Independence Day - Aug. 15, 2009

Saturday Aug. 15, 2009 was the 62nd anniversary of Independence of India from the British Empire. Starting a few days before that we noticed that a lot of the street vendors started offering Indian flags for sale in all sizes from a few inches by a few inches up to several feet by several feet on wood staffs. There were more vendors each day selling flags until Sunday the 16th. There were celebrations at the "parade grounds" which is an area near the center of the city near military posts. Bangalore has a military past and still has army and air force barracks around the city. The parade grounds were part of the army post and probably still are. We did not attend the doings there. It started early, security was tight too. We have been hearing warnings about terrorist threats, but nothing specific enough to indicate a clear action to be taken. Advice like, "stay away from crowds" is hard to follow in India.
H1N1 is spreading in India now. This could be a big problem, just because there are so many people. It is very difficult to isolate oneself or anyone who is sick and if it does spread, even a small percentage of people who might get seriously ill is a large number of people. The past several days we saw many more people wearing masks, which may or may not help. Wearing a mask in the dusty air here might be wise all the time. The traffic police often wear masks, and they probably all should as the pollution from cars and buses and such has to be bad for them.
On Independence day, most shops seemed to be open. We went to a musical instrument shop to look at a "veena". These are often very nicely carved wood with some sort of inlay in plastic (old ones would be ivory) or mother of pearl or nice woods. They are string instruments. We don't know much about them except that they look nice and can make nice sounds. The shop had 3 veenas and several other indstruments that appeared to be variants. They also had a "Sarod" and some variants. The veenas were interesting but appeard to need some work. We liked a sarod which also needed new strings and some cleaning which they said they could do in an hour. Most of the shop is new guitars and electronic instruments and a lot of people came into the small space. While we waited for them to put strings on the sarod and clean it we walked to another music shop which said they had no veenas even though we could see one in a second floor window. We also stopped in a bakery, which is also a food store. Every such place we go in seems to have something we like, but don't find in another store! Of course, they also LACK some things we find in other stores. So, one has to go to several places to get what you want, but we do usually find things we want. The biggest thing we have trouble with is cat supplies for the Z's.
We also stopped at a toy store to get a sort of squirt gun we can use to spray water at the monkeys who like to come on the balcony- we'll see if it helps.
While walking along the road Janet saw a dog that looked thin and old so she bought some puppy food to give it along with some water. Our driver said that the dogs won't eat that food because they are used to more human food that people give. So he got some biscuits of some sort and we gave the dogs a plastic bowl of water. Of course the dog was lying in front of a shop and had no interest in either the food or water! They may be skinny, but they eat only when hungry. Our driver returned the puppy food to the store while we waited in the car. While we waited a guy and his friend, to whom he was talking walked over to the tree next to our car and urinated. The car windows are darkly tinted so he probably did not know we were in the car, but it may not have mattered. However, this scenario is not unusual. All over the city and countryside, it is common to see men urinating on whatever is handy. There was a funny commentary in the local newspaper about the phenomenon several months back- it appeared to be written by an Indian, who had lived elsewhere and returned.
In most of the world one will see men urinating near roads when they need to, but it seems much less common. It is partly the large number of people in India, but also the lack of public facilities that are both in good repair and convenient. Hopefully, as the economy here continues to grow, money will be available to help alleviate this situation, but that will probably be a long time away.
We went back to the music shop and found they had done a reasonable job getting the sarod back in shape, so now we have one to learn how to play!
We went back home and while Janet had physical therapy for her knee, Jim went to an excellent craft fair which we visited one evening earlier. The handicrafts in India are widely varied and often of very high quality for little money -especially fabrics and wood carvings. Of course, foreigners generally pay a higher price than Indians. (We think that the sellers feel they were cheated if they don't get at least 20% more from foreigners, but this may not be true, still the prices can be very good.) So, Jim went to the fair and found a few items of interest. It helps a lot if one has a maximum price in mind and a real willingness to walk away if you don't get the item for that price. The vendors will generally act like its impossible, but they may come after you if you walk away and they will accept the price. Bargaining for items on a daily basis is a skill that most Americans and Europeans don't use any more, but here it is routine. If the deal is agreed upon, then there are no hard feelings. (But we still have the feeling that they think we should have paid more!)
Ziggy and Zoe have been pretty quiet lately... wonder what they are plotting?