Bicycling east of Bangalore

Number two on my list of things I'll miss when I leave Bangalore.

Me in a race near Bangalore

When I first moved to Bangalore, I was too scared to go out on the roads on a bicycle.  By any foreign standard, the drivers here are just incredibly shockingly bad. The statistics don't lie.  Just one: India has more deaths on the highway per mile/km driven than anyone else by a large margin. But Indian drivers are a topic for another post.

I did eventually get a motorcycle (a 1962 Royal Enfield Bullet, again, more on that later) and by riding in the rural areas between Bangalore gradually built up some more courage to tackle the roads.   I had brought all my bicycles to Bangalore but had been too busy with work and a young family life to think about riding much except with my daughter around the neighborhood. 

And then I learned about a group of mountain bikers in the Whitefield area who rode on Sunday mornings. One morning with some trepidation I joined them and I was hooked again.  I say again because I had been riding MTB since 1988, and raced road-bikes in 1980-84. 

East of Whitefield, however, it's a paradise of trails.  You can ride and ride and ride, and never know all the trails. And the scenery changes all the time with the change in seasons and crops. Part of what makes it so easy is that no one out there bothers to fence their land.  And people walk everywhere, so there are lots of footpaths through rural areas.

The villages are spread out about 5km apart on average, so you have lots of opportunities to stop for water and snacks.  There is a river that splits the area, and there are only a couple of places to cross the river.  Typically we leave Whitefield and decide to go either North or South along the river, then cross further east, and either make it into a loop or an out-and-back, depending on time/effort. 

The landscape varies, is mostly flat, but there are some small hills.  In the low & wet areas rice paddies and coconuts dominate. In the higher areas, there are brick-making works, sand pits, and some stone mining operations.  In the middle there are lots of "forests" where wood is grown for firewood and building materials. 


View from the trail between Harohalli and Muthsandra at sunrise

Generally, we are stopped by flat tires at least once in a trip.  The more riders that show up, the higher the likelihood of that.  With tubeless tires (Stan's no-tubes) it happens a lot less frequently.


One of the old swimming holes.  This one was pumped dry recently.

We have discovered places to swim in water wells and quarries and most villages will sell you a mid-morning snack of chai and bananas, if not something more filling like idly if you can stomach the sanitation of rural kitchens.

The Sunday morning ride is the highlight of my week in Bangalore. 

Meeting up with celebritwit Shashi Tharoor @shashitharoor

Yeah, I'm a twitterer, a tweeter.  I'm a twit.  I tweet.¹ My friends who don't (yet) tweet or don't understand the whole thing can just deal with it.

I signed up for twitter a while back, checked in from time to time, and didn't find it compelling.  As a result I didn't use twitter for a long time, but then it seemed to reach some sort of critical mass and became interesting to me.  (There are many parallels with Google Wave; Wave most definitely isn't interesting right now.)

Anyway, on twitter I can categorize the people I interact with as a group of Bangaloreans, a group of Sinophiles, some cyclists and a group of infosec-related folks.  These are the ones I "hang" with.

Now take twitter to India.  In India, there is this amazing cult of celebrity.  Moreso than even the US, people here dig their superstars.  Unlike the US, Indians focus their attention.  At any one time, there is really only a handful of true superstars who command the vast majority of the attention. 

Enter Shashi Tharoor.  Look him up in wikipedia if you need to. 

He recently made news for tweeting a joke about riding "cattle class" on an airplane.  When translated into India's dozens of official languages, this side-comment in English took the form of a serious insult to some folks who didn't get the translation just right.  Remember this is a country where the cow is revered and worshiped (by Hindus anyway).

Anyway, Shashi Tharoor is one of India's first famous tweeters.  The fact that he's also in a serious governmental position (minister for external affairs, sort of like the US Secretary of State or the British Foreign Secretary) makes his tweeting quite interesting.  He talks about all the other heads of state he meets, the places he's seen, and sometimes comments on local Indian politics as well.

He agreed recently to a "tweetup" -- essentially a meeting of twitter users. 



I was really pleasantly surprised to find the event

• well-behaved
• well-organized
• comfortable
• pleasant

It was so motivating to spend about 90 minutes with this "superstar" of Indian politics. It was like a book reading or a Q/A session -- well done.


