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So mes amies, we’re back in Mysore after two days in Bangalore. I’m pleasantly surprised that we all made it back in such good order, given Ma Mere’s jet lag (it seems that Lufthasa wasn't all that great to fly on and the flight was delayed). That meant that our plans to get some obligatory-visiting-of-relatives out of way went a little awry: we spent hours in a rental car going back and forth across that dratted city because people kept mooting contradictory plans. Am I old enough to have high blood pressure yet? If not, I think I had a trial run.
Also, also, may I take a moment and complain about the traffic we encountered in Bangalore? I know everyone complains about the traffic in India but honestly! There are a zillion vehicles on roads that were designed for a few hundred at most! Imagine being in a small metal box, laden with luggage and full of hot, sweaty people, all giving the driver contradictory instructions to go straight, turn left, make a U-turn and stop for a minute so she can be sick out the window (that last would be me, by the way). And then imagine this small metal box being surrounded by other small metal boxes all pelting along as fast as they can – it's like some tortured math question – how many cars of x dimension can fit on this 10m stretch of road and how fast can they all travel without crashing into each other? Then, there are two wheelers – mopeds and scooters and motorbikes, mostly laden with at least 3 people, all crawling alongside the cars and vans and autos and flinging themselves suicidally into the tiniest possible gap between any two bigger vehicles. Add an occasional meandering cow, a few dogs (did I mention that it's puppy season here?) and the odd goat.... all on roads that are holed and cracked and have mud shoulders that in the rainy season dissolve into mud... and the cacophony of horns and the stench of exhaust and mud and rotting garbage.... Is it any wonder that I spent most of the day in Bangalore perched in the middle of the back seat with my eyes closed? And cringing reflectively every few seconds?
Ok, whinge over. In the end, I convinced all concerned to travel back to Mysore by train. I don’t think my nerves would have survived 3 and a ½ hours on the Mysore-Bangalore Highway. Instead, we climbed on board the incredibly crowed Chamundi Express and spent the next three hours in relative comfort. Ma Mere enjoyed herself highly – she spent the journey eating the kinds of “train foods” she’d spent her childhood eating (did I ever say that my grandfather was a Railway Man?): maddur vadas, boiled green peanuts, some kind of fruit, “kappe” (the train version of coffee – trains in India have their own on-board catering staff who roam up and down the carriages hawking food and drink: so “kappe… kappe… kappe” is a cry you’ll hear along with “chai… chai chai chai”!), dry roasted peanuts that you have to shell yourself and so on. Then following family tradition, we tossed coins into the Cauvery river (yes, I know it’s probably bad for the river but I’ve been doing it every time we cross the river since I was 2! And little kids dive in for the coins in the daytime anyway – you see them doing it): we toss in a coin and ask Cauvery to give us all water for the next year. It is a Ritual. I think that’s why I love traveling on Indian trains as much as I loathe the country’s roads. And maybe it has something to do with being the Railway Man's grandkid. :)
