B by Bicycle - what I did this weekend

Hah, I finally did it, I purchased Friday, May 20th 2011, a nice bicycle with 21 gears, aluminium frame and slender tires for about 10000 INR (about 150 EUR). Now, I can go to the city centre independently from the shuttle or public buses. The ride to the Indian Institute of Sciences takes about 20 min, and the old part of the city is about 30+ min away. I just realized this weekend, how large Bangalore is, when I met a polish friend near Forum Mall in the south of Bangalore (25 km from NCBS). The ride was ok, the traffic is a bit chaotic, but one can handle it well, because the speed is low (mean velocity 30 km/h). Sometimes the streets are so packed that even with a bike you have to wait.
When I entered the old city centre, I was positively surprised by the beauty of the Cubbon park, the red Karnataka high court building, the Raj Bhavan (residence of the gouvernor of Karnataka) or the Vikasa Soudha (seat of the state legislature of Karnataka). Going further to the south, I passed by the Lal Bagh botanical garden, and entered finally the Forum Mall, which is like the European or American temple of commerce. At the other side of the mall, I just saw a big building of the Robert Bosch GmbH. Fortunately we (my Polish friend Szymon and his French colleague Jihane)  did not stay in the mall, but went to a north-west Indian restaurant with very good food.The way back was easier to ride, because the streets were nearly empty at 10.30 pm, and I finished the evening with a late night round of 28 (a card game) with some friends at the Mandara hostel.

forum mall

On saturday, I was again in the city center to go to the Jaaga (see the particular post), and later, I headed back to the hostel to join a party of my lab-mates. It was great to see and hear them singing bollywood songs, to dance and to drink with them. On Sunday, we had a great dinner of Benghal food prepared by a colleague at the Mandara hostel. It was interesting to see, how the Daal, the fried fish or the Curry are prepared, and I hope that I will manage to learn some of this cooking. This time, I just prepared some Kaiserschmarren as a desert, and we ate it together with some Mango jam which came from another colleague. This combination was just delicious.

Jaaga

J...is a beautiful place in central Bangalore, which I visited thanks to my boss Jitu. He thought that I would like it, and that I would meet there interesting people. He was totally right.
Jaaga means "space" in Kannada (the local language), and it is a creative community giving artists from all over the world the opportunity to stay for some months in Bangalore and to work with local artists. It exists since 2009 and is unique here. I attended a vernissage of an exhibition called "Sound and Lights" showing sound and light installations of artists from Italy, UK, Germany, Japan and India, and it was a very pleasant evening where saw a lot of young Indians and a good amount of foreigners. Sipping on a glass of coke with Old Monk (the local rum), I chatted with an indian architect and the guy who did the sound installation, and they both told me that the Jaaga is unique, but that there are also other nice galleries in town (something that I will explore in the future). Later on came also Jitu, and we had a great discussion about the relation between arts and science. I am so glad that I fortunately found a boss, who likes art, is open minded and supports my interests to explore Bangalore and Indian culture.
For all of you who want to read more about Jaaga and its actions, here the link to their web site: www.jaaga.in
and here a more detailed description of the exhibition: Jaaga Sound & Lights

 

Jitu (left) discussing with the Sufi singer (right) and his musician

 

 

Murale - an interactive wall with flowers that react to movements or sounds

the floors of the Jaaga were staggered

a canvas on top of the building tilting in the wind

Exploring more of Bangalore and of Indian Philosophy

After more than one week in Bangalore, I feel more and more comfortable with the city, the people and their habits. How I realized it? I started buying stuff without big hesitation, whether it is the 2.1 loudspeakers for my computer, the vegetables and fruits on a market or alcoholic beverages in the liquor shops. I was a lot wandering along the streets of central Bangalore this weekend, and I am so graceful that I can do this without being the focus of everyone else. I don't know, if this is due to the higher number of expats in respect to other parts of India and/or that I do not look too much as a west-european foreigner.  Anyway, I had my fun seeing the sankey tank, a big lake with a nice park and a big free air public swimming pool, walking through busy roads decorated with colourful lights, temples and the saris shining like rainbows.

 

sankey tank (both pics)

 

entrance to a temple

On Saturday evening, I had the chance to attend a talk by Swami Veereshananda Saraswati

at the Indian Institute of Sciences (IISc) aboutShri Shankaracharya, an Indian philosopher. When I arrived, I was first surprised, because the speaker was a kind of religious looking man and of course a guru. When I was presented to him, he mentioned to me that he has a  school near Paris, that he was in several other European countries, and that he headed in 2004 the world parliament of religions in Barcelona (I did not know that such a thing exists). 

His talk was very interesting to me, because he explained that science, religion and philosophy were not separated things in the Indian culture, which is a big difference to the situation in western (European) culture of the past 1000 years. He further explained/ argued that this specificity of Indian culture should be more considered these days, i.e. that Indian scientists and philosophers should be more critical about the western way to think or to solve problems. One of his main statements was that every science has its origin in India. Additionally, he made the nice statement that after the "material" evolution of man, the next step is the spiritual evolution. 

I was happy that I went to this talk, even though I found it strange hearing someone talking so proud and uncritical about the Indian roots of so many things, but it gave me a good starting point to go further into Indian philosophy. 

 

 Swami Veereshananda Saraswati

 

before the talk, the speaker thanks a holy spirit

 

see all photos on Picasa

https://picasaweb.google.com/109366038738597135807/DariusInIndiaBangalore?authkey=Gv1sRgCIaijd3WhLbrgAE&feat=directlink

The first week is over...

