Discovering India: One Step At A Time: Week 1 of India:Discovering that Indian Food is the Solution to Everything

Week 1

So I left Kuala Lumpur International Airport on the 23rd of May for Bangalore and I flew with Malaysian Airlines.The one thing I noticed in regards to the in flight service was that the MH staff was rather condescending. Watching them interact with the other passengers, I have noticed that they were very dismissive and not attentive to the requests of the other passengers. For an airline that is going down the drain, they sure are not improving the quality of the in flight service.

The view from the plane

Anyway that was a 3 hour flight and I safely landed at 11.40pm. I went through immigration and got bombarded with a lot of questions.I have to admit those immigration officers certainly have a talent of finding fault in every single thing.

I was picked up by my uncle and my second cousin who I have never met. It was funny to see them holding my name and waving it around since they don't know how I looked like. They came all the way from Tamil Nadu, which is a neighbouring state(Bangalore is in the state of Karnataka and their state language is Kannada).The drive from the airport to where I am staying took about an hour. I am currently staying in a service apartment and it is a really nice place. My window is facing the main road, so every single morning I get to hear the sweet, sweet sounds of blaring honks.

Mathyoo(the place I'm staying in) is opposite the military school where my uncle was trained! So,its definitely safe and we get served breakfast every morning, which is great. I am with 11 other students and we are all split to work with 3 different NGO's. Me,Kristen, Parisa and Maddy are working with PremaVidya. Sam, Amanda, Maria and Yoshi are working for Hippocampus. Phu,Abby,Matt and Varun are working for Sattva.

Our first assignment was to look for our organization by ourselves.These are the things you should be aware while you are in India.The roads have holes...everywhere. You don't text while you are working or you may trip and fall. Your eyes should always be on the road. Pick proper shoes to wear. And don't expect a comfy ride on a public bus.And people will always honk at you...always.

PremaVidya is located in JP Nagar and obviously we had a little difficulty finding where it was but we managed to figure it out...since we are Strong, Independant Women(Well except Maddy, since she came a little later). JP Nagar is about 20 minutes from the place we stay but the traffic jam makes it worse.

After we managed to search for our respective organization, we headed to Indira Nagar for lunch and discovered that it was a fancy place. After lunch, we went to Sattva and had a discussion with Krishna and Vikram in Sattva.Later we went back to Indira Gandhi for a group dinner.This is when things get interesting. I took an auto with Kristen and Sam and none of us have an Indian cell phone. We didn't really know where this restaurant was but we know it's somewhere in Indira Gandhi. So we were dropped off and we began asking people.The one thing about the people here is, they are mostly helpful. I mean, they really are...But half of the time they don't know where a place is and they will make something up.So, we went the opposite way asking people along the way where everyone giving opposing directions. Using my Malaysian phone, I called Cathy where I spent RM 19 on a 1 minute conversation. So there goes my money. She gave us directions and some landmarks and after one hour, we found a lady who actually knew what we were talking about. We finally arrived at a Rajashtani restaurant where we were served like a king, literally. They would put food on your plate and hover near you to make sure that you eat what they placed on your plate.

The next day, we went on a field trip to two different organizations in Bangalore. This field trips were organized by Madam Aruna and Panni Uncle from the Centre for Social Initiative and Management(CSIM). We visited The Association of People with Disability(APD) and SELCO. Please visit their websites to learn more about what they are doing.

To end my blog post, here are some pictures of Indian food!