10 minutes with Taxi Drivers at Austin- Guest Post by Kalyan Banerjee

I really enjoyed reading Kalyan's experiences with Taxi Drivers in Austin. It is so wonderful to have him as a guest blogger at Travel Tales from India. Enjoy the post.

Kalyan Banerjee has a day job and travels during weekends. You can follow him on Twitter as well.

Talking to strangers is always (well, at least most of the times) an interesting experience when you're travelling alone. More so, when they belong to a different segment of your culture, or better still, a different culture. Now travelling solo need not mean you need to pack your bags and leave for a far away kingdom. It may simply mean morning jog, bus ride to the airport to pick a friend or taking a taxi/auto to work. I do a lot of the third category.

During my short 10 min taxi (or cab) rides at Austin, and back, I've happened to meet a plethora of people - black and white, male and female, Catholic and Muslim (and even Bahai), Moroccon and Iranian. Here's an account my 5 most interesting 10 minute rides with Taxi Drivers at Austin.

Met two Brazilian folks on the same day. The first one said that he watched an Indian show on television last night and was amazed by a few things Indian. The tradition of women applying ‘red powder’ just above the forehead and within the hairs looked fascinating to him. Well, this was the most ‘different’ description of Sindoor I’ve ever come across in my life. He applauded the ‘culture’ of parents supporting the newly wed daughter and her husband. I was baffled by the statement but he backed the statement with his logic – ‘When I married my expenses shot up like anything. New house, more people to support and more responsibilities made me work like crazy. I saw that in India, when a girl gets married her father gives a car, jewellery and quite some cash to the daughter to start a new life’. Beat this logic for the menace called Dowry. He concluded with, ‘I would like to visit India sometime. I heard it is colorful’. Well, I couldn’t agree more.

Brazil # - remember the other Brazilian cabbie not for his comments on India or Indians but for his single remark. It was Saturday and since there was a deadline the following week, a lot of stuff needed attention. Naturally, I was late. Here’s what he said when he picked me up – ‘For the first time in life I'm picking someone at 2 'o clock on Saturday night and that too from office. Its so late now that you can’t even go to Downtown for a drink – everything closes at 2 am. Why is your schedule so crazy? Once, I picked up 2 Chinese guys at 4, but they had flight to catch early.’ Since the real answer was too complicated, I cooked up some garbage as an answer.

Hong Kong- He was a middle aged person whose face indicated some kind of South East Asian connection. The first things he asked, ‘You from India’. On getting an affirmative answer, he started talking about Slumdog Millionaire. Remember, this incident was before the Oscars night, so Slumdog was yet to reach its popularity peak. He continued, ‘Seems Indians like movies too much. The Indian students at the University of Texas, Austin don’t go to watch a game, but go to movies every time they get a chance. On Super Bowl Sunday, I gave a ride to 3 Indians to the theater.’ Well, with 877 feature films released only in the year 2003 alone, Indian Film Industry is the largest in the world (Source: Wikipedia). And with fans who don’t miss a chance even while studying abroad, the volume game makes sense.

America #1– Two Americans were interesting. One was middle aged Joe who asked about my country. On learning that I was from India, he started almost immediately – ‘I heard that yours is a very stable economy. Much stable than ours. Even a couple of years back, people used to come in bunches here to make a decent living. These days opportunities seem to have die down. Even healthcare have become so costly you just can’t afford it. I just hope Obama fixes things and or we’ll go back to the Depression era’. Seemed a paragraph out of any article of a downturn related blog – points out the hardship Joe faces these days. The only breather – gas prices have come down quite a bit from its peak. His rant also tells me the hopes he has with his new President.

America # 2- The second one was older. He told me was well past 66, but he didn’t look a day older than 55. He lived in Houston for two years and then moved to Austin a year back. Doesn’t live with his family, but with fellow few cabbies. It amazed me how an old fellow like that was driving a cab at 1’o clock in the night. Situation must be bad, I guess. I remember him for another reason – he is only Muslim American I’ve met in my Austin

It amazes me how could we (cabbie and me) strike good conversation in such short rides. Each cabbie was spot on in figuring out my nationality and apparently had a viewpoint on India or Indians. This could be due to several reasons. Indians come a lot to Austin and take cabs. Or, there are quite a few Indians in Austin, who either take cabs or drive cabs (I haven't bumped across an Indian cabbie though). Or, India is the flavor of the season at Austin, which doesn’t seem likely despite the Oscars.

Each cabbie helped me understand how India is perceived in several circles. It felt good that almost all of them knew something. I’m yet to meet a cabbie twice but I look forward to meeting each of these cabbies again. I also wonder, whether back at Bangalore, I can have a conversation about the with an auto-wallah. What do you say?

P.S. If you are one of the taxi drivers in this post and you see some differences from the original experience, feel free to drop me a note at aamikalyan@gmail.com

Trek to Bagini Glacier- Guest Post

Here is a guest post by Seshadri of his trek to Bagini Glacier in June, just after I came back from UK and hence could not join him. So here he goes ...


Hi,
I am seshadri, husband of Mridula. So it is not surprising that I am writing a post on her blog about my trek. I usually trek every year with my family, but this time I was to go alone, so I decided to trek with my old guide and friend Mr. Sohan Singh Bisht (see Kuari Pass). I told him to take me some place which wouldn’t be too easy. And boy this did prove to be one difficult trek to finish.

I equipped myself with a good pair of trekking shoes (salewa) from Stikage in Delhi, shoved the usual gear into a rucksack and was off. Since I was trekking I decided to shed my yuppiness from day 0. Which means taking a bus to the ISBT in Delhi and then another bus to Rishikesh. Bad decision, as it was raining throughout and the summer vacations being peak travel season, there were traffic jams near Haridwar and I reached at 1am after having left at 3pm the same day – a total time of 10 hours!! Travel advice – avoid the road take the train to Rishiskeh.

