Day 4: Leaving Bangalore

Tue, 03 Dec 2019 04:11:47 GMT

This is my 4th full day here and we're leaving Bangalore headed to Mysore. Amma (my teacher's mother, Dr. Srivalli) has a home there, and an apartment in Bangalore. They are 3 hours apart by car, so this isn't such an epic journey.

I am currently participating in one of the things I don't love about India ... waiting indefinitely for something to happen. The world of the US or at least definitely New England, is one where a person should feel like a complete jerk for being more than 5 min late to anything. With a day full of generally 6-10 meetings in it, I feel like a jerk on a regular basis. Sadly, tech life is such that I have learned to just roll with it - I have enough ad hoc emergencies and few enough options to check in with my people, that i just accept having to mess up a meeting or two every day. I probably shouldn't, it's not one of my best professional qualities...

In India, i believe I would classify as neurotically on time. Despite what folks may thing (yeah, I see you there...) - i do my damnedest to be on time... today, that included getting dressed in my spiffy new sari, choli, bangles, and loaner necklace at 8:10, because the driver was coming at 8:30 I Did. Not. Want To Be. Late. Well... it's now 9:30 and the driver will (theoretically) be here at 10. Sigh. Should have waited and hung out in comfy house dress. (OK, small vindication, Amma just had words with the car company... part of this is she gave guidance they didn't follow. I can't speak enough Kannada to follow what she's saying but the tone is real clear)

Well... now that I've had my obligatory time-based American grump...

(addendum - still writing, it's 10:10... but I have had coffee! Amma's coffee absolutely makes this all better. Also, I am both sleepy and unable to blink... hm...)

A think I really like is the Metro. It's all new since I've been here and it's lovely. It's clean, the trains are very new, and people are courteous. It's got a fair level of hustle and bustle, but people always make space for Amma, and often the men will make space for ladies. We really a very nice man yesterday who both prodded a young guy to give up his seat for me and then asked where I was from, because he heard Amma and I working on my Kannada.

A weird thing - they have metal detectors, and personal scanning. As per usual in India, women are scanned by a lady guard in private (a small booth with curtains). It's still really fast, but it's definitely a different flavor than US subways!

Another thing - if you are a regular user, you get a card that pretty much seems like the Charlie Card... but everyone scans both on and off the subway, since your fare is the distance of stops traveled. Regular users have either a time based pass or money on their cards (?maybe?). But infrequent users like me, get a coin (see the link for pictures). It's a little plastic coin shaped object, with an RFID in it. You SCAN the coin getting on, and then drop it in the slot on your way out. It's neat, but also has a real "get Charlie off the MTA" feeling. Particularly because yesterday the doors closed on me as I made a mad dash for Amma (she is FAST!!) and knocked my coin out of my hand. I had scramble after it, feeling like a total idiot.

But overall - they are regular, traffic free, and super convenient. Unfortunately, the one place I know how to get to is 4th Cross - the crazy lovely shopping district. Expensive for me. :) Good for the merchants.

Another thing that was good - we went to a MEGASTORE of dance jewelry - Sri Bhavani. And, I suspect other fancy jewelry - like wedding jewelry. I know Bharata Natyam jewelry, but there's an entire other pantheon of modern Indian formal decoration that I'm fairly uninformed about. In my first trip with Amma (2009!), a major huge goal for me to was to have a full professional dance costume and jewelry set. It felt like just about the biggest thing I'd ever managed, and I was so, so proud and gratified and thankful. I remember Amma and I finding the first two pieces in Chennai and me sitting up at night just staring at them and touching them. I was so proud and scared. Scared... because I wanted to deserve them, and because this was my big huge purchase and I wanted to be sure my budget covered it all.

... After that first purchase, I learned just how much Amma loved me, because we went all OVER the place aquiring the rest of the set. We looked in Mysore, Bangalore and I don't even know where all. We had to have bought in 3-4 different shops, slowly getting everything I needed. Each time, the owner would pull out a little treasure hidden away somewhere because the traditional jewelry wasn't the thing in vogue they were displaying all over.