Since more than one week I am in Bangalore, and I will give you a small summary of the things that I did since sunday.
Monday was the day of waiting, because I went to the Foreigner Registration Regional Office (FRRO) to tell them that I am in Bangalore, that I will stay here for some while, that I will be paid a salary by the NCBS, that I have a living place, and that the NCBS will pay my transfer back to Germany in case that I do something bad or that I die (for sure, it was more respectfully formulated). I am sure that it is the same in all countries, you have to wait a looooong time in such administrative offices, and you hardly understand what the personal is finally doing. But I was quit e happy that all the documents were in good shape, and that I obtained the desired document at the end of the same day. During the waiting time, I made the observation that many Iranian people were there, besides some students from Thailand, workers from African states or Expats from european countries.
In the following days, I finished the last pending tasks to really be installed, i.e. I got an indian SIM card for my mobile phone, and opened a bank account at the bank present in NCBS. Coming to the fun part, I got introduced into the lab work, how to use the microscopes, information about the cell culture, the managment of the lab, and so on. I had some nice and productive discussions together with my boss Jitu, and his PhD candidate Subhasri about the experiments to do. The way of discussion was very similar to those I was used to in Paris...maybe with less bla, bla.
The atmosphere in the research group is very pleasent, we had several times lunch together, which gives a good opportunity to talk about typical Indian things, such as food or cultural sites. On friday, we even went for a birthday lunch to a Chinese resteaurant. We had a great time, chattet a lot, and on the way back, I realized that I do not feel at all a big cultural difference in the way of conversation. This surprised me somehow. I did not imagine that it will be that easy. Maybe, it is due to the fact that I am only talking with people from a research institute which is frequently visited by foreigners. I will have to start to go out on my own, to find the contact to people outside the institute. A task for the next weeks...

Sunday-Market day

On sunday morning, I followed some new friends to a market place in the old part of the city. The plan was, to buy the ingredients of some Chinese dishes that Na Li wanted to prepare this evening. It was  a 40 min bus ride to get there, but it was worth it. I love market places, and this one reminded me on a bazaar. The choice of vegetables, herbs and spices was very rich, in another section of the building was the meet, and outside the fishes and seafood. Sure, the hygienic standards were far lower than the european ones, but I loved the atmosphere. After we have bought the necessary things, I stayed in the area to explore the city.

I went to the MG road (Mahatma Gandhi road) which is one of the main Bangalore shopping roads. Here, you can find a good amount of international important clothing brands, european style cafés, but also more european like prizes. Not necessarily that what I need, but good to know some place, where you can get a decent espresso! 

the market hall

Na Li and Mehrat chosing some vegetables 

St Mary's church

Italian style pleasure

around MG road

memorial for soldiers in world war I

In the evening we had a great fun in preparing and cooking for hours dumplings and enoying the porc dish, all managed and wonderfully prepared by Na Li. But before writing too much, I just show the images from my daytime discoveries.  

Getting settled

After those first days I start getting settled in my hood, i.e. the area around the NCBS and the Mandar aHostel, my actual residence. I moved into a small room with a bed, chair, table, wardrobe, toilette and shower...a typical PhD candidate's room. The building has a common big kitchen, a nice terrasse and a big common room with TV and table tennis. It makes me remembering my first years in Paris, when I was in the Maison de l'Italie ;-)

But the neighborhood differs drastically from that in Paris, what a surprise. There are a handful of streets with many small shops, and I managed to buy the necessary things. I was positively surprised that I did not have to bargain, prices where already written on the goods, and they did seem reasonable. Maybe this is due to the fact that the area is not touristic at all. 

At the NCBS, paperwork is getting further, even though I still have to wait for my "club card" (NCBS Id). It is planned to go to the foreign residents register office (FRRO) on monday. Today afternoon was a concert in the institute, and I got the great chance to enjoy the music of MWA, machas with attitude, a local Hip Hop group. This was the last thing that I expected as my first experience with Indian music! http://youtu.be/q8hKVb1nvkE

Let's see, what the weekend will bring.

Some impressions of my corner

The NCBS main building

a temple near Mandala hostel

street corner near Mandala

Getting Started

My dear friends,
this is now my firs post of my experiencens of my stay in India, more precise, in Bangalore at the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS). It is right, I finally did move to India, and I plan to stay here for the next two years to do some solid research, but also to explore a bit of this huge and magnifique asian country. To share with you a part of those experiences, I will try to write frequently some lines into this blog...

After my arrival at 0.40 am on may 4 2011 at the Bangalore Int. Airport, I was picked up by a polite driver and brought to the guest house of NCBS. It was a quite warm night with thick humid air, and I could not fell asleep easily but the next morning was beautiful and I got up after 4 hours of sleep to have breakfast at the canteen. Aparently I was too early, even though I was already 8.40 am, because I was quite alone in the diner hall. And also in the lab, only two persons were already there. But a short while later, my new boss arrived and I could start struggling with Indian paper work. It was quite ok, much less chaotic than french bureaucracy (at least until now). I got my new room in the Mandara hostel, where the PhD candidates live, and my apointment to the medical doctor for the next day.
In the evening I went to Mandara hostel quite early to have the time to walk around and to buy some stuff. I enjoyed so much to walk on the smaller, a bit dusty streets with loads of small shops selling mobile phones, clothes, spices or fruits. There is even a little park and beautiful old trees go along with the streets. Even though my room is small and spartanic, I do not regret having moved here for the first time. Just to confirm this positive feeling, I met in the night a couple of neighbours sitting on the terasse and having vivid conversations... but I have to sleep now, tomorrow will be my medical exam. good night.