Weird Happenings

I went on my weekly ‘cruise’ to Mysore on my last Sunday in Hosahalli (July 22^nd), and it was quite a strange day of events. I had just alighted at the main bus station and crossed the road to find an internet café, when a beggar girl asked me for my one-third bottle of mango juice. I had barely had time to process the request when she quickly snatched it out of my hand, and for a moment I pondered whether it was something to be angry over or not. Later, around noon, I went over to Mysore Railway station to book my tickets for my travels in the north, and the euphoria of finally having them in my hand kept me in an excited mood for the rest of the day.

Walking back towards the bus station, I started talking to a Sri Lankan stoner-head called Joseph who was encroachingly trying to help me find my way. I told him several times I could find my own way, but he walked along with me presumably to try and goad some money out of me. He insisted he just wanted to talk, and offered to sell me weed a bunch of times, and I decided to just go with the flow while watching out for my pockets. I was trying to find a place to eat lunch near the bus station, and upon Joseph’s continued insistence walked past the place I found non-vegetarian food at last weekend. I told him I wasn’t going to go into one of the pricey hotels he suggested, and he pointed instead to an average-priced main road restaurant that turned out to have excellent mutton biryani. I was now fairly sure he was merely waiting for an opportunity to score money, but I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and offer him lunch; he had a friendly (albeit stoned) air around him, and it doesn’t hurt to be nice to people. Besides, company is better than eating alone.

He ended up pretending that he wasn’t hungry and that he was getting his food packed to screw me out of the Rs. 120 it cost. For some reason I just let it slide, giving a mental sigh as I walked away and hoping that his bad conscious would catch up with him one day.

I stopped at Jairam’s house on the way back at Jakkahalli, and walked from there to VTCL in the early night. Halfway back to the school, I passed by a bunch of guys standing by a car, one drumming on the carhood and most of the others dancing in tune to it. One of the guys called out to me and said “Hi we’re high, come dance with us if you want to”. I walked on with a smile but told them I’d join in next time – I just needed to get home before nightfall – and wished them a good evening.

A little further on, a very tipsy guy walked up to me and shook my hand, asking where I was going. I told him, and a huge smile broke out on his face as he thanked me and walked away. Such a strange day indeed, in a surrealistic good way. 

The Mute Guy

The first time I made my way to Hosahalli, I met an almost-mute guy by the bus stop at HD Kote Hand Post who wore what looked like a bus driver’s brown shirt. He wasn’t one, but he tried to be very helpful and gestured for me to relax and wait until the bus came. In fact he was almost too helpful; every time a bus came that wasn’t the right one he’d motion to me until I could explain again that it was the wrong one. He couldn’t speak, only mull a sound from his throat and use hand gestures. And smile. He smiled a lot. When the bus came he jumped on it and joked around with the bus driver & conductor while helping them with passengers.

I’ve seen him again each time I’ve traveled back from Mysore, always jumping on at a different bus stop and getting off someplace random. One Sunday I saw him at VTCL giving the early morning bus a check-up. I’ve surmised that he must either be a former bus driver or simply friends with all the KSRTC (Karnataka State Road Transportation Company) staff out in this area: he has mechanical know-how, knows everybody running the busses, understands the passenger system, and gets tips from the drivers for various favors. When I inquired, someone told me that he was married; I think he makes a meager living from hopping the bus routes like this. I always notice the warmth that naturally radiates from him with his charming smile (he is also quite short, which makes him look almost adorable). 