This time was really an embarassment of riches. The store is two floors of jewelry on top of a beauty salon. They have EVERYTHING - all the dance stuff you could want, also modern fashion items. Also wedding/formal stuff. And the typical level of Indian service - guys behind the counter to show you everything. Some where pretty bored seeming, but the ones at the higher end areas where super attentive... also far less busy. One thing I stlll work to get over - being willing to be a big pain in the butt. In a store like this - with so much stashed everwhere - you have to be willing to really look and decide what you want, and that can take time. I probably spent the longest buying a few gifts, because trying to figure out what will fit other people's tastes is always hardest.

A fun/weird thing at this particular shop - they give you a token for the things you selected at each counter. So we had 6-8 different tokens by the time we finished, because I was getting stuff from so many places. Great psychology - it was SUPER hard to remember what all I'd bought by the end of it. Although before I paid, there was a chance to breath and go through the bill and my choices. It definitely means you aren't wandering around the store with merchandise, which is probably also a security win.

We fleshed out my supply of dance things - getting a new belt (my current belt I really kind of hate - it's like plated armor and so weirdly bendable that it dents at the drop of a hat. I've probably worn it 5 times because I'm so afraid of destroying it). And a new long necklace, as my original necklace is GORGEOUS - but both needs repair and is really NOT made to be dance jewelry (which may be why it needs repair... don't look at me like that... I know I'm destructive...). Also hair buns, as Amma has generally said that my hair bun should be much smaller than it is. And new flowers. And bindi. Big, big bindi. I like a medium sized bindi, but for dance, one is strongly encouraged to get a big-ass dot on one's head. Makes sense - the eyeliner is also big.

I really could have spent twice as much - but managed to restrain myself. They didn't give us any discount - they insist that they've been in business 65 years, and if you can find a cheaper cost of the same item, they will give it free (how American does that sound?). I noticed many shops in the area didn't seem to give any real bargaining... I wonder if it's out of style?

They did do the cool thing of throwing in some extras - extra back ties for the necklace, extra earring backs. Those things are TOTAL win for me - getting Indian earring backs and necklace clips in the US is a real chore. This really helps me a ton.

Check out my embarrassing level of jewelry shopping here. In my defense - shopping for this stuff on the Internet is a total lose - getting good quality is really hard. And shopping with anyone but Amma or another dancer is a no-go with this. There is so much particular to think about in dance jewelry, that the savvy opinion of someone else you can talk to is almost a necessity. At least for me, the biggest extrovert on the planet.

As I posted the above to FB, the driver came and our leaving the apartment hijinks ensued.

But I forgot in my rushing to post here something I was thinking about -- since this shop has been here for 65 years... it was definitely here 10 years ago. It was just that at the time, Amma was not as well connected in Bangalore, and her daughter in Bangalore (Preethi) was not a dancer. So no one really had insider knowledge. Aparna (who hates shopping), also hadn't done much shopping here. Not only does she hate it, but when she's in India, she's connected to the dance community all over the place, and she has beautiful traditional jewelry and costumes and doesn't really need another item.

So - I could see it as unnecessarily hard to have found the jewelry we did, in the way we did. It was just lack of knowledge.

But instead I see it different. The struggle really brought Amma and I together - seeing her try so hard for me made me realize how much she cares for me. And having it be so hard, makes me treasure my jewelry all the more. People always say how beautiful my set is (even dancers who know the options and see this stuff all the time) and I think it's really a very high quality set. For all that this store was very very glamorous, the quality of items varied quite a lot and it would have been easy to get something I wasn't quite so fond of.

I'm really glad, now, for my crazy 2009 Jewelery Adventure.

I'm also quite OK with not having to run all over the place to get more. :)

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Lakshmi Amman's Journal

Day 4: Leaving Bangalore