Tag Archives: urban

Buying a postage stamp in Bangalore

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MERRY CHRISTMAS!

ALL I NEEDED WAS A POSTAGE STAMP. I could have walked around the corner to the post office in nearby Museum Road, but I chose to do otherwise. I found that there is a post office in Shivajinagar, a busy district in central Bangalore that contains many places of interest with ‘local colour’.

I asked directions to the post office from a couple of men standing in their tiny silver shops on the corner of Jewellery Street and Ebrahim Saheb Street. One of the men pointed in one direction and the other at the opposite. After some discussion, these kind gentlemen decided that I should head towards the large mosque at the top end of Commercial Street.

The Jumma Masjid stands at one end of Commercial Street on a traffic filled lane. A wider street lined with shops and market stalls leads from this centre of Muslim worship to St Mary’s Basilica whose tall spire dominates the skyline. The church and its grounds were exuberantly decorated with Christmas decorations. A portrait of Mother Teresa overlooks the busy courtyard in front of the church. A stall was selling gawdy decorations including a model of Father Christmas playing a brass coloured saxophone.

One side of the square outside of the church compound was lined with stalls selling decorative Christmas items, ranging from paper stars to models of Nativity cribs.

A building with indo-arabesque domes lines part of another side of the square. This is Russell Market, an indoor food bazaar. The picturesque building was built by the British in 1927.

Russell is not the only market in Shivajinagar. On my rambles today, I came across a couple of other food markets. These are not housed in buildings like the Russell Market, but in simple shacks. Years ago while wandering in Shivajinagar, I came across an open air bazaar specialising in spare parts for automobiles. I have not been able to find this chaotic jumble of motoring spares again, but I have been told it still exists.

HKP Road leads away from the Square that contains Russell Market. I had never been along this road before. The first thing that caught my eye was the covered Beef Market, which bears the date 1932. Near its entrance I saw butchers working on huge pieces of unrefrigerated beef. There is another beef market, which I have visited before, at Johnson Market at the south of the city centre.

Outside the Beef Market, there were numerous cages containing birds for sale as pets. Proceeding a few yards away from the Beef Market, I had to step aside to avoid bumping into a live cow occupying most of the pavement outside a shop called “Blue Sea Aquarium”. This was close to a shop specialising in repairing sewing machines, both electrical and pedal operated.

After crossing a canal, or maybe, judging by its smell, an open sewer, I spotted an old house with ornate shades over its windows. I photographed it.

The old house is opposite a tiny post office, which I entered. Three men were sitting behind the counter in a disordered office space. Eventually, one of them attended to me. After weighing my letter and scrutinising the address on its envelope, I was handed a 5 Rupee stamp. Using glue from a pot on the counter I affixed the stamp.

I had already handed over twenty Rupees, but received no change. When I had stuck on the stamp, I asked for my change. The post office employee who had sold me the stamp seemed surprised. One of his colleagues rummaged around in a drawer, and handed me ten Rupees. Neither I nor the post office had five Rupees to give the correct change. I felt it was worth losing 5 Rupees at this transaction because my journey to reach it had been far more interesting than had I walked to the post office nearest to where I was staying.

After leaving the post office, I began walking back along HKP Road. A motor scooter pulled up alongside me. It was being driven by a man. Behind him sat his child and his wife in full burqa. He said that he had seen me taking a picture of his old house. I told him that I am interested in the old buildings of Bangalore. He told me that his house was over 100 years old and that I should visit his clothing shop in Commercial Street.

New York! New York!

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Brooklyn Bdg_240

 

In 1992, I decided to visit New York City (‘NYC’). I had a week available and did not want to waste a minute of that precious time.

In order to make efficient use of my time in NYC, I bought several guidebooks. I spent several weeks studying them in my spare time. I wanted to make sure that I did not miss seeing anything that seemed likely to be of interest to me.

As I turned the pages of these books, something began to worry me and nearly made me want to cancel my trip. Each of the books had sections on dangers in the city including ‘mugging’. What worried me most was not that these books warned of the risks of being mugged, BUT what to do when you are mugged, rather than if you are unlucky enough to be mugged. The implication seemed to me to be that getting mugged was inevitable. That was what got me worried.

Well, I decided, if I was going to be mugged, I had better be prepared for it. Had the situation arrived, which (thank heavens) it did not, I was going to hand over my wallet politely without attempting a struggle. However, I was not prepared to hand over all my cash to any old criminal. To avoid this, I carried a useful nmber of US Dollars in my socks beneath the soles of my feet.

As it turned out, my week in NYC was not only free of unpleasant surprises but also highly enjoyable. 

The streets of NYC in 1992 were far more exciting and ‘edgy’ than when I returned for another visit in 2007. Between those two visits, Manhattan seemed to have been socially ‘sanitized’. The sense of excitement and uncertainty that I felt in 1992  had been replaced by an almost dull genteelness. Manhattan had been transformed from an electrifyingly live place to something like an urban theme park. No doubt, those who live there find it an improvement over what it was back in 1992, but I was a little disappointed.

Some know, others don’t

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I know it is not a good idea to make generalisations, but it is quite fun to do so occasionally. So, here goes! This time, I am going to generalise about taxi drivers’ knowledge in London, Bombay, Bangalore, and Ahmedabad.

The drivers of London’s characteristic black (usually) cabs are only allowed to work when they have “The Knowledge”. That is, they have passed an examination that requires the candidate to have a very detailed knowledge of the streets of London. A London cabbie only very rarely does not know the way.

London’s minicab and Uber drivers do not have to be tested on The Knowledge, but they are usually very adept at using GPS systems.

In Bombay, there is a huge number of yellow and black cabs. In my experience, the drivers usually know their way around the city. Some of them raise all kinds of objection s before they give in to your wish to hire them, but once aboard they will take you where you want without requiring navigational assistance.

I find the best way to get around Bangalore is to travel in an autorickshaw. Their drivers often know the way, and if they do not, they will ask fellow autorickshaw drivers, who can point them in the right direction. Uber and it’s competitor Ola exist in Bangalore, but their drivers, often from out of town, are often clueless about the city’s geography and find GPS hard to understand.

It is our experience with autorickshaw drivers in Ahmedabad that prompted me to write this blog. We have made many trips in their vehicles. An enormous proportion of the drivers will tell you that they know how to reach a place, but in reality they have no clue. They will not admit their ignorance and are often reluctant to stop and ask for directions from bystanders.

One driver in Ahmedabad, who was completely lost, got annoyed with us, his customers, and said: “Why are you going somewhere if you don’t know how to get there? I should leave you here, and you can find your own way.”

I did say that I would be generalizing. In all fairness, I must record that some of the autorickshaw drivers in Ahmedabad have been very knowledgeable about their city, but these have been in the minority.

So, when you visit the truly wonderful city of Ahmedabad, you will find it helpful to be able to access Google maps on your mobile phone while travelling around.

Garden city

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Bangalore in South India has long been known as the ‘Garden City’.

There are still many trees and gardens in the city, but these are gradually disappearing. With a population of 10 MILLION or more, there are excessive demands on the water supply. Trees are being chopped down to allow for road widening. This is causing the water table to sink lower and lower beneath the surface. The loss of tree cover and green space, which is becoming gobbled up by property developers, is causing the average ambient temperature to rise.

The ‘Garden City’ is under threat: it will soon be a concrete jungle, a jungle with few plants. Some say that within a decade or two, Bangalore will become uninhabitable. I hope this will not happen because the city is still a vibrant metropolis with a rich cultural and commercial life.