Jitu

Located on campus is the tata book house, which provides all kinds of current books for the lectures to the students. It is quite small, but uses every square millimeter it has. Often you have to ask for an employee so that he climbs up a ladder to get a book for you. Even the way to the store is blocked with piles of books.

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Usually before a building is constructed, the ground is cleared. That means all the trees, plants, rocks etc. are removed. Well, this is not the way in India. Here the people try to construct houses and roads around the trees which might result in a tree in the middle of the road or in the shower room of a swimming pool. So carefully driving is necessary since the trees can even be behind the next corner. There is even a sign warning drivers of low branches.

Or there might be showers that water the tree instead.

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Somebody riding a cycle is a common view over here. Some boys riding a man’s cycle, too. And also some girls riding a lady’s cycle. But a boy riding a lady’s cycle, which is way too small (24 inches) and in addition the cyclist is a foreigner is a topic for discussion and talking. My answer is always as followed: It is a cycle. It brings me from A to B in a comfortable and faster way than by walking. It was for free. So why should I bother about the frame construction?

Anyway, the big advantage of this cycle: it has 2 modes: A comfortable traveling mode and a racing mode. Just by removing the cushion covering the seat, the cyclist get a better feeling for the rough road immediately. And if the cushion is completely removed and thrown away, it even saves 300g out of 16kg. (But hey, that’s even lighter than one prototype with a frame of aluminum I saw today. The struts are so thick that its weight is much more than 20kg. I tried to lift it.)

My cycle has auto shifting (namely one single gear that is most fault-tolerant), has no light nor bell which saves even more weight, and 2 almost not working brakes. But for one who races, brakes are not that important. For dust and rain protection the whole chain is covered in some metal case, which makes a lot of noise and keeps people out of the track. So, what is so bad about my lady cycle?

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Today is Mohan’s birthday and we celebrated it this morning at 12am till 2:30am. There are some specials, about how a birthday is celebrated over here. First of all a cake is needed. This cake is partly eaten (most of it by the poor birthday guy). The rest of it is mostly distributed in his face. Then he will get plenty of unpleasant bums. For that 2 people hold the arms and feet and lift the body into the air so that all his friends can kick his butt. Depending on the strength of the friendship and the amount of friends the poor guy has, it can be a quite painful experience. My birthday will be in around 2 weeks and I still have to think about a solution for this

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After Tirupati we went to Vishnu’s home which was nearby. Unfortunately a few already left, so altogether 8 people went. Due to the small size of his village, no proper bus service was available in the night. So we took a taxi (model: Ambassador). It was a very tight experience. 8 people plus driver in one small car.

Vishnu’s place is very peacefully. We slept on the roof and the night was very pleasant. Next morning a rickshaw driver came by the country road. I was on the roof looking around and enjoying the view. Apparently the driver had never seen a guy with a white skin before. While continuing on the road he turned the head towards me and stared at me till he could not see me any more. That day the only 4-wheeler I saw was a tractor.

A big problem in India is the ground water whose level is going down in many regions. Just a few years back there was a lake nearby. Now the lake has less water than a desert. So they drilled a well with a hand driven pump, which is 30ft (around 10m) deep. But currently also that is not sufficient. The depth of the new well is around 300ft deep and has an electrical pump, but there are also wells which are around 1000ft deep. Slowly everything dries up. And it will take 2 more months till the raining season will start.

Vishnu’s mom prepared a lot of really tasty food. Since I am not used to sit on the floor for a long time, I got a proper chair to eat from. The plates consisted of leaves which were tied together. It was the best food, I had eaten so far and the Indian hospitality made me to eat even more. Toooo gooood….

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Last week a few friends and I went to Tirupati. The journey started on Monday at 11 pm from Bangalore main bus stand. Tirupati is a town located in the state called Andhra Pradesh and it takes around 5 hours to reach it. A foot path and around 3500 steps lay between Tirupati and Tirumala. But what is so special about this town and why should somebody climb up so many stairs just to see another town? And why are there so many shaved heads?

In Tirumala is one of the most visited temple in India and millions of pilgrims worship Sri Venkateshvara every year. Especially during weekends and special days, the waiting queue to see the statue is so long that it can take several days to have finally a 10 seconds long glance on it. The waiting halls looked like a huge auditorium and the first time when I saw them, I thought these are for people watching some event going on in the garden, which is surrounded by the halls. After entering the temple which is not restricted to foreigners, the level of pushing and pulling each other raised and it reached its maximum just before the statue. Although the pushing and pulling the beautiful ornaments and figures in pure gold, the smell, the chantings, and the awaiting to see Sri Venkateshvara spread some kind of sacred atmosphere.
Officials stood in front of the statue to ensure that someone did not spend more than a few seconds and holding up the queue by pushing the pilgrims forward. After the worshiping some other parts of the administration of the temple were shown: For instance the office, which counted all the money the pilgrims threw into a big money bag. Prasada which is actually the food for the Lord and some rice dish, was offered to the pilgrims.

After that I bought some Laddus, which is some kind of sweet. It is also considered to be holy and this kind is only available in Tirumala. The people of IISc are very crazy about it and every time they ask me, if something is left (and there is still something hidden in my room).

In and around Tirupati and Tirumala a lot of shaved heads can be seen. Plenty of people get it shaved to sacrifice it to the god. The hair is sold by the temple officials to Europe and the US to make expensive wigs out of the thick and strong Indian hair.
In Tirumala the foreigner can see one thing immediately: Religion and commerce do not exclude each other. Everything which is somehow related either to religion or to the daily needs is sold. From almost every stall the same religious songs are played and plenty of blinking and flashing LED frames can be bought.

The trip to Tirupati was very interesting. Especially because I have never been to an active temple before. Unfortunately no electronic devices such as cameras etc. were allowed in the temple, so I do not have any photos. Only from the trip itself.

More information can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tirupati

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Yesterday it finally happened. I happily went down the bird shit road and I reached almost its end, when a big bird dropping wasted my freshly changed T-shirt. Not to mention that I took a shower just half an hour before that incident happened. People keep telling, it means good luck. Well, we will see…

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