Getting to Bangalore: Part I

**There are two posts today to describe our impressions after two days in Bangalore: our new home. Please check out Parts I and II.**

In just over two hours in the air, Jenna and I traveled from Kolkata—a city resolutely stuck in the late 1970s—to Bangalore, a city aggressively trying to become one of the most modern in the world.

The Bangalore International Airport looks like a set out of Star Trek, especially when all you are used to seeing are moss-covered buildings and Ambassador cars that came off the assembly line in 1968. This is not to say anything improper about Kolkata. Indeed, it had been our first home in India—inarguably the most intriguing experience of our lives thus far. The grittiness and stubborn lack of modernity, in fact, is what makes Kolkata great in a way. Yet, it was nice to walk out of the terminal in Bangalore and not smell putrid garbage or have your eyes singed by diesel exhaust.

One thing that was not different from Kolkata, though, were the aggressive taxi touts. “Taxi, sir? Taxi? You need a ride?” Every five feet we stepped, we had another taxi driver plying his skills. Of course, we made easy targets: big white guy and his wife carrying six bags, looking around helplessly for direction.

Awsan, our contact at the Exceed English Center, had told us earlier that day before we had left Kolkata, that he would meet us at the airport. “Will you have a sign?” I asked. “No, I have your pictures. I know what you look like,” he had responded. Even though I realized I would stick out in India, to my American sensibilities, the plan seemed less than foolproof.

We eventually dropped our bags in a tired heap by a large concrete pillar outside the terminal and looked around. Nobody save the taxi drivers, had approached us. And we had not seen our names on the sign. The only thing that reassured us was the modern setting. The bright lights and snazzy food kiosks made us feel as if we were back in America (or at least Europe).

After about ten minutes, another man approached us cautiously dressed in jeans and a corduroy jacket. “Kee-ley?” he asked hesitantly. The man had just called me the name of Jenna’s mother’s pet dog.

“Yeah, KY-le. Are you Awsan?” I responded, sure I was butchering his name, too. The man broke out in a wide grin. “Sorry. KY-le. Yes, I am Awsan,” he said (his name sounded like Ow-shaun). “Let us go to the car, huh?” Awsan said, picking up one of our bags. We walked a short ways and stopped on the curb next to a small, boxy white care. Awsan threw the bags in the rear and we all got in. We began driving towards our new home, a guesthouse that Awsan had also arranged for us.

As we drove, I was reminded of a similar nighttime journey away from an airport. Just a little over a month ago, Jenna and I had arrived dazed and tired in Kolkata. That drive—from Kolkata’s airport to our guesthouse—had been a revealing, somewhat scary look at the city’s impoverishment and chaos. This drive was anything but that. In fact, as we sped along a four-lane highway with clearly marked lanes (that the driver’s stayed in) I felt almost like I was back in Houston.

The highway took us past large, modern-looking office buildings and businesses with bright interior lights and neon signs. Swirling, ribbon-like overpasses swept over the road and took other drivers off into different directions. A skyline could be seen vaguely in the dark distance. The roadsides were free of makeshift stalls and ramshackle homes. Indeed, we saw only a handful of pedestrians in our entire drive. Bangalore seemed quiet, almost deserted at 11 o’clock at night. Unlike Kolkata, which had been teeming with life at around the same time—walkers and auto-rickshaws spilling into the street, bicyclists careening through traffic, sidewalks completely overrun by squatters.

“You will find Bangalore a very nice place,” Awsan was explaining. He knew we had been living in Kolkata for almost a month. Originally from Yemen, Awsan had moved to Bangalore almost a decade ago and had gotten a marketing degree from a local university.

“You know, Ky-lee,” he said, still getting a handle on my name, “you are a lot bigger in person. Your picture that you sent makes you look small,” he laughed. “In fact, you are huge!” Jenna cackled from the back seat and the ice had been broken.

After a half-hour drive, Awsan pulled down some side streets and stopped on a narrow lane in front of a guesthouse stuck snugly between two taller buildings. “This is the place. The guy here is very nice. You will love it.” Indeed, Awsan had done his homework well. The guesthouse—called the Richmond Suites, for we were in an area of the city known as Richmond Town—had all the amenities an American couple could ask for: furniture, purified tap water, hot bath water, wi-fi Internet, cable, a rooftop terrace and a fully-stocked kitchen.

“The price I told you through email still stands,” Awsan told us quietly as we unpacked our bags. An eerie calm resided over the street as we took our bags from the back of the car. Jenna and I had not heard total residential silence since we had left America. “In fact, KY-lee, the first month is on us. We want you to be comfortable.”

Shocked, I looked at Awsan. “The first month?” He smiled and shook his head back and forth in the Indian way. “Of course. You work for me. I want you to be comfortable. Relaxed.” Remembering the old American proverb about things that appeared too good to be true, I walked into our new room in a daze. A different kind of daze from the one I had been in on our first night in Kolkata.

Awsan left with a polite nod, “We will be in touch tomorrow. Tonight, rest. Relax. You must be tired.” This was Indian hospitality taken to a whole new level. Awsan closed the door and Jenna and I were immediately wrapped in a warm blanket of solitude we had not known for a month.

We hugged each other and Jenna said, “Welcome home.”