Hosahalli Tid Bits

Sameer

On my first bus ride to Hosahalli I talked with the bus driver for the last 10 minutes of the way, a guy called Sameer. He gave me his number and told me to call if I ever needed anything at all, be it bus routes or groceries from the city. Believe you me, he wasn’t kidding. On my first return trip from Mysore, I missed the 4:30pm bus to Hosahalli and called him up to ask for alternatives. He not only told me about a 5:30pm bus that went in the same direction, but also texted me a few minutes later with the name of the stop point and the bus’ vehicle number. When I found the right bus, the conductor asked me if I was Sameer’s friend. Sameer had called the bus central to ask for the bus number, and furthermore called the driver team and told them to look for me. Really great help! Two weeks later, after I had had amoebic dysentery and the school’s water filter was out of order, I called him and asked if he could pick 2 liters of mineral water for me. He arrived at the bus rest stop at 9:30pm that evening, and instead of allowing me to walk up to meet him in the dark he drove the bus down to the school, 1km away. He didn’t want me to risk running into wild animals (there are elephants, wild boars, and, albeit rarely, tigers that come out of the forest at night). Sameer refused to take a tip for it and underlined that he did it for friendship, not for money. It’s amazing when you meet such selfless people who are willing to help you out in spite of being practically a stranger. I hope he understands my deep appreciation for him.

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When I recently walked up to the “main road” shop a kilometer away, there was an old guy who asked me to take a little girl’s picture with him. On the way back, he called after me and said I should slow down so we could walk together. He babbled rapidly in Kannada, but I understood his point – he was going towards the school himself, and it’s always better and easier to walk as two. He had a hearty, almost toothless smile. He pointed out his house and departed the path just outside the school gate.

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If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from moving into a new room in Hosahalli, it’s that I hate wall clocks that don’t work. I’ve never seen the darn thing function and yet I still steal glances at it once in a while, caught off guard, to check what time it is. And it never tells me; it kinda feels a little like a personal insult, hehe.

The Hosahalli Roadside Shop

Standing outside the shop, looking down the road leading to VTCL

Except for a couple of kiosks between the two school campuses, there aren’t any shops right by the school. In fact, the school is around 3.5km away from the nearest village which has commercial life. There is however a ‘larger’ shop up by the main road and a couple of small kiosks (and drinking shacks further down the road), only one kilometer away. Once I found out that they stock bottled water, sodas and bananas, I started coming there quite often. I used to walk up to the store with Abhishek or Abbie & Karen to buy bananas and water, but they ran out of both for a while. During my last week at Hosahalli I would walk up to the shop on my own almost daily, and purchase water and some puri snacks to eat before dinner. I’d first sit outside the shop for a relaxed half hour, drinking soda and talking to the various school children that would walk by on their way home. It was especially fun taking pictures of the kids; they loved seeing the pictures on my camera afterwards. That’s one of my little rituals I’ll miss about Hosahalli. 

Leaving for Delhi

Silly deviations littered the road to the airport, unnoticed the first time I took the airport bus in the other direction. I casually presumed that they were metro lines under construction, but then realized that they are over-hang bridges that will speed up traffic once they’re done. At a cost of slowing it down now, I thought to myself – but they are probably a good addition, na?!

I was extremely happy to be back in Bangalore these past 2 days. It almost felt as if I had never left in the first place, hanging out with the office girl-trio at Legends of Rock (with Uma finally joining, taking Graham’s spot I guess haha). I did a cover of ‘One Step Closer’ again, but fumbled badly – probably because a slightly drunk guy next to me tried to sing along on the microphone, which distracted me from what I was doing. I also made friends with Blen, my 2-day PG roommate, who is extremely friendly and drove me at least 10KM to Cox Town on his motorbike barely half an hour after meeting each other. 

Blen

Being back near scattered parks, juice shops on every corner, the voices of endeared friends, and my favorited Sagar Fast Food nearby in my good-old Koramangala, all made me wish I could just drop my traveling plans and spend the last two weeks of my summer break in Bangalore with friends; perhaps an all-the-more appealing alternative since I will be traveling all on my own for the next two weeks. I am however a lot more mentally prepared to leave Bangalore this time around, because I saw the two-day visit in isolation as the brief visit it is. I can still feel part of the euphoria from booking my train tickets last weekend, and typing up a two-page long itinerary of plans. By the way, I capitulated and reduces my plan from 7 to 6 cities in 14 days, giving me an extra day in Jaipur (up from one-and-a-half). 

