First update from India!

Update Blonks – 19 August, 2007

Dear family, friends, and undecided category,

The last couple of months have been kind of hectic for us, and therefore we have probably forgotten to mention to a number of you that we were moving from Houston, Texas, to Bangalore, India. Well, we did. Apologies for this mass update; we’ll do our best to answer all personal emails, but hereby we can at least share our status in an efficient way. We intend to send something every couple of months – but we also intended that when we moved to Muscat and to Houston. So don’t hold your breath. For some of you this is already long enough, so feel free to move down to our best regards. For others, below some highly irrelevant news, that will still beat CNN on a bad day.

The last weeks in Houston were occupied with saying goodbye to friends, finalizing the sale of our house and cars, and completing all preparations for the move, like getting Indian Visas, packing and shipping of the household (suitcases, airfreight, and container stuff). The saying-goodbye part was the most difficult, and we will greatly miss our personal friends, friends from Bear Creek Community Church, Global TaeKwon-Do, and from Shell, and we’ll try hard to visit Houston again in the years ahead to meet with them again. When we moved to Houston five years ago, many people told us that that city would be horrible. They were so wrong. We have loved the place, as well as we have loved just living in Yankee Country, and for a long time to come we will think of it as home.

After a week of vacation in Banff National Park (Canada), we flew into Houston for one more night, where around 01:30hrs we found out that perfectly open junkfood joints serve you only if your butt is placed on a car seat, and that walking past the drive-through counters really doesn’t work; Taco Bell lost valuable customer points that night. Later that morning, Richie Martin picked us up in our motel bringing the additional suitcases we had left at the Martin’s after which she dropped us off at Bush International for the flight to Amsterdam (21 July). While on job transfer, Shell puts the whole family in business class, which for Tim is as close to heaven as it gets on earth (food, drinks, and movies for 10 straight hours – all in a big easy chair) – he doesn’t relate to “On Earth, as it is in Texas”.

We stayed for just over 2 weeks in Holland – all the time in the house of Anne (Mieke’s brother) and Marcelle, who were on vacation with their kids at that time. It was good to meet a lot of family and friends after quite a while again. Luckily Anne & Marcelle & kids came back home a night earlier, so we could even spend a last evening with them before we took off to Amsterdam Airport at 04::00hrs Thursday morning, 8 August. We flew uneventfully via Frankfurt to Bangalore (yes, again the food and the movies for the teenager – and for his dad) and arrived there Friday morning just after midnight. Getting all luggage and going through customs went fairly smoothly, and we were in our hotel around 01:30hrs. We had expected a mad house at the airport, but it was not bad at all – only a number of friendly men flocking around us to help us pushing our carts with suitcases. I know that I (B) look whimpy, but they also believed Tim needed help. So they ripped us of for 60 Indian Rupees (1.5 USD) – I’m still recovering from this financial disaster. Realizing that many construction workers earn 50 Rupees a day, I really felt too generous. Okay seriously, we’ll need some time to get a handle on how to deal with money, tips, gifts, and whatever – will be one of my stress factors I already foresee (yes, that whimpy part again).

The hotel we stayed in for the first two weeks (Royal Orchid, 5 stars – nicknamed by some as the Not-so-Royal-Orchid – they have a Web-site for those who want to check it out; it’s the one at Airport Road) was pretty good, including the food. They had a special, complimentary weight-loss program, so by Monday afternoon (after 4 days) I was down 5 kgs (around 11 lbs for the Yankees among you) – just 80 kgs more to go. Tim didn’t join the program, but Mieke – loyal as ever – did, but was not as efficient as I was. After a week, we got some tasty pills because we had reached our target, and after that we said goodbye to our new best friend the toilet.

Friday afternoon, the day of arrival, our Shell driver took us for some sight-seeing. Our driver, Radju, is a friendly, small-sized man, who is pretty good in speaking Kannada (the local language in the Karnataka state Bangalore is in), and a little limited in English. Great conversations we have – real deep. He imitates an automatic transmission car with a manual gear one, and is able to do most actions in third gear, apart from accelerating on the steeper slopes of a bridge; then even he needs to go down to second or even first gear. I can almost physically feel the pain that the engine must have.

Traffic is interesting here, a little chaotic – like UFC (Ultimately Freaking Chaos) – where it feels if everybody gangs up on pedestrians since they weight least, and they look funny when they jump. Heavy rules, provided it has four wheels. Being a cow rules even more. Those creatures wander everywhere on the road. They are sort of holy, so even if you are heavier, you still stop for them, and suppress the thought about a nice steak on your bbq. Tim saw one lady cleaning the behind of one of those cute animals next to the road, showing that people really care for them. At the end of this story some survival tips for the traffic here. They are sort of funny, a little exaggerated, but still surprisingly close to reality.

