On the 45 minute drive to the hotel, we spend some time in a competition with a lorry carrying two very large chunks of concrete - which would be fine if they had been lashed to the truck in some way. We get past eventually and then drive along a stretch of the road which has flashing red lights embedded in it - encouragingly like party lights.
I am given the last room left in the hotel as punishment for checking in so early. I reviewed the pillow menu and considered whether to make a special order at this time of the morning :
spelt chaff pillow
exclusive neck supporting pillow
horse hair pillow (specially for your child..)
down special pillow
non-allergy bolster
smoker pillow
standard duofill pillow
super soft pillow (popular with lady guests)
chimera pillow (hi-tech cold cured) but in what way it's chimaeric isn't clear
firm pillow
contour pillow
slim pillow
or just goose down pillow
Dawn breaks over the city and it is beautiful.
My car to the office has a plastic turkey standing on the dashboard, and the turkey is surrounded with dried roses. I look at the palm trees rather than the concrete pipes that I was interested in the last time.
I'd forgotten that the traffic police wear rather nice hats - like white stetsons but with one side up and one side down.
Adverts for the Indian Army and Air Force are eveywhere - I especially liked the one which insisted that you didn't even need to complete an application, just turn up to a recruiting day, and ignore the touts - recruitment is totally transparent, and another for the Indian Army Logistics Group which had a picture of some men leading a herd of yaks through the snow. The yaks had no loads though.
Friday
I discover an article about Lean Six Sigma in the newpaper at breakfast, and bring it to the office for my colleagues.
I'd better mention work - today we made a small video, and then I narrowly avoid being sacked (or worse, having to pick up the bill) for flying "out of policy" ie not in the back of the plane. You know what my performance appraisal is going to say this year don't you?
Sunday
I booked to join bangalorewalks.com Victorian walk, so my driver had to pick me up at 6.30am and take me to the starting point for 7am.
We started at Holy Trinity Church on MG road - the officers' church - where we went up the tower and each had a go at bell ringing. What you notice from the memorial plaques inside the church (typical wooden colonial style) is how young so many people were when they died. There was one plaque commemorating three family members who died in 1869 - one drowned in a storm at sea, his wife dies on the voyage back to UK shortly afterwards, and their 23 year old married daughter died in India. Apparently, one in three of the men who came out to India either as soldiers or to seek their fortune, or the women who came out to seek a husband, died.
When we come out, some men are doing the flowers for the service.
Down the road, there's East Parade Church - for other ranks - so it didn't deserve a tower and received a humiliatingly small bell.
The whole of this area was and still is dominated by the military - as one can tell from the road names - Artillery Road, Brigade Road, Cavalry Road. Nowadays this has had the positive effect of ensuring that much of the trees and greenery is preserved, as the bits of land which the military have sold off have been built on immediately.
MG road is dominated by the construction of the new Metro system which will provide about 15 miles of lines and is due to be finished in 2011. Meanwhile, the city centre suffers through the line works and station diggings. Strips of land all along the route have been compulsorily purchased including the front garden of one of the old houses, from which the man will not move, even though a metro station is being built in front of his windows.
Behind MG Road there are still some enclaves of greenery and large houses, plus a school cricket pitch in very poor state (it's also used for dog shows and flower shows).
We learned that the street dogs, which are everywhere and generally look in fine condition, are descended from the hounds brought over by the British for hunting, and left behind when they departed.
Why was Bangalore so important? The British and French fought for control of Mysore state, (which was one of the last pockets of resistance to British domination.
The French realised they couldn't sustain the fight once the Napoleonic War broke out, meanwhile Lord Cornwallis on the British side decided that it would take too long to get permission from HQ to attack and take control (about 2 years for a ship to go there and back), so just went ahead and hoped it would all work out. Fortunately for him, it did. Bangalore was ideally situated as a military base because it was on a hill and it remained a key military base through the late nineteenth century.
More significant in Bangalore's success is the fact that it was the first place in India to work out how to brew beer in a hot country - this was very important to the military for obvious reasons. Before then, beer brewed to withstand the journey and the climate (India Pale Ale of course) had to be shipped out from England. The other thing the military did to address discipline was to encourage English women to come to India to find a husband. Hence Bangalore was party town. In fact Churchill was posted to Bangalore for a couple of years, and apart from still owing the Bangalore Club 13 rupees, whilst he was here he pursued one of the thousands of women who came to India, sadly for Winnie, he was rejected.
Another reason Bangalore was important is that horse-breeding in India was started here. Horses aren't native to India and the trade was controlled by Arabs. Horses, like the British, seemed to like the Bangalore climate. Setting up a horse-breeding operation was equivalent to setting up a car manufacturing operation - strategically important.
Bangalore was also the place from where all of India was first mapped. The National Survey and Mapping Institute was set up in the 18th century and the trigonometric series that covers the entire country from North-South to East-West is apparently some of the best mapping data created in the world. One of the surveyors was a George Everest and you can guess what was named after him.
After history, breakfast. We eat this in the company of an eagle on the 13th floor of a mysterious tower block. I say mysterious because it was not clear whether it was offices, homes or shopping. From the top, the views of the city show very clearly what it must have been like when we owned it. The best trees do indeed belong to an Army garden - but all of it is planned - trees were imported from all over the world with the intention that there should be at least one type of tree in flower each month all over the city. Breakfast is substantial - I manage a couple of savoury doughnuts, some rice noodles arranged as a pancake, a very large Scotch pancake, a vegetable omelette and various chutneys.
Afterwards, it's time to go shopping in Commercial Street. The street is bustling and very untidy. There are lots of puddles and bits of concrete to avoid, plus bikes, cars, tuk-tuks, dogs etc.This is more of a "normal" shopping street, not entirely aimed at tourists and the shopping experience is more relaxed ie they leave me alone for more than a minute. I try on lots of flip-flops and end up buying a cushion cover. The roast sweetcorn smells delicious, but I am full.
I spend the rest of the afternoon at the hotel swimming pool - away from the astonishingly large crowd which has come to eat the Sunday lunchtime buffet - and listen to an Abba tribute band with the left ear and whatever the swimming pool happens to be playing with the right ear. I order a beer and try to concentrate on Zola.
At dinner this evening, I spot an example of my favourite archetypes - European male aged 60+ accompanied by glamorous South-East Asian female aged max 35. You know he is ex-military because he always wears a blazer with a badge to dinner. There was a similar pair at Heathrow in the duty-free, where naturally he was picking up the £200 bill for perfume/makeup. You find them in Gucci anywhere in the world.
I note the reversal of conventional role gendering - chambermaids = male, gardeners = female, doing the flowers for the church = male, though bringing chocolates =male spoilt the theory a bit.
But I am missing my garden at home and what may be happening in it :
I take refuge in one of the four bottles of wine that British Airways pressed on me.
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