Taken October 8, 2013 in Bangalore.
I just missed the perfect picture of this cow using its hoof to push the button for the pedestrian crosswalk light. I’m kidding of course, Bangalore doesn’t have functioning buttons for the pedestrian crosswalks and the cows damn sure know it.
Taken in September of 2013
This M-3 tank is on display at the base of the Madras Sappers. It’s one of the military units housed in Bangalore. Madras is also called Chennai, and is a town in south India on the east coast. It’s about due east of Bangalore. Sappers are military engineers who deal with mines.
Taken in September 2013 in KR Market.
An overhead shot of a spice vendor’s goods at the City Market in Bangalore.
Taken on October 5, 2013 on 80 Feet Rd in Bangalore
Kolam are chalk or (traditionally) rice powder drawings that one finds in front of entryways throughout much of South India. The practice has even carried over to other countries in the South Asia displaying Indian influence such as Thailand and Malaysia. Their drawing is traditionally practiced by Hindu women each day to bring prosperity to the household. Although this one was in front of a business as is also common these days. Some are much smaller and less elaborate than this one. However, some are even more elaborate and perfectly formed. They only last a day, and are traditionally washed away at the end of one day so that a new one can be drawn to start the new day.
Sorry for the haziness, I’m experimenting with taking shots with a phone. I normally use a DSLR, but no matter how long I live here I won’t be able to convince people (mainly drivers and hawkers) to leave me be to take my daily walk in peace with a clunky camera on my person. When you say you live here and are not a tourist, but you have a DSLR around your neck, you can see the “Does Not Compute” light come on in their head as their brains prepare to explode. However, with a phone one gets many fewer interruptions.
Taken in September 2013 in Bangalore
This is one of the most recognizable signs in India. You’ll find them in every neighborhood. There are many Indians who are firm believers in palm reading and astrological forecasting. Of course, there are a lot who aren’t as well. When you have a billion people, you’re going to have a lot of people who do everything (in absolute terms, even if it’s a small percentage.)
Of course, these businesses are not all connected by a guild or anything like that (as far as I know), they’ve just developed this universal signage–the palm. It’s brilliant. You don’t need to worry that the reader can read whichever of India’s 1,000 languages that you wrote the sign in. (This one is in Kannada, by the way.) On an almost unrelated note, but one which interested me, I heard that the McDonald’s sign is now a more recognized symbol globally than the Christian crucifix–but I don’t know how scientific that is. (The tie-in was branding.)
I’m always doubly skeptical when an astrologer approaches. Surely if they were worth their weight they’d know that I don’t put stock in forecasting of any kind whatsoever–not even statistical forecasting which (mis)uses sound mathematical principles.
When I first moved to Bangalore, I would have thought the street above couldn’t be crossed. However, I’ve now learned that one has to take advantage of the speed differential between the bikes and livestock on one hand and the motorized vehicles on the other to get one’s foot in the door. Then one has to cross in stages, with vehicles whipping passed to fore and to the back. It’s like getting vaccinations with the cattle gun in the military, you take a step forward and stop precisely. Except, instead of getting a gash in one’s arm, the penalty is being pelted with a rear-view mirror. It’s the only way, really.
Pocket Guide to Hatha Yoga (The Crossing Press Pocket Series) by Michele Picozzi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Having moved to India, I’ve been wanting to take advantage of the wealth of expertise in yoga. However, part of the problem is that there is such a wealth of knowledge. There are many different schools, each with different approaches and focal points, and each of those with separate branches. So I began, as I often do, among the shelves of one of my local bookstores. (Yes, here in India, we still have local bookstores [plural emphasis intended.])
That is where I picked up Michele Picozzi’s Pocket Guide to Hatha Yoga. A slight book of only about 100 pages, this guide serves as a sort of “Yoga for Dummies.” (I’m aware that there is a book by that title, but it’s probably not as concise.) Despite a mild bias against learning about yoga from Westerners (what’s the point of being in India–yes, I realize it’s irrational), I picked up this thin guide because it was only 70 rupees (less than $1 US), and I like the way it was organized.
It begins with a quick overview of the many schools of yoga. Next, it does the same for the many branches of Hatha yoga–which by all accounts seems to be the most popular school. I found this very helpful. The book doesn’t get bogged down in the minutiae, but rather presents a short paragraph hitting the highlights that differentiate one sect from another.