 New Delhi Airport

IndiGo provides pretty good service and we boarded the plane in good time. I was a little scared that I would be too late to check-in because of the bad traffic jam on the highway deviations, but the check-in line was non-existent. The only minor hold-up was in security where they took my small suitcase off to the side for inspection, and took out my packed Halwa (weirdly brown and deformed from being in my suitcase) that I bought in Kerala. The two security guards stared blankly at each other for an extended moment, and then the Halwa was put back in my suitcase when nobody had a clear answer. I had awkwardly realized that as a result of my small suitcase being changed from main baggage to hand luggage, a rigged kitchen knife was staring blankly at us all – about to be carried on-board an airplane. The guards didn’t give it a single look. An ironic lapse of security, considering the mesh of red tape that is an Indian airport (where the guards pointlessly stamp your tickets after passing through the metal detector).

A Day in the Hospital

On Wednesday the 11^th I started having the runs. Normally not one with a squeamish stomach, it lasted all night without getting better. In the morning I noticed that I was passing blood, and decided that I should go for a hospital visit to be on the safe side. Luckily enough, the VTCL school is affiliated with two rural hospitals that cater for tribal people in nearby villages, so I only had to take a 20-minute drive. The bus was extremely late that day, so I ended up taking a jeep (over-packed jeeps ply the routes between towns and villages as an addition to the government-run bus). On the last two kilometers, the conductor packed 6 women into the backload, so me and the other guy had to hang onto the outside of the jeeps. I normally wouldn’t have minded, in fact I would probably have found it rather exciting, but just not on a sick day... Ah well, there’s always a first. 

Although unknown at the time of arrival, I had Amoebic Dysentery. The nasty little critters had made me pass water over a dozen times since it started, so I was really weak from dehydration. The doctors immediately put me on a ward in the nursing station where they could keep an easy eye on me (“since [I] was alone”), and hooked me up to an Intravenous drip. I tried wriggling out of it by asking for Oral Rehydration Salt because, well, I really don’t like needles, but they wouldn’t hear of it. I have to admit that the three bottles of liquid they ‘pumped’ into my veins really helped and I felt way better that same afternoon. I also got started on a couple of bottles of antibiotics. 

I have never been hooked up to an IV drip, and I really wished I had brought my camera. I would have taken a picture of myself with the IV Drip, a thumbs-up and a broad grin across my face – that would have captured the irony of me looking way more sick than I actually was. 

I was very bored that day and swore that I would bring a book next time I went to a hospital. In the evening I went looking for the two Cornell volunteers I had met at the school, and found them in one of the doctors’ house. I had a good talk with Dr. Mohan while the girls made fried rasgulla with his wife, Dr. Arundhati. The next day I (finally!) got discharged around lunch time, and got a ride back to the school by the Deputy Director of SVYM who was headed out to watch Karen & Abbie’s leaving presentation – still tired, but with a supply of antibiotic pills.

The Bangalore Trip

On the Saturday the 7^th, I went for a quick weekend trip to Bangalore for the GSE goodbye reception. In hindsight I probably wouldn’t have done it, since it took a total of 7 hours just to get to Bangalore. After that I had to deal with B’lore city traffic to get to meet my former co-workers from Dream A Dream for an hour, and then another hour to get to the reception (late) through rush hour.

Fancy hotel with a fancy reception - as I walk in, I immediately feel under-dressed in my Wooster T-shirt and sweatshirt. I casually put down my sweatshirt, and flatten the folds on my hopefully plain-looking T-Shirt. Crap, this ain't no party?! Guess I should have figured from the venue.

Pre-snacks, speeches, fancy non-vegetarian food and an open bar. I had a bout of anxiety and couldn't sit still; didn't feel like talking. I was constantly taking nervous swigs from my glass, so I stuck to Bacardi Breezers. I performed a couple of socially-required interactions with people, and tried to sit away from people. Had no appetite, although I hadn't eaten since 11am that day, so I couldn't squeeze down anything beyond two gulps of soup and some salad. 

The evening got better later on; caught up with someone until 3am that night, then woke up at 8am to catch a bus back to Mysore. Another 7 hours on the bus, with a quick stopover in Mysore for some internet access and a shopping spree for more granola bars. Soooo much time to think by oneself.