Reflections

May 2025

Warning: no photos here, just words ...

I commenced drafting these thoughts just over a week ago at the end of my month-long trip to India; not a particularly long time in the scheme of one's life, but all the same certainly long enough to allow all sorts of impressions to be formed. The big question is “where to start?”.

Perhaps a good place might be to reflect on what first prompted me to come here again. It had long been a goal of mine – no, not a “bucket list" item for I hold that term in great disdain – to attempt to relive part of the journey which great grandfather the Hon. James Campbell had undertaken in Sikkim in 1886. I can’t even clearly explain why I would want to do such a thing; it's just something that had been sitting ever so slightly outside my daily consciousness for some time. I think that in part it's because I've been an adventurer of sorts for most of my life, and he was certainly a great adventurer, and since his blood still courses through my veins, and obviously we share the same name, it just seemed like a fitting path to tread. It helps of course that I have a couple of historic mementos of his trip; whenever I see them they serve as reminders. I write in more detail about that here.

It was very much a two-part trip. The first was the trip to Sikkim and the trek close to the flanks of the great mountain Kangchenjunga, and the second was the more "touristy" trip to South India with Janet. Some detail of both segments is recorded in early posts.

But none of that is really a reflection in itself, just a start point of sorts. Sikkim (and West Bengal beforehand and briefly afterwards) seemed separate from India. Yes, there were the crazy roads and the traffic, the noise, the crowds, but it had a different feel to it. I think that West Bengal was a bit grottier – I wasn't all that impressed with Kalimpong, it seemed that the garbage collectors hadn't been anywhere near the place in years - and Sikkim felt distinctly more Himalayan (funny, that), more like Nepal than like India. I guess that that's because the border between Sikkim and Nepal is probably way more political than cultural, and as it was explained to me at one stage that the main language in Sikkim is Nepali, and the majority of the population have Nepali roots. So my impressions of India rather more firmed up when I got to the South. [And to round out my knowledge of Sikkim I'm presently reading Sikkim: Requiem for a Himalayan Kingdom by Andrew Duff, a copy of which I picked up in the charmingly-named Oxford Bookshop in Darjeeling.]

I'm not sure whether any of the above is more of a disclaimer or simply a rambling, and despite the above it's probably likely that some of my comments following won't differentiate between North and South. So here goes, in no particular order:

Cows. Cows wander freely, even in the bigger towns. It’s one of the appealing hallmarks of the country.  Sometimes they're sitting on the road, sometimes they're crossing the road, sometimes they're just standing in the middle. No-one seems to mind. They attract lots of beeps from the passing vehicles of all shapes and sizes as they aim to forewarn the cows of their presence, not that anyone (the cows) takes any notice.

Cricket. The most common question we received from the locals was “where are you from?”. Obviously “Australia” is the answer. Last time we were in India that almost always invoked the response “ahh, Ricky Ponting” accompanied with either a great big smile or a batting action. This time, no such reaction. Only one person mentioned cricket. That said, my arrival into Bengaluru coincided with an IPL match between the Royal Challengers Bengaluru and the Chennai Super Kings at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, which turned out to be about 100 metres from where I was staying. Crowds beyond belief! And whenever the IPL was being screened at the hotel restaurant or elsewhere, the staff were somewhat distracted from their normal duties. And then of course there was the goat incident which I wrote about previously. To round this out (and I am far from known for my sporting knowledge), I can report that for at least a couple of days in the middle of the skirmish with Pakistan, the Times of India’s front and back pages had extensive coverage of Virat Kohli’s retirement from the Indian test team, that event seemingly overriding the armed conflict to the north!!

Houses. Houses come in all shapes and sizes. Out in the country (seen from train or car windows) they seem all pretty neat and organised. The cities are different. There's plenty of modern apartments (often multi-story), and also tin shacks. My recollection is that there are far fewer of those (the tin shacks) than the last time I was here (which was 12 years ago), but I can't guarantee that that recollection is correct. My sense is that the previous fairly obvious poverty levels have lifted.

Private Road Transport. I could say something like “cars", but transport on the roads is way more than just cars. My intuition tells me that there's likely slightly more cars than motor bikes/scooters, and in turn that there's slightly more of them than tuk-tuks. But that's just a guess; whatever it is there's lots of each of them. And then there's: horse drawn carts, oxen-driven carts; bicycles; not to mention pedestrians. By and large, the cars are relatively new, including some quite high-end vehicles. And EVs. Not all that many of them, but they are present. What was interesting,  in today’s  (Wed 14th) Times of India, was a report that there's a 1:1 population to vehicle ratio in Bengaluru, and that it is the 2nd most congested city in the world, after London. That's just Bengaluru of course, but it does rather emphasise the fundamental point.