Then the book gets to the meat of the subject (my apologies to vegetarians for that analogy.) It gives helpful tips for one who has never been in a yoga studio before. Then it has chapters on postures (asana), breathing exercises (pranayama), and meditation (dhyana.)We learn that these are but three of yoga’s 8-fold path (not to be confused with Buddhism’s 8-fold path.) For the neophyte, it may be news to learn that there is more to yoga than just bendy poses.
The last chapter deals with basics of a yogic/ayurvedic diet. Here I learned that the Dalai Lama isn’t a vegetarian, among many more important advice about how and what yogis and yoginis should eat.
There are appendices containing line drawings of about 45 of the most fundamental asanas (all of the graphics in the book are line drawings), a glossary, and a list of references.
If you are brand new to yoga, I would recommend this book. You can get it through Amazon for only a little more that 70 Rupees.
Looking to the east from Barton Centre’s 13th floor.
The plane is the HF-24, India’s first indigenous fighter jet (circa 1960’s)
I visited the Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum last week. I wasn’t sure what to expect. The admission fee is only 30 rupees (less than 50 cents in USD terms.) I ended up being pleasantly surprised. It took me back to childhood visits to Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. Granted it’s neither on the scale of the windy city’s museum nor as well-maintained, but it’s largely interactive and has some fascinating–if often retro–displays. It’s great for kids or adults who’d like to revisit the science that they’re forgetting, and to do so in a way that’s entertaining.
The museum consists of five exhibit halls and a few other stand-alone displays both inside and outside the building. Outside one will see an old locomotive, a copy of India’s first indigenously-built fighter jet, an Archimedes water drill, and a big steam turbine. One’s visit inside, unfortunately, begins inauspiciously with a solitary animatronic T-rex that looks a bit dog-eared.
Also on the ground floor, the first exhibit hall one visits is the Hall of Engines. This covers steam power, gasoline engines, turbines of various forms, as well as displays of human and animal powered technology. There are hand-crankable cut-away scale models that allow one to see how the various engine designs work. There are also cut-aways of some full-sized engines. Overhead there are a series of wire tunnels through which billiard-size balls circulate, having been hand-cranked up into the track by various mechanisms. This, I believe is intended to demonstrate gravity power, which it does in a whimsical Rube Goldberg-esque sort of way. There’s also a video on simple machines that looks like it was initially made for 1950’s school children in America.
There are two exhibit halls on the first floor (that’s the second floor to Americans), one that deals with electricity and another called “Fun with Science” that’s all hands-on exhibits intended to spark the interest of school-aged children. The former covers the basic science of electricity as well as looking at the various generation methods, including nuclear, wind, solar, hydroelectric, and fossil fuels. The latter has interactive exhibits of the kind found in many a science or children’s museum. I would say the exhibits here are largely geared toward middle school and high school students. There is a small exhibit on the top floor that is aimed at young elementary school age students.
The second floor has a biotechnology exhibit hall as well as one that deals with space. The biotech hall covers basic biology, agriculture, and even beer brewing. The space hall discusses the history of space technology and particularly focuses on India’s Chandrayaan-1 moon-orbiting mission. (If you didn’t know that India had orbited the moon and delivered an impactor to the lunar surface, you are in good company. I had no idea either. But this was back in 2008-2009.) Anyway, it was good to see some Indian focus. As I was traveling through the exhibit halls up to this point, it occurred to me that there wasn’t a great deal for the school children passing through this museum to take national pride in. There was a lot of material about discoveries made in places like Germany, America, and Japan, but not a lot of segments on contributions of national scientific heroes as one would expect at such a museum.
The third floor has a full-sized exhibit hall dedicated to electronics and computer technology, and part of one hall that is split between a small “Science for Children” exhibit geared toward young children (pre-school and the younger elementary grades) and a temporary exhibit on chemistry. The chemistry exhibit is the most reading-oriented exhibit, except for a couple of models and a touch screen interactive periodic table, it’s pretty much a poster exhibition. The hall of computers and electronics has many interesting exhibits, such as a cylinder supposedly containing the 42 million transistors that it takes to make up one Pentium 4 processor.
There’s a nice poster exhibit about the 2012 Nobel Prize Winners. I assume this will be updated sometime next month after the new winners have been announced.
All and all, I’d say this museum is a bargain at several times the price.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 