances over
land. However, right now… I’m flying It’s a wonderful
thing, but it’s one of the single most unnatural things a human can
do. I’ve been thinking about making an indie rock album for some time now. I suppose a song on airline flight should be on there.

Now I’m over Quebec, after having my first in-flight meal. It’s
both exactly as and better than I expected. While the details of it are very interesting to me, I suspect you, dear reader, do not wish to read a 5-page essay on the particularities of my meal.

I’m now nearing the Arctic Circle, and I’m beginning to tire of having a laptop here, so I’m going to curl up with my movie. More updates and pictures as they come!