Noise. The major noise is the constant honking on the roads. It's very different to road noise in Australia, which is usually anger based. This is a constant “beep-beep I'm here” sound. It's both useful and useless at the same time. Where road markings are either non-existent or ignored, a warning system that “you're in my lane", or “I'm coming into your lane", or simply “look out, here I come (from the wrong direction/side of the road)” can be very handy. Of course, when there's 6 lanes of cars and tuk-tuks (along with a truck or two, maybe a couple of buses and possibly a tractor), crammed into 3 lanes of traffic, all waiting at the traffic lights, in a procession maybe 100 metres long, and the light turns green and everyone starts honking, that sort of seems a bit pointless. But it adds to the character.

Crossing The Road. Many years ago, in a moment of great excitement, I proudly wrote a piece titled something like “I crossed Connaught Circle and survived".   For those who don't know, Connaught Circle is a “x" lane circular road in the middle of Delhi. It has at least 12 roads feed into it. At least the traffic moves (theoretically at least) in a clockwise direction. You get the picture. Well, crossing almost any main road in India, and certainly in Bengaluru, is an exercise in bluff and bravado and nimbleness. Holding out a hand to say “stop" feels good, but makes little difference. Looking the oncoming driver in the eye helps, but of course you do need to choose the right driver, and even if you do so momentarily, there's no guarantee that he'll (it's usually a he) will be the one targeting you a second or two later. [An aside – as mentioned, the Times of India this morning  reported that Bengaluru has a 1:1 person:vehicle ratio, given that it has a population of some 14m people, that means that there's a awful lot of vehicles to dodge.]

Roads. There's another aspect to the roads, aside from the lanes, the traffic and the crossing of them. That's the actual state of the roads. Some are in pretty good shape, but many have got more than their fair share of potholes, excavations, crumbling edges, and the occasional landslide. It's actually a tribute to the various drivers that there aren't more road crashes (I only ever saw one, and that was quite minor).

Colours. The colours of India are legendary, and so it was for us. Most striking are the saris (see later comment), which come in every imaginable colour. The rich purples, blues, reds, golds, greens, yellows, and all combinations thereof, are the most incredible sight, on just about every street in every town. They are rivalled by the amazing paintworks on the mid-sized private buses, which again come in all colours, with the added benefit of having themes from front to end (warrior themes, gangster themes, even a Donald Trump theme, to name a few). And then there's the ever-present bright yellow of the tuk-tuks (depending on which town one is in). Add to that the colours of the Hindu temples which again adorn every town, if not every street. One would never accuse India of being dull (by any definition of that word).

Clothes. Perhaps I should single out Bengaluru as the major city exception to some of my comments - it's a more “professional" city. That said, where to start? Let's start with saris. Young and old women wear them, but I'd say skewed towards the older cohort.  Colourful. Beautiful. Stylish. You are more likely to see them in the smaller towns, but certainly not exclusively. The younger women tend to wear a combination of leggings and a knee-length flowing top called a kurta. Very stylish - I have to say (a little judgementally) way more stylish than the flesh hanging out style which I have had to become used to in downtown Dunsborough. In the big professional town of Bengaluru the young folk tend to wear the Western gear of jeans and shirt/t-shirt, regardless of gender. In the smaller places the older men tend to wear what we would call a sarong – either long or knee length – probably more properly called a lungi or a mundu (as well as other names). The lungi/mundu tend to be white, with perhaps a blue stripe. But the point I'm making is that down any street there’s such a myriad clothing – female/male, traditional/Western – that it's a feast for the eyes.

Food. Sampling the food of South India was one of our main motivators for our little trip. Dosa, poori/puri, idli, naan, all manner of vegetable and other curries, masala tea, small rich milk coffee at roadside stalls, lassi. It was all there in abundance. The oddly named Airport Hotel, a 5 minute walk from the hotel in Bengaluru was a favourite; dosa, poori, naan, curries. And the buffet breakfasts, a wonderful mixture of Indian and Western fare, were a highlight start to each day.

Towns. Bengaluru can hardly be descried as a “town"; it's a huge city, with a population that's more than half the total population of Australia – about equal to the populations of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth & Adelaide combined! (Its population is reported at some 14.5m if you can't be bothered doing the maths.) So clearly it's an outlier in any sense. And equally clearly I/we hardly saw any of it, even though I spent 5 nights there in total (Janet, 3). The other three towns we stayed in were equally unique in their own ways. Coimbatore (population 3m+) didn't really grab me, but the visits to the temples were well worth it. Ooty (Udagamandalam) was the smallest of the towns we stayed in (population around 90K) and as “hill station" very different from the mainstream towns, irrespective of size. Mysuru/Mysore was the favourite, in part because of the palace, in part because of the history, and very much in part because of the visit to Afridi's family. And then there were all the other smaller towns and villages we passed through in the car each with their standard mix of potholed roads, cows, horses,beeping traffic, temples/shrines and colourful pedestrians.

