More rubbish!

This time a more positive story. I was quite taken by this Bangalore garbage truck, and its crew of seven or more, doing all the recycle-sorting there on the truck.

Churches, mosques, and temples of South India - Churches

Here are some churches we came across in Mysore, Bangalore, Trivandrum, and Kanyakumari. There seem to be lots of Christians in South India, about 19% in Kerala according to Wikipedia, and they're clearly often devout too.

Bangalore market scenes

Here are a few scenes from the main Krishnarajendra (City) Market in Bangalore.















Markets are always colourful and photogenic places. I love them!

Last orders at the Bangalore Club?

 The Bangalore Club is a fabulous historical relic of the British Raj era. It's still thriving, with a membership waiting list of 24 years, I think they told me. You can even inspect the records from Winston Churchill's time stationed here as a young military officer. He famously chatted up the barmaids and left without paying off his bar tab.

It's a rather magnificent place - immaculately maintained, full of dining and drinking facilities, beautiful grounds, sports facilities and special shops for members, including a bottle shop and wine bar they were rather proud of.

So we jumped at the chance of a visit and a lunch at the place, when it was offered. Our host, it turned out was even a committee member of the august establishment.

The visit was made particularly interesting by the drama which was playing out in the local papers at the time, and which I'd been reading about. A few weeks earlier, one of the club members, a government official, was refused permission to park his car on the grounds, and his membership suspended when he kicked up a fuss about it. He retaliated by pulling the relevant strings to have the licensing authorities swoop, and they found all kinds of alleged licensing violations. So after 147 years of unbroken traditions, the bars were suddenly closed. There was no alcohol being served with meals, and the prized bottle shop was taped shut. More on this at: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/bangalore-club-loses-liquor-licence-for-now/

Our host was very apologetic about all this, and he spent most of the time on the phone or in little huddles with staff and other committee members, discussing the situation. It had become rather complicated, we understood, with senior government ministers and several bureaucracies now involved! We had a good time anyway, and a thoroughly delicious non-alcoholic lunch.

The last time I checked, things were looking up again. A compromise had been worked out. The problem member had been reinstated, and the Men's Bar at least, was to be reopened. See http://www.bangaloremirror.com/bangalore/others/Its-cheers-at-the-Blore-Club/articleshow/45634381.cms?

Need your teeth done?

I came across this street dentist in Bangalore. Tried for a surreptitious shot, but he saw me, and was absolutely delighted to show off his work.

The work was in the mouth of his patient though. So he grabbed the poor chap's head, swung it round for me, and grabbed the man's newly installed false teeth for optimal display!


I like a man who's proud of his workmanship!

White knuckle travel

At first glance this could be a picture of fairly orderly traffic. Two cars on the left, and a bus and a truck on the other side of the road, going the other way.

Alas no. This is India. It's actually a picture of us, and alongside us the truck which has just overtaken us. Coming the other way are a bus and a car, side by side. All four vehicles are about to come together in an almighty head-on crash!

At the last moment the truck swerves back to the left, and the oncoming car sees the light and ducks back in behind the bus. Crisis averted once more!

This sort of thing happens every minute or two on every drive on every Indian road! On this occasion it was made worse by the road being the nine-hairpin-bend stretch of road which drops 700m from the Western Ghats to the Malabar Coast. Wherever you are though, the best strategy is to just not look out the front. Let the driver do the driving (and the honking of the horn every few seconds). All you can do is quietly ponder your funeral arrangements.

The accident rate is indeed high. But it can't be as high as we'd expect it to be. We're still alive after all. The nominal road rules may be totally irrelevant, but there are conventions and patterns which presumably must be followed, about who wins and who loses the constant games of chicken.

Within the cities it's all played out at a slower pace, because there's traffic gridlock most of the time! Here are some views out the front in Bangalore, Trivandrum, and Nagercoil.

Colourful women of Karnataka

And Kerala doesn't actually have a monopoly in this department. It's a similar story all over India, though there are undoubtedly variations in styles and colour. Here are a few pics from the neighbouring state of Karnataka.