So "chapeau" to my buddy @dhempe (known to most as Hrish Thota) for the idea and the organization.


1) Side note rant: These words "twitter", "tweet", "tweetup", etc. are so painful for me to type.  It's almost as bad as "u", "ur", and the bane of Indian IT workers "gud" & "wud". I hate SMS slang,
refuse to use it and think that anyone who does use it is a complete
bloody moron.  Really, dear readers, if you use the word "gud" or "wud", the educated "rest of the world" sees you as a complete idiot. Tweet-words, however, somehow have become "normal".

Beer in Bangalore revisited 2009

Some time ago, I blogged about the beer situation in Bangalore, which was at that time pitiful.

It's changed quite a bit.  In 2005, your typical Restaurant menu looked like this:

• Kingfisher 650ml 100rs.

If they listed Fosters on the menu, it was out of stock, guaranteed.

In 2007, you had

• Kingfisher 650ml 150 rupees
  
• Fosters 650ml 160 rupees
• Haywards Black 650ml 180 rupees

In the year of 2009, you now find:

• Kingfisher 330ml 150 rupees
• Fosters 330ml 200 rupees
• Budweiser 650ml 250 rupees
• Heineken 330ml 275 rupees

And if you go to a fancy 5-star kind of place, you'll see:

• Chimay 330ml 350 rupees

So, the selection has gotten a bit broader, but the prices have gone through the roof.  Bottles have gotten smaller too. 

The good news is that if you go to a high-end liquor store here, you'll find more: Chimay, Achel, St. Feuillien, Orval, even Arabier by the Dolle Brouwers!  It's isn't quite the Wildeman, but it's not too bad.  All these are about 210 rupees per bottle. Ridiculously expensive by local standards, but not bad comparing them to the insane prices in pubs in Europe nowadays. (I paid 6.90 euros (about 500 rupees) for a beer last month in Amsterdam.)

Bottom line, I'm not complaining as much as I used to.  ;-)  At least when I'm feeling rich I can get a good beer.  Before it didn't matter how much money you had, you couldn't buy a good beer in India.

Now I relax knowing that there is an Orval waiting in my fridge at home.  It waits for Friday.

Photos courtesy of spo0nman on flickr. and Phil Chambers on Flickr

Farm fresh Amaranth and other veggies in Bangalore

One of our neighbors owns a small farm about 45km away from here, and they go there on the weekends to keep tabs on it and do some harvesting.

Recently, they have begun sharing their harvest with us, and we are completely delighted with the results.

This weekend, we picked up the following:

1 pumpkin
1kg spinach
.5kg amaranth
eggs
1kg tomatoes
1kg okra
1kg guava (pink and red?)
a bottle of preserved star fruit
a bottle of passionfruit extract

Regarding the amaranth, we asked how to prepare it and they said to fry it in lots of oil until it's crisp. We've had fried spinach in Chinese restaurants here in Bangalore before and it can be very tasty, but we're not into frying things at home. I think it's a bad habit to get into. There is plenty of fried food outside, so why do it at home?

I searched and did not find many recipes for amaranth, but the one that interested us was this Sichuan one. Of course, our kids can't eat spicy Sichuan food, but this was just greens and garlic, so they dug it. We did too. The amaranth cooked down like spinach but retained more firmness, and more flavor. It reminded me a bit of ramps, but I sure hope it doesn't have the same effect as ramps.

Update: No extra "wind" as a result of the amaranth. Good news! If you're ever in West Virginia, however, beware the ramps.

Marathon completed

It's been a couple weeks since I did it, but I thought I'd brag a little bit here.  I finished a marathon.

It was my goal to just finish one before I die.  So about 6 months ago I paid the entry fee for the Amsterdam Marathon.  I had at that moment not been running at all, just cycling once or twice a week.

6 months of pretty serious training, and I did it.  I overtrained in the last 3 weeks (very stupidly) and my knees locked up with IT Band issues.  But, still I finished the entire 42.195km (26 miles). So, for that I'm proud of myself. 



image from Flickr..

Now I have to sign up for another marathon so I can finish one in what I feel is a "respectable" time.