To make some of you happy who like to see us again some day, traffic is chaos, but not aggressive; you hardly see people angry, or shouting. Generally it’s like “you’re heavier than I and let me live, so I still love you notwithstanding that you cut me off, make the whole flow of traffic stop, and are ugly”. In actual fact, people are extremely friendly and polite most of the time, even more than in Houston – not at all like Holland…

Saturday (11 August) was interesting (no, don’t worry that I will write about every day – even I wouldn’t have the illusion that anyone would then keep on reading), and we encountered some cultural differences. We had a 10:00hrs appointment at Tim’s school (Indus International School Bangalore) with a lady called Cornelia to finalize Tim’s admission documents and pick up his uniform and books. We left with Radju at 09:00hrs. We couldn’t find real directions with a lot of street names, but knew from Google Earth where it was. Radju didn’t know the place, but after our explanation attempt, he says “okay, no problem”, and we took off. It took us a while to realize that he had no idea where to go, apart from the general direction.

Anyway, after quite some asking and more “okay, no problem”s, we arrived at 09:57 (Yes - in time! Our Dutch souls were at peace.). Instead of a one-on-one with Cornelia, there seemed to be an open day with 100’s of people, so we ended up listening to 2.5 hours of rather boring presentations (one by a General, a few by Colonels, who were likely pursuing second careers) – with no Cornelia in sight. Finally, we were able to track Cornelia with the help of one of the Colonels who had an enormous mustache (probably kicked out of the Army because he was too much of a target). To make a long story not extremely long, at 16:00hrs (instead of 11:00hrs as we had expected) we left the school with only two books, and a bag full of sports clothes – but no uniform, rest of books, and laptop that was also supposed to be there.

So we took away two valuable lessons: 1) “Okay, no problem” means “I have not the slightest idea what you are talking about, you stupid Dutchman, but you pay me, so I’ll be nice”, and 2) an one-hour private appointment means that they would really like you to have a 6-hour period of ultimate fun with another 300 persons. Anyhow, it was sort of a fun day. We met the Dutch Epping family at Indus, who had recently also moved from Houston, and we met a girl from Tim’s class at Awty in Houston, who had also relocated to B’lore during the summer. It’s nice to see familiar faces all of a sudden at the other part of the world; makes me cry less.

Saturday night, Tom Hyde, a Canadian Shell colleague, took us out to a nice Indian restaurant, and he answered many of our questions relevant for survival here, like what to do with people begging, and what type of food is safe or not.

Sunday (12 August) – be strong, not too many detailed days to go – Tom picked us up and took us to his church. Tom drives himself during the weekends, and he impressed us a lot. He considers driving a sort of a dance – I guess with the car horns as the music – and there is something in it. By the way, he told us that his new driving style was less appreciated when he was back in Canada. He goes to a local non-denominational church, with a small group of international people, mainly younger ones connected to some mission organizations. The church was on a crowded first floor of a building in a busy, noisy, rather narrow street – and we would never have found it ourselves. When we entered, the band was playing a song from one of our favorite Christian rock bands, Casting Crowns (Tim and I had listened for hours on end to their CDs when we traveled to our TaeKwon-Do classes almost every day while in Houston). The service started with singing, and it happened that we knew almost all songs with quite a few of them on our favorites list. Those of you who are Christians and have been in other churches will understand the feeling of “home-coming” when you are away from home, pretty far away in our case, and you find that the Christian church is not just something only in your own place and with people you know and from the same culture and color, but a world-wide movement centered around Jesus, irrespective of nationality, social status, and background. We will carefully look around at different churches before we will commit to one, but we will never forget Hope Chapel Bangalore, who helped us starting to get roots in B’lore on our third day here.

These were roughly the first three days, and so far, pretty good. I’ll now just mention some miscellaneous activities and impressions. Monday (13 August) Tim went to school with the school bus, and without uniform. All three of us were nervous. We didn’t precisely know where the school bus would stop, and Tim thought he would be the only one without uniform (not true) and with red hair (true) at school. I had already started my intense weight-loss program, Mieke was getting there, and we were concerned that Tim would go on the program while on his first day at school. Although I enjoyed roughing him up a bit at TaeKwon-Do (as long as it lasts), I would hate that to happen to the kid. We didn’t hear from him that day, so no news is good news. And in fact, just after 5pm he came back and had actually a good – and solid J – day.



Survive…
So before you step in any vehicle, there are a few things you should know about the traffic; just a few hints for survival. Actually, they are applicable to every place in India, except Bihar, where life outside the vehicle is only marginally safer.
India road rules broadly operate within the domain of karma where you do your best, and leave the results to your insurance company.