Was pleasantly surprised to know that buses to Joshimath leave Rishikesh leave every hour from 3am. It’s a good idea to take the earliest bus, because the ride lasts 12 hrs. If you already haven’t been to this side of Uttaranchal then you might be awed by the Alaknanda (joins the Ganges) but a seasoned cynic like me cant help notice the uniform drabness of the shanty towns enroute. You drive via devprayag, rudraprayag, karnaprayag and nandprayag. These are all holy spots where piligrims take a dip in the Ganges. There is very little for the tourist here especially an atheistic one like me. You will find no public toilets on the way. The plentiful eating joints which you will encounter hawk their ‘bathrooms’ along with their parathas. They usually have no running water and the lesser described the better.

Joshimath is the mandatory halt overnight for passengers traveling to Badrinath as the traffic stops after midnight. And all the honking Sumos and Qualis and Innovas full of nauseated passengers are dumped here overnight. The eateries make brisk business and you encounter the same coarse rudeness of the plains from the dhabawallas. All the beautiful people of the hills don’t live at Joshimath, they live in villages above it and beyond.

I met my guide and decided that we’d be off after a day’s rest for me. We loaded up on the rations, as there were no eating joints on the trek route. Ponies do walk this route but since I was only one fella, my guide just brought his pal along and they divided the luggage mostly among themselves. We had to hire a jeep to take us to our starting point some 30kms from Joshimath a place called Ruing.

Bagini Glacier

Day 1 – My knees were a bit shattered after I walked up nearly 5kms to Auli on my rest day as part of acclimatization. Thankfully the first day’s walk lasted only about an hour till we reached Ruing village. Population of about 50-75, I was enamoured by the sudden calm of the place. I played with a new born calf and chatted up with a middle-aged man there. They were all landowners (a man gets tied up to his land ...) and were employed in the hydel project below or had family members working as trekking guides in Joshimath. We opened our bags set up shop in the panchayat house. I was puzzled to learn that an abandoned building there was actually a medical centre and the guy who was playing cricket there was a local physician doing research on local herbs and medicinal plants.He was a paid government employee on duty. The ways of the mammary welfare state are indeed mysterious. I walked about a bit, thought profound things, ate a heavy meal and went to sleep. Woke in the dead of the night sweating like a pig and threw up my dinner. I was more irritated than worried because now my trek would become difficult as I was considerably weakened.

Rishi Kund

Day 2 - Decided to rest an extra day at Ruing to gather my strength.

Day 3- The world was at my feet again and off we went to Dronagiri village. The route was steep and green in the middle of thick forests (I always miss the trees for the wood), butterflies, waterfalls and landslides. Standard fare for a seasoned trekker but thankful of the fact. Reached the village after 4-5 hrs of climbing. Dronagiri is a beautiful village hundred’s of years old with a population of about 100. The teenaged kids here were very smartly dressed in jeans and t-shirt and designer shoes. This was clearly the influence of television and plains. The villages here migrate to near Chamoli during winter and all the distractions of the plains are picked up from there. There is no electricity/telephone from Dronagiri.The route to Nandi kund and Canary pass is visible from Dronagiri. See photos.

Rishi Pahad (Peak)

Day 4- I didn’t sleep that night probably because of the altitude and by morning I was feeling a bit dazed. This day the route to Bagini glacier was to be the longest and I didn’t feel really well when I started off at 9 in the morning. The route climbs over the pass to the left and comes steeply down to the river over which is a concrete bridge. The fury of the river was breathtaking and I spent many spell bound minutes by its bank. The vegetation quickly turned from meadows to boulder ridden rocky terrain. It started to rain by late morning and never let up the entire day. We had to cross the river by jumping over it and since it was getting to late afternoon the current was strong. I am chicken hearted when it comes to skipping over slippery stones, so at my request we undid our shoes and waded into the water. The sensation of near freezing water on your warm and dry feet is pleasurably painful. The pain comes once you leave the water and your feet stings for a few minutes. All the adrenaline rush drained me off whatever energy I had left and from there on it was a slow plod till I reached the camp site at 5 pm, a total walk time of 8 hrs.

What was most beautiful was the passage of mist from down below over you and beyond. It was a continuous cycle that would reveal peaks on either one direction. My raincoat came in handy as a kitchen tent, as it continued to pour well into the night.

Chang-Bhang Peaks

Day 5- Still alive. The sky had cleared near Rishi Pahar and my guide said now was the only time to take pics. I still had to walk up a couple of kilometers to the glacial lake called Rishi Kund before Changbang, Kalhanka came into view. It was a slow and painful trudge right in the morning after a difficult day. I made it though and my guide said I was the first guy in his group who could come make it this far. I am sure the trek isn’t all that difficult, just that the altitude can play havoc with your body.

Just 2 years previously 2 Mexican climbers had perished climbing Changbang and my mind boggled at what they had tried to achieve. The immense massif of Changbang looked so remote and the peak unattainable.

View from Drongiri

Day 6- Rest day at Bagini glacier, went down to where the river vanished underneath the glacier, it emerges some 2 kms down. My 2 Chinese alkaline cells had run out and I couldn’t get many pictures this day. Strange, how a day passes by in the mountains with any sense of boredom.

Flowers at Bagini Glacier

Day 7- Back to Dronagiri , knees shattered. Chatted up with a teenager there, who said he lived with his mother in the hut and has been there for 6 months. He said how he liked the place and never felt the need to be away. I was touched by their simple if harsh lifestyle and this is what I carry back from the trek.

Day 8- Back to Ruing and Joshimath.