What a whirlwind of a week. Immediately after finishing up in Mussoorie I headed down to Benguluru (Bangalore) for a week to help out with a policy think tank I've been corresponding with.
Most of my time was spent in the office - which was wonderful in its own way* - so I didn't get to see much of the city, but what I saw I liked.
It was about 20 degrees cooler in Benguluru than Lucknow (which makes a huge difference). It was a much bigger city - more variety, more developed infrastructure. They had (true**) PUBLIC PARKS ... just look at the picture above, there is green space EVERYWHERE! The auto-rickshaws (there are no cycle-wallas) are technically suppose to use their meter - amazing!
Interesting, English is sort of the default language because Benguluru is an intersection point of several native languages (Hindi, Kannada, and Tamil). It was infinitely more easy for me to get around this city than it is in North India, where Hindustani (Hindi-Urdu mixed) is most common.
Fingers crossed, I'll have more reasons to be spending time in Benguluru in the future!
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*It is nice to feel needed
** As opposed the the pay kind we have in Lucknow. You have to pay 5 rupees to get into the public parks here, I assume to keep out squatters.
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