10 things I will miss when I leave India

Most foreigners like me who live in India love to hate India for one reason or another, but don't mistake the occasional ranting and raving for actual hatred. There are things we like, nee love, about India too.  It's just very easy to forget them.

So, I'd like to capture some of these things here.  I will take me a while to get through the entire list of 10 (in fact I haven't made the list yet) but let's start with this one.

The Andhra Meals

Palak dal, bhindi fry, pickle and rice.
(Courtesy kkalyan on Flickr)

I love a good Andhra style "meals" or "thali".  I haven't found an equivalent to this type of meal in any other society around the world, and if you haven't been to south India you probably don't know what I'm talking about. 

For a fairly small amount of money (20-120 rupees), you get a big plate (that's the thali) with a great variety of dishes in small bowls, and a pile of rice in the middle, and a couple of roti's or papadam on top. There is almost always yogurt (curd), some curries, a couple vegetable dishes, a salad (cucumber/carrot), and a sweet. At the lower end of the cost scale, you might just get rice, dal, and a veg.  In a south Indian version, you'd get more sloppy curries, and maybe some curd rice.  In a Northern one, dryer dishes, some bread, and a typical norther sweet.


A very nice looking Thali, from Jaisalmeer in North India.
(Courtesy of Larsa on Flickr)

The amazing thing is that it's all-you-can-eat. They will keep bringing any of the curries, vegetables, and rice in unlimited quantities until you are lying on the floor screaming "no more" "not another wafer thin mint".

One of the things I really enjoy about the cheap-n-tasty thali is the Indian practice of eating with your hand, without a spoon/knife/fork.  There is something really sensuous (almost in a dirty way) about smashing your curry, dal and vegetables into the rice, making a ball out of it and then shoving it into your mouth. 

For lots more photos, try a Compfight search for thali. 

And in the Bangalore area, "meals" is always plural.  You don't ask for a "meal" but a "meals".

Sewer cycle

Bangalore's sewers, when they exist, are for the most part "open".  See this for an example photo if you don't know what one looks like.  They are channels about a 80cm across and a meter deep that run in front of most buildings along the streets. 

If they are covered, they are covered with removable stones or concrete blocks. These then form the basis for what should be sidewalks, but in practice they are insufficient as such. As sidewalks, they are too uneven, too narrow, and since they are frequently missing stones, you must watch very carefully where you step lest you fall into the sewer.  Sidenote: that's why everyone in India walks in the street and a major reason why 4-lane roads (where they exist) usually have at most 2 passable lanes of traffic going less than 30kmph, but that's for another rant...



Someone enjoying the Open Sewer in Badami. Photo courtesy of Olivié

So why have these rough, uneven stones? Why not just cover the sewers entirely with smooth concrete?

First, let's recognize that Bangalore, a town of 6-8 million people depending on who you ask, has no organized solid waste disposal system to speak of.  Second, Bangaloreans by and large have no concept of using a garbage receptacle of any sort.  There are few if any public trash bins, and usually there isn't one within 100 yards of you anyway, so if you did have some trash and you didn't want to throw it on the ground, you'd have to pocket it until you found a canister.  The result: nearly everyone just throws their garbage on the ground.  And then it flies or falls into the sewer.

And if you live on a road with one of the aforementioned sewers, you can speed up this process and just throw your trash directly in the sewer.  Take a close look at all the non-biodegradeable stuff floating in that photo just there.

So this means that about once every 2 years, some unfortunate group of people are employed to clean out the sewers.  Lest you think this involves some high-pressure washing machinery and garbage trucks, recall where we are: India.  This means that people do it.  Why not use machinery?  People don't have to be imported from Germany and they don't break down.  They don't even require maintenance.  You just say "I need 100 workers at 100 rupees a day" and poof, they appear.  If 20 get sick and don't show up on day two, 20 more will appear looking for work.


These unlucky souls stand in the sewers (a couple inches deep with flowing waste in some cases) and dig out the solids, putting them in a big pile on the side of the road. This cleaning is done with their bare hands too, since apparently
shovels and other bronze-age implements are too expensive for this
work. Did I mention that most of these workers have no shoes?  That's right, they are standing barefoot in a river of poop, piss and chemical waste, then digging it out with their hands. 