Temples. Each town has a Hindu temple of sorts (or many, depending). Up north, Buddhist temples (didn't see any down South). Each street seemed to have a shrine dedicated to Ganesha, or Lord Shiva (or perhaps, occasionally, Brahma or Vishu). The main temples, even in the smaller towns and villages, are usually most colourful affairs.

Religion. This could well be my most controversial observation/reflection. India is primarily a Hindu nation – supposedly some 80% of the population are Hindu – and as I mentioned in an earlier post it is my understanding that Mr Modi is trying to drive that percentage upwards. About 15% are Muslim, and some 3% Christian. I was surprised by the number of Christian churches I seemed to notice; there seemed to be a representation greater than the 3%. Here comes the controversial bit - I was surprised by the number of women with very strict Islamic dress code observation. I observed that the hijab is fairly common, however I saw a reasonably large number of niqabs, which I was  not expecting. It was apparent that some were visitors from countries with stricter dress codes (deduced from their travelling companions, location and mode of transport), but others were just local women on the street going about their daily business. I say this without any critical judgement, just surprise at the numbers. [As an aside, we asked Afridi about his own observations. He is obliged to go to the mosque 5 times a day, but in his line of work that is impossible, so he attends when he can. We then asked about Mizba and Yasmin – they don’t go to the mosque because there is no separate women's prayer room at the local mosque (most mosques don't have one), and so they pray at home. And putting the above together, I had expected that Mizba and Yasmin might at least be wearing a hijab when we visited them, but they weren't, as the photos show.]

Assertiveness. I think that because Australia is a generally uncrowded place we have the luxury of standing back and letting the other person through the door or into the lift, etc, certainly in my part of the world. India's not like that in my experience. I had described it previously as a “dog eat dog" environment, which is probably a bit harsh, but it certainly is an assertive environment, in the sense that everyone has to stand up for/look out for themselves. I say this without any particular criticism; rather that it is simply appears to be an is, based on my observations. In a country of almost 1.5 billion people the social norms probably are such that it makes sense to get to the front of the pack.

Hassling. This is a bit of a sub-set of the above. I/we were rarely hassled by service providers. The tuk-tuk drivers were ever vigilant for a fare opportunity, either for an actual fare or to take you to their favourite marketplace, where no doubt there is some form of kickback. I did indulge in that once, but the rest of the time after 4 or 5 firm “no's" I/we were left alone, and on balance I didn’t feel particularly hassled.

Friendliness. This is also a bit of a sub-set of the above. I found just about everyone I had any dealings with very friendly. Some were service providers, and so that was to be expected, and some were trying to sell us stuff, so that too is to be expected. But sometimes people in the street would simply stop to say hullo (and enquire here we were from) or if I/we were looking a bit lost, check whether we needed any assistance. It didn't happen all that often, but it did happen.

The Indian Head-Bobble. I've left this one to last, intentionally. I have seen the head-bobble parodied in times past, but that is not my intention - I describe it such without even a hint of discourtesy, disrespect, impoliteness, or anything approaching any of these. It is not a gesture which we Westerners can replicate, certainly not easily, but I love it, because one small movement can convey so many things. It can mean, depending on the context “yes", “sure", “OK", “maybe", “no", “I don’t know", “of course", “thanks", and probably a range of others. As I reflect, it's probably my most endearing cultural memory.

This brings me to the end of my reflections. If anyone in my reader group would like me to expand upon any of the above please let me know, or make a comment below. Otherwise, I hope that these thoughts/observations are at least interesting; and for me they will serve as my own record of my reactions at the time.

If you've got to the end of this, well done. A number of you told me that you had not been receiving the normal notification of a blog post during my journey. Now that I am back home I discovered a setting which had caused notifications not to be sent. Hopefully I've corrected that now. If you missed any posts they are all here.

I'm presently sorting and editing my photos from the trip, and in due course I'll post a few to my Zenfolio site. And that will signal the end to exotic travel for this year. Apart from a few days in Singapore in July we've decided to stay within Australian shores for the rest of 2025; we postponed our planned trip to the Balkans, Greece and Austria/Germany until maybe next year. So the blog will go silent for a while, but I'll be back at some stage ...