Rickshaws and a Maharaja Chicken Mac

Note to self: buy a screwdriver before going home.

Right.

Life continues to be absolutely grand, in every sense of the word. In fact, I’m not ever planning on returning home.

…

Heh. Just kidding. But the thought has crossed my mind. I suspect, however, that part of my happiness here would be lost if I didn’t have the expectation of returning home in six weeks. Happiness lost, as I could no longer content myself to say “yes, I miss them now, but I’ll see them soon,” and happiness lost because the impetus to seize the day would be lost, as would the absolution from responsibilities or cares. So I’m looking forward to returning home in six weeks. And I’m glad it won’t be a day sooner.

Maharaja Chicken Mac. Heh. Such was my dinner last night (or should I say my “first dinner,” since I’ve adopted the habit of eating once in the late afternoon, and once around 9:00). Wandering through The Forum– one of Bangalore’s larger malls (like an American mall with 20 times more people. Same brands: Bose, Apple, Levi, Subway… even a Nissan SUV in the middle on display. And modestly sized. No larger than Cheyenne’s Frontier Mall, although admittedly a good deal nicer)– I managed to walk past the McDonalds at least twice before curiosity got the better of me and I found myself standing in line at the world’s most overstaffed McDonalds. I don’t exaggerate to say that there must have been 50 on the clock. There were something like 16 people between the counter and the kitchen … and then I lost count. Just for you, William, I’ll try to stop back by with my camera and sneak a photo. The menu is worth a photo, too– sure enough, there’s no beef anywhere to be found. The Maharaja Chicken Mac is the equivalent of a Big Mac… and I gotta say, it was pretty awful. To the best of my knowledge, chicken remains one of the few things not made synthetically from rubber trees or crude oil… but you could have fooled me. Since it’s been ages since the last time I went to a McDonalds (heh, Miles City trips aside), I don’t know how many of the menu items (like Chicken wraps and cappuccinos) are unique to India, and how many are just new since the last time I willingly paid money to be fed grease-drenched sawdust.

The mall proved to be a great source of amusement. Most amusing were the escalators– obviously a relatively new introduction to India. Admittedly, I’ve seen people hesitate before getting on an escalator before, but never like this. In fact, there was almost a queue of people in front of the escalator, waiting to hesitate.. wait, line up, almost .. go! wait! ah… there we go their way onto the escalator. They looked like I must when I try crossing Bangalore’s bustling, congested streets– uncertain and afraid of a death-inducing accident. And it wasn’t just one or two people, either. No. More like every third person, running down the mental checklist: square shoulders to escalator. Check. Check for loose clothing. Check. Watch for appropriate opportunity to board moving stairway. Check.

In fact, this country is just full of little amusements. Like the rickshaws.

This is Ashka. He’s driven this rickshaw for 18 years. The rickshaw is a rather ridiculous vehicle, really. They’re a hazard just for their high center of gravity: Sagar tells me his parents were in a rickshaw that flipped going around a corner too fast– on the way to their wedding. So there’s that. And there’s the constant near collisions with city buses– everyone looking like it’s crushed countless rickshaws over the years. And the constant near-collisions with every other car, motorcycle, cyclist and pedestrian on the road. If India’s driving wasn’t significantly slower than Thailand’s, India would, with its roads, have a rather effective, if bloody and unpleasant, solution to its population problem. Sheer in-sanity. But they do drive slower. Probably because the rickshaws, which must make up 40% of the vehicles on the roads, top out around 25 or 30 miles an hour. On a good downhill, a rickshaw MIGHT be able to pick up 40mph, but such speeds are rare because, well, rickshaws don’t really have shocks, to speak of, and India’s roads are often rough, requiring frequent brake-slamming and sudden swerving.

But what amuses me about rickshaws is that they’re endlessly breaking down. In few weeks of India, I’ve ridden in a good number of rickshaws. But never have I ridden in a well-running rickshaw. Break-downs in India are like stop-lights in India: you don’t see (or have, as it were) one every day, but you’re not surprised when you come to one (or when one happens) and you don’t mind the associated 60 second wait. The frequency of breakdowns is attested to by the incredible speed with which rickshaw drivers can repair their rickshaw. A breakdown usually results in a nice, controlled coast to the side of the road, 45 seconds of the strange noises of repair from the engine compartment in the back, and then it’s back on the road again like nothing happened. For example:

Halfway to our destination in Hyderabad, the clutch cable snapped. The driver, unphased, pulled over, pulled out what remained of the cable, tied it to something below the handlebars, and then stepped on the cable to control the clutch. And with that, we were off again, the driver working his foot-clutch with complete ease, as if the foot arrangement, rather than a left-hand clutch handle, were the normal means of operating the rickshaw. Broken clutch cable. Sixty seconds of down time. Simply amazing. The rest of the ride was as smooth as any ride in a rickshaw ever is. Which is to say the rest of the ride was a bouncy