A big sloppy, stinky pile of waste then appears on the side of the road in front of the restaurants, milk salesmen, butchers, even the florists.  It sits there for a month or so, drying out and blowing around until some other unlucky bunch of people comes along with a truck to haul it all "away".  I have no idea where this mythical "away" place is, but I'm suspecting it is the fields where my vegetables are grown.

And then the entire cycle starts all over again as people continue to throw their garbage in the sewers. As I was going to work this morning, I stopped at a stoplight in front of a small business.  The child working there was sweeping up all the plastic tea-cups, cigarette wrappers, and other trash.  When he finished making a nice pile, he picked it up and threw it into the brand new open sewer in front of his shop.

This is all just another mind-boggling inefficiency of India that I just don't understand.  Another side to "India Shining".

Afternote:
Light on the horizon: Chennai has banned the practice of manually cleaning sewers.  We all know the gap between law and practice in India, but still it's a good first step.

Hyderabadi Biryani -- The hunt begins.

I've set myself a goal of learning to make a good Hyderabadi biryani before I leave India.

Best I can tell this is the general process:

1. Marinate some meat and cook it a bit (cook it maybe half-way).
2. Soak some rice and maybe cook it a bit (half-way).
3. Layer the rice and meats in a big pot.
4. Add some additional spices and some ghee.
5. Cover tightly and cook for an additional 30mins until the rice and meats are both done.

This general recipe is deceptively simple I would say, which mean that the devil is in the details.  My time in India has shown me some good and lots of mediocre-to-bad biryani.

I do not intend to learn to make mediocre biryani.  ;-)

Some things I know already:
I will make chicken and mutton styles. Probably chicken more often than mutton.
Boneless mutton. Dark chicken meat. 
I will not bother with vegetarian biryani. 
I will use fresh whole spices, no mixes. (I'm throwing out all my old spices today.)
Saffron will be used, not colorings.
I will not use prepared garlic-ginger paste. That stuff is just nasty.
I will not worry about how much ghee goes in.  If I wanted to watch my calories, I wouldn't be making biryani.
I like it spicy. Most Indian food is not spicy enough for me but Andhra food (i.e. from Hyderabad) is.
I'm sensitive to over-salted food, so I'll probably be cutting back a bit on that part of most recipes.
Getting the rice properly cooked half-way before assembly will be a key to success.  Overcooking it will result in the mush that I've been served too many times in corporate canteens and cheaper restaurants.  Here's what Petrina Verma Sarkar says about this step:

"Cook till almost done. To determine when it has reached that stage, remove a few grains from the pot and press between your thumb and forefinger. The rice should mostly mash but will have a firm whitish core."

Manila Williams says:

You have to par cook the rice (meaning 3/4 cooked and rest will get cooked later). Do not over boil the rice. To check if the rice is done you can take a grain of rice out and press in between your thumb and forefinger. If the grain breaks into 3 parts, it means your rice is cooked just right.

Here's a promising recipe because it appears to be translated from another language (Telugu hopefully), and has typical Indian names for most items. I may give this one a try.  You have to like something that uses 3 t. chili powder for only 1/2 kg of meat.  Something is not right with the temperatures though.  Maybe mixing up Fahrenheit and Celsius?

Here is one I probably won't be trying.  1/2 t of chili powder? "Saffron Color".  Uhm, no thanks.

Recently there was an otherwise insipid article locally in which Sanjay Bahl of Royal Orchid Hotels made a telling comment: "Use a mix of cream, butter and saffron and pour it over the rice and cover it with a thin layer of par boiled rice after which you cover it with a lid and place it on dum."  I have yet to find a recipe that calls for cream or butter. In my experience, the fancy restaurants and hotels in India use WAY too much cream.  It's loaded into every curry dish to make it thicker and richer. Here I suspect the same thing is happening with biryani.  I can't imagine someone actually using cream and butter to make a biryani at home.  Am I wrong?  I suspect he's taking the saffron milk and using cream instead. 

This looks like a very good process in this video from Pakistan with Sanjeev Kapoor on TV1 showing the assembly and some of the details of the dum (vessel) loading.  He makes a seasoning potli (like a french bouquet garni) for the boiling of the rice.  He shows just how to layer in the meats and rice, and he uses a lot of yogurt (curd) to marinate the meat, which probably also makes the rice much richer in the end as it cooks off. This looks a lot like what I thought would be in the right recipe. Might start with this one as a basis.

