Sorry, we're closed

India closed on Monday. Actually, that's a little unfair. Parts of India closed on Monday, and Bombay was one of those. Opposition parties across the country called for a Bharat Bandh ('Bharat' meaning India and 'bandh' essentially close, as in, 'Close the door please.'). As Bombay currently has a strong BJP coalition (and Shiv Sena influence), as opposed to the country as a whole, which is governed by the Congress Party, it meant that the city decided not to open.

The street was the quietest I've ever seen it (or should that be heard it?). Buses stopped and shops were closed. I was told that the trains were running but it was hard to verify as the nearest station is a half hour walk away. Apparently it was a general strike called in response to the governments decision not to subsidise petrol prices any more (BBC link). India has a forecasted budget deficit of 5.5% of GDP for the 2010-2011 financial year and has plans to bring this down further over the coming years.

It's a messy situation. Running a deficit is not sustainable in the long-term without running into the sorts of issues that many European countries are facing now but some say the strike is just a political manoeuvre by the opposition to cause havoc and spread discord.

All I know is that India closed for the day. I'm glad this wouldn't happen in the UK. It would be most inconvenient to arrive home in a little under two weeks time (yikes!) and be told at the airport, "Sorry, the UK's decided to close today. Please come back tomorrow."

Auto-Rickshaws

Across India (and much of Asia in general), rickshaws are a key mode of transport. Modern rickshaws are motor powered and are often referred to as 'autos', pronounced a bit like 'otto'. In Bombay they are largely confined to the north of the city - you won't find them south of Bandra, it's all taxis there. Different cities have different ways of functioning, in Chennai for example they don't use meters so all rickshaw drivers simply rip you off. In Bangalore they are starting to use the meter but that doesn't stop them from trying to rip you off. In Bombay the drivers are mostly fine, if you can procure one that is. A typical interaction with a rickshaw driver might go something like this:

Wave down rickshaw.

Lean in and say your hoped for destination, e.g. Andheri station

Driver looks at you like you've just asked to molest his children and drives off in disgust.

Repeat.

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

I've been under pressure from my manager to write something more 'positive' about India. She masquerades as the communications manager but I'm pretty sure she's really a censor for the Indian Ministry of Tourism. I'm constantly being told that my blog will not entice people to come to India and visit. We also disagreed on the museums charging extra for people who don't look like they're Indian (around ten times the price!). I said it was discrimination, she said that they've got to make money from tourism some way. I think we've agreed to disagree.

Today, at any rate, I've decided to talk about how exciting it is here, especially getting to work. I know that the traffic has been mentioned quite a lot, but with a commute each day of over four hours it does form a large part of what I do.

So, without further ado, leaping onto moving trains and buses is great, great fun. I'm serious. Only this morning I travelled several hundred yards down the road literally hanging out of a bus. No-one can say that the journey to work is boring. And journey it is. Expedition even. You've got to have your wits about you or it could all go pear-shaped. At any rate it makes travelling in the U.K. positively pedestrian. One thing I shall take back with me is how sterile and dull day-to-day life can be in Britain. Maybe it's the rise of blame culture and suing, but the infamous Nanny State does seem very restrictive. Sure, some 10 people a day die on the trains, but considering they carry six million passengers a day (and we are just talking about Bombay) that's quite reasonable surely? I couldn't find any similar statistics for the U.K., although I did see a link saying that 30 people a day die in the U.K. from passive smoking (link).

So there we go, I'm safer travelling on the trains here than I am breathing in Britain. Now that, surely, is a reason to visit India if there ever was one. Come to think of it, what's the air like over here...

Your Number is Up

On Thursday evening as I came home from work I saw the bus just driving past and so ran to catch up with it. It turned out to be the wrong bus. Ah well. It was the 247, when in fact I was looking to catch the 240. The reason for said mistake was due to the way numbers are written in the local script. Almost every Indian here speaks Hindi which is written in Devanagari and looks like this: मैं ठीक हूँ (mai thik hu – I am okay). Now whilst there is no chance of mistaking any Hindi letters for English, the numbers are not so accommodating. It starts simply enough: 1 is १, 2 is २, and 3 is ३. ‘What’s the issue?’ I hear you ask, ‘There is none!’ I reply. They look pretty much the same as English. Excellent. And therein lies the problem for the later numbers: ४ is 4, not 8, ६ is 6, not 3 again, and ७ is, of course, 7, not 6, whilst 5 is also suspiciously six-like: ५. Well, why wouldn’t it be? So when I saw the २४७ drive past, I saw the २४०. Alas, it was not. Silly me.

Horn OK Please

I thought it was about time to comment on the traffic in Bombay. Chaotic isn't the word. If anyone asks what side of the road they drive on here I believe that an appropriate response would be a hearty laugh at the naivety of the question followed by the word: any. Technically it's the left, but that seems to make a relatively minor impact on day-to-day driving experience. The last minute swerves by rickshaw drivers, the liberal (read excessive) use of the horn and sheer number of passengers makes even the most simple trip down the road a Herculean adventure of epic proportions. I do, however, love it. I have embraced the Indian way. No longer do I waste time by looking when crossing the road or waiting for a break (hah!) in the stream of oncoming vehicles. Walking down the streets here is not quite taking your life in your hands, it is so much more than that. It is assuming that your life is represented by a slippery plastic ball that you are attempted to carry down the street with extremely greasing hands, whilst at the same time not really making much of a concerted effort to hang on to this strange thing called 'life'. It definitely makes the one-and-a-half hour morning commute that bit more exciting, and that's before you even get on the train.

And Now We Play the Waiting Game...

Time. What a concept. It's certainly inspired much debate. A cursory look at Wikipedia highlights the debates that have occurred between philosophers and scientists with regards to time.

In India time is more of a...fluid concept. I was told to expect a lot of time just waiting. Oh indeed, how true. Maybe it's all an ironic ploy to mock my own poor time keeping skills, but while waiting for the bus earlier even the Indians were starting to look agitated. A bus that says it should be every five to ten minutes took 40. In the midday sun, this was not so nice. You live and learn though. Next time I shall bring a towel to wipe down the copious amounts of sweat. Lovely.