The hints are as follows.
Do we drive left or right of the road? The answer is: both. Basically you start left of the road, unless it is occupied. In that case, go to the right, unless that is also occupied. Then proceed by occupying the next gap, as in chess. Just trust your instincts, ascertain the direction, and proceed.
Adherence to road rules leads to much misery and occasional fatality. Most drivers don’t drive, but just aim their vehicles in the intended direction. Don’t get discouraged or underestimate yourself except for a belief in the reincarnation; the other drivers are not in any better position.

Don’t stop at pedestrian crossings just because some fool wants to cross the road. You may do so only if you enjoy being bumped in the back.

Pedestrians have been strictly instructed to cross only when traffic is moving slowly or has come to a dead stop because some minister is in town. Still some idiot may try to wade across, but then, let’s not talk ill of the dead.

Blowing your horn is not a sign of protest as in some countries. We horn to express joy, resentment, frustration, and romance and bare lust (two brisk blasts) or, just mobilize a dozing cow in the middle of the bazaar.
Keep informative books in the glove compartment: you may want to read them during traffic jams, while awaiting for the chief minister’s motorcade, or waiting for the rainwater to recede when over the ground traffic meets underground drainage.

Night driving on Indian roads is in a way like playing Russian Roulette, because you never know who amongst the drivers is loaded.
What looks like premature dawn at the horizon turns out to be a truck attempting a speed record. On encountering it, just pull partly into the field adjoining the road until the phenomenom passes.
Often you may encounter a single powerful beam of light about six feet above the ground. This is not a super motorbike, but a truck approaching you with a single light on, usually the left one. It could be the right one, but never get too close to investigate. You may prove your point posthumously.
Of course, all this occurs at night, on the trunk roads. During daytime, trucks are more visible, but…there are the UFO’s. They have blinking coloured lights and weird sounds emanating from within. This is an illuminated bus, full of happy pilgrims singing “bhajans”. These pilgrims go at breakneck speed, seeking contact with the Almighty, often meeting with success.

Speaking of the Indian Roads, Auto Ricksaws have to be mentioned. An auto-ricksaw is the result of a collision between a ricksaw and an automobile. This three-wheeled vehicle carries iron rods, gas cylinders or passengers three times its weight and dimension, at an unspecified fare. After careful geometric calculations, children are folded and packed into these auto rickshaws until some children in the periphery are not in contact with the vehicle at all. Then their school bags are pushed into the microscopic gaps all around so those minor collisions with other vehicles on the road cause no permanent damage. Of course, the peripheral childres are charged half the fare and also learn Newton’s laws of motion enroute to school: auto rickshaw drivers follow the road rules depicted in the film Ben Hur, and are licensed to irritate.

If, after all this, you still want to drive in India, have your lessons between 8 PM and 11 AM – when the police has gone home and the citizen is the free to enjoy the “freedom of speed” enshrined in our constitution.

Summarized, there are a few rules you should remember, starting with the assumption that Indians believe in reincarnation:

Road Rules for Driving in India
1. The assumption of immortality is required of all road users.

2. The following must always be given right-of-way, in descending order of importance: cows, trucks, buses, potholes, elephants, camels, cars, pigs, dogs, motorcycles, goats, bicycles, rickshaws, pedestrians.

3. It is illegal to drive a vehicle without one of the following: Elaborate shrine to Brahma, Shiva, Vishnu, Ganesh, Guru Nanak, or a detailed reproduction of Mecca on your dashboard, "OK-Tata-Horn-Please-Use-Dipper-at-Night" painted somewhere on the vehicle, or flashy red fringe across the length of the windshield.

4. Functioning brake lights, turn signals and headlights only distract other drivers. For safety's sake, do NOT use them.

5. Looking at other vehicles to the side or behind you will only distract you. Remove the side-view mirrors and adjust the rear-view mirror so that you can constantly admire your own good looks while driving.

6. All vehicles shall be driven in accordance with the maxim: To slow is to falter, to brake is to fail, to stop is defeat.

7. USE OF HORN (also known as the sonic fender).
For cars:
Single blast (casual) means "I have not blown my horn for several minutes" or "I blow my horn, therefore I am."
Short blasts (urgent) indicate supremacy, such as in clearing birds, dogs, rickshaws and pedestrians from path.
Long blast (desperate) denotes supplication, as to an oncoming truck, "I am going too fast to stop, so unless you slow down we both shall die." In extreme cases this may be accompanied by flashing of headlights (frantic).
For trucks and buses:
All horn signals have same meaning, "I weigh 12.5 tons and have no intention of stopping."

8. RIGHT OF WAY: Traffic entering a road from the left has priority. So does traffic from the right. And also traffic in the middle.

9. All traffic at all times, regardless of direction of travel shall occupy the center of the road.

10. In the absence of seat belts, car occupants shall wear garlands of marigolds.

Having said all this, isn’t it true that the accident rate and related deaths are less in India compared to other countries?!

Enjoy India.