Girl. City. Confused.

Things I have learnt after two weeks in Bangalore:

• Trying to find your way around a new city can be trying if you have no map, no clue re: the city layout ("Indiranagar? Gandhinagar? Stop confusing me!") and no grasp of the local language (though knowing Hindi helps.)
• The autos here are insane. Either they don't want to go where you want to go, or they want to charge you an exorbitant flat fee for their services ("Meter? What meter?")
• The buses are cheap and fairly frequent, except there's no such thing as a route map at bus stops. So unless you know the bus routes offhand, your best bet is to ask the bus driver, "Majestic?"
• Traffic is abysmal (though this is probably true of all of India's major metros.)
• You will not endear yourself to the locals by going, "You know, x is so much better in Bombay!" - even if it's true. :)
  

More to follow.

Silence at the dinner table is highly underrated.

Now Playing: Agnes Obel - Riverside

"Oh, she eats with her left hand?"

I'm used to getting that question from Indian aunties and uncles, usually in a disapproving voice, so when someone asked my mother that over dinner, I said, "yes, she does" in a tone of voice that most reasonable people might take as a sign to retreat.

"You know how you can fix that?"

"Uncle, I don't want to fix it!"

Mum intervened, "We never felt it was necessary to force her to use her right hand. What's the point, really?"

Uncle still didn't take the hint. "But you know, if you wanted to change, how to do it?"

I looked at Mum. Clearly Uncle was going to have his say, regardless of our feelings. "How?"

"You take a knife - oh don't worry, a very small one will do - and you cut the... what are they called, ligaments? tendons? Well whatever it is, you cut the ones on your left hand, and you'll wind up having to use your right hand by default! Ha!"

We stared.

Thankfully, there was no knife in the vicinity - very small or otherwise - or somebody would've gotten hurt real bad.