Another video showing a mutton version, with tomatoes added to the meat while it cooks. Also he uses a 1:1 water:rice ratio to "partially cook" the rice in a rice cooker. The assembly here lacks a little in the "atmosphere" department, but it looks like they're having a huge party.

And on a lighter note: A rap about Hyderabadi Biryani. Awesome stuff that one...

Rumboozle and Nimbarita -- you saw them here first folks..

A new drink, created first here in Bangalore by yours truly.  A favorite in our house these days:

Rumboozle
1 part Rum (or 30cl if you're a Bangalorean bartender and must measure every drink)
3 parts Nimbooz
Juice of one lime
Served on ice in a whiskey glass

Extra points possible for sugar or salt on the rim, but it's absolutely not necessary.

Also known to be served in these parts:

Nimbarita
1 healthy shot of (good) Tequila
3 parts Nimbooz
Juice of one lime
salt on the rim
served on ice


Cheers to all.

Indian Driving Manual, part 109, subpart 7

Here is an excerpt from the 1982 Indian driver's instruction manual that my driver used:

Turning Right:

When turning right (Editor's note: across traffic in India, remember?), here is the appropriate chain of events:

Slow down, flash your lights at the oncoming traffic.  This serves to alert them to your intentions of fouling up their progress.  It's appropriate to keep them on their toes.

Swerve left ever so briefly then back to the right. This helps keep the traffic behind you in a state of doubt. 

Under no circumstances do you use your indicators. Signaling your intention is a sign of weakness.

Begin to straddle the center line at least 30 meters before the intersection, as if you're going to really cut it short.

Pull half-way out into the oncoming traffic while flashing your lights one more time for that powerful look.

At this point, note that the oncoming traffic (now flashing their lights at you) is actually not going to stop for you. You should begrudgingly stop now. 

When done correctly, you now find yourself about 45 - 50% of the way across the intersection, blocking traffic in both directions.  Now is a good time to ignore all the people honking their horns behind you.  They will wait.  They have no choice.  Now that you have impeded traffic in both directions, everyone is slowing down.  This is important for two reasons.  It gives more time for you to show your power, and allows the oncoming drivers to see your glowering face of stone. Look like you mean business.

At this point, continue to creep forward slowly as cars squeeze by coming the other direction.  Move forward inches at a time forcing the oncoming traffic to slow an swerve around you.  Proceed forward slowly until someone gives in and cannot squeeze through.  Now sound your horn and flash your lights with vigor. You own this road by god, and you'll make them know it.

Watch out for the few motorcycles who now will squeeze through.  You don't really have to wait for them, but don't want to miss an opportunity to glare and honk.

As you complete the turn go as slowly as possible, blocking the oncoming traffic for as long as possible.  Glare at the drivers stopped to your left, reinforcing your position of power.

Look up just in time to avoid running over the pedestrians. Blast that horn again, but do not slow down for them under any circumstances.

After crossing the intersection, accelerate slowly while looking in the mirror at the pile-up of traffic you left behind.  Watch as it slowly unwinds itself and people start moving at a normal speed again.

Half-marathon: 1:58

Today was so much better than I thought it would be.  I ran my first organized half-marathon.  I had run one before as a training run last month.

We left the house at 4am, after I had all of about 5 hours of sleep. 

Drove 2 hours in the dark on crazy Indian roads to get to Srirangapatna for the Kaveri Trail Marathon.  Found the starting point with relative ease as the sun rose. The course was gorgeous, along a canal through rice paddies.  Flat, dirt, and not too rough.  Some old stone under the dirt but it was relatively smooth.

The race started more or less on time (yes, you read that right, on time in India!) at 7:10am, and I ran just the race I wanted to. Progressively faster.  1/3 slow, 1/3 medium, and then at some semblance of a race pace for the last 3rd.

