The Emerald Route

Delayed for a few weeks in jotting down the following:

Leaving Bangalore tonight on the 2:30 AM flight back to Frankfurt. Total flight time between here and home, 22 or so hours. I buy a copy of “The Emerald Route” by R.K. Narayan at Hal Airport and skim a few pages while watching a TV special about the inherent insecurity of India’s security forces.

I stumble on the following passage about Bangalore:

“The hoary nucleus of the city retains an indescribable charm, although the architecture may look outdated, and one’s passage at first may appear hazardous through it’s traffic, but actually the wheels steer off within a hair’s breadth and spare the pedestrian’s toes, who must survive by lightly leaping aside, and recovering his balance from the very edge of the granite pavement, and may not suffer more than an occasional jab from a cycle handle or a bump from its mudguard as crack-riders dash past, weaving their way through.”

This was 1977 of course, when Narayan was writing, before the advent of the autorickshaw which is by far the most prevalent vehicle on the streets of Bangalore. 75,000 of these or so are registered with the city government, but estimates of actual numbers on the streets range into the multiple hundreds of thousands. This was 1977, when the population of Bangalore was just over two million, while today it is greater than six million.

At no time did I ever feel safe crossing the street or riding in a car, though my driver, Anish, was a consummate pilot: calm and cool, and often quite strategic in his lane swapping and vehicle passing. Most of the time, however, I kept my eyes closed. When I commented multiple times on the traffic, I was told that if you ever doubted the existence of a higher power, go to India and watch the traffic work - it just works - inexplicably.

I sleep on the plane a few hours, then wake up and become completely absorbed in a Bollywood flick, No Entry, which is mysteriously captivating.

All is well until I eat something on the plane that in turn has me waylaid for the next three days.