Samuel Benoit

Or more accurately – India kicked us in the stomachs.  That’s what happens when two scrawny Canadians try to take on the biggest country in the world.  When I say big, I mean it in a since sliced bread  sort of way. 

Paris to Bangalore to Dharwad

The railway office thirty-something stories up in Bangalore where I had to cancel our train tickets.

As to the plan, that thing I made to give God a good laugh, it was dealt a huge blow at the very offset when Anis showed up in Bangalore 27 hours late.  The trip would have been unthinkable if not for the cheap flights Anis has access to through his mother’s Air Canada employee discount.  The downside is that you have even lower priority than on-call travellers, the unwanted hitchhikers of the flying world. 

I first came through Bangalore for one day on my way in, but had not returned for the past three months not venturing far from Dharwad.  I recently learned that some Bangalore friends had begun to refer to me as “Village Boy”, reminding me of how Martin Braithwaite started calling me “Africa Boy” after I came back from Ghana.  I did indeed feel like a country bumpkin wandering around in Bangalore with among the towering structures, hip youngsters and teeming foreigners.  Meanwhile, Anis was having an unplanned wander in Paris waiting for the next flight out, admiring buildings covered with moss and old sculptures of people crying for any number of valid reasons.   

Paris

Bangalore – Mohammad’s surprise birthday party.  My mother would love him, I told him this often. 

After spending two days in Bangalore indefinitely staying at my new friend Mohammad’s place for another night after his birthday party – I got a call at 4 am.  My first reaction was to fall off the couch I was sleeping on and manage to hang up on caller.  The second call, it was Anis – probably still languishing in Paris, the poor thing.  “Hey what’s up – I’m in Bangalore.”

This is the room Anis found in the ageing Bangalore airport to freshen up.  The other is our approach to Mohammad’s place.  If you can’t see me and my fabulous new shoes in it you should change you monitor settings.  It’s so worth it. 

While Anis rested Mohammad and I set out later that morning on a mission to find books for my friends in neighbouring Belguam to use in their work with local youth.  It involved some waiting around at one of the Baha’i centres, watching a dozen adopted dogs eat chicken heads and feet and scootering through a Kannada language movie shoot. 

We hilariously resolved to get back on schedule and go to Dhawad on the next available passage.  Before we left we took in the very cool Indian Institute of Management campus designed in the 60s by Indian modernist B. V. Doshi. 

We also had the important opportunity that evening  to get hopefully lost in somewhere on the outskirts of the city for about an hour.  The further away two points in an Indian megacity seem to get – the more they become unknown to the residents of that one end or another, although they have difficulty admitting it.  The bus we were on kicked us out somewhere over an open sewage line along the ring road, terminating early.  We stood confused for awhile, then tried finding a bus going our way or an autorickshaw willing to take us there.  Finally we were told we were on the wrong side of the road.  We slapped our heads as we froggered to the other side.  “I want the last half hour of my life back.” said I.  It was another half hour on that side that we were told to return to the other.  We finally broke down and and took an epic rickshaw ride across the city for a whopping 200 rupees ($5). 

Next installment we enter the Samuel Benoit Sentimental Tour of India  leg of the journey through Dharwad, Belguam, Panchgani and Mahableshwar.