The first 3k were painfully slow, picking my way through a field of runners on a narrow dirt road.  I wanted to start slowly and finish fast, but I didn't think I would start that slowly. HR 150-155

By km 5 I was back on pace, and feeling solid.  I drank at all stations, usually two cups of water, and ate a few biscuits as well.  At the turn-around point (10.5k, 61mins) I was feeling like I had something in reserve.  I saw a couple friends up ahead of me, and I decided to try to catch them.  I ran pretty strongly the entire 2nd half.  HR 165-170  The last km felt long, but I wasn't dying.  I just also couldn't sprint.

So, I am really pleased with the progress I've made.  4 months ago, I couldn't run 5 miles.  Now, I'm nearly ready for a marathon.  5 more weeks to go. 

Art in the 21st Century

“There is nothing special about David Cerny’s art, other than that he is more visible than other artists and talented at marketing. But artists like Cerny who are in headlines today will be forgotten tomorrow. His work is destined for the amusement park and won’t stand the test of time." 

-- Milan Knizak, the director of Prague’s National Gallery, as quoted in the New York Times

Funny, that's how I feel about MOST 21st century art.  Beyond the 3-second "wow" that some of it induces...it's all just marketing. 

Somehow, though I feel much differently about most modern architecture.  Even when I don't like it visually, it serves a purpose and I can relate to that.

I have been to many art exhibitions in India, and I have yet to see something that seems worthy of attention.

Tartiflette in Bangalore

It sounded like a good idea, and overall it was a lot of fun, but 24 hours later, I'm not sure it was the best thing for my body.

Last night we headed to a nearby hotel last night for a "French Cheese Club" meeting.  The food was (of course) awesome.  Greeted by a tray of yummy sangria just after going through the door and having flowers pinned on and photos taken, we were then bombarded with a non-stop offering of tiny squares of quiche, (ham, salmon, tuna, vegetable) and other lighter goodies. 

Then came the main course, tartiflette.  Not something I eat regularly, but I have had it in France during ski season. It's remarkably like my mother's "scalloped potatoes" recipe from the 1950's Bettie Crocker cookbook.  But unlike my Mom's, it's made with really nice (ahem, French) strong cheese, (Reblochon) and it's delicious.  They provided an excellent simple salad (the french do this right...) and bread accompaniments.

With unlimited wine.

Let me say that again. 

Unlimited wine. 

In India. 

(And it wasn't some sour Sula stuff either.  The white wasn't bad.)

So, after one large plate of yummy food and about 4 glasses of wine, it didn't take much to convince me of another plate of the potatoes-and-cheese heart-stopper.

Which then made a couple more glasses of wine obligatory. 

Which then gave me no chance at all of making a 7am bike ride.  And no chance at all of feeling healthy this Sunday.

Today I'm paying penance for unlimited wine, cheese, and potatoes.  Worth it?  Probably.

9.6 miles, 87 mins.

That route plus two more laps of the neighborhood a one-mile each.

When I arrived home, my wife said "I predict a nap on the couch this afternoon". I think she's right.


Update!

It's now 4pm. I just woke up from a 2 hour CRAAAAAASH. Holy smokes. I never nap. I never catch a little catnap in the afternoon. Instead, I completely crash, like a lemming over a cliff. Drool. Boogers in my puffy non-focusing eyes. Wow. I feel like a train just ran over me.

Kaveri River (Half) Marathon

I'm planning on running this as a training event for the Amsterdam Marathon.



Choose Satellite View to see the actual route (Or bring it up in Google Earth under the "Route" menu).

Amsterdam Marathon

Somehow I've signed myself up for this. I'm training for it, but it's not going to be easy for me to finish 26 miles running. A friend sent me this video which I find pretty motivational; Amsterdam can be such a beautiful place (at 7am after the streets are cleaned by a Spring rain like in the movie).

The Flow

Good Morning Captain

what memories this brings back.

The 60s and 70s were a bizarre time. Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Rogers.

I'm a product of that time, no doubt.

Courtesy of Kung Fu Grippe

Feelies - Outdoor Miner

Outdoor Miner - The Feelies - 7/4/2008 in Battery Park New York

For some reason I'm feeling homesick for the US lately, especially the music scene. It's just non-existent in India.

I've been watching a ton of old Feelies, Yo La Tengo and similar videos on YouTube.

Another one. This one takes me back to 1985-1988 when I was going to shows just like this at least once a week. Just watching the audience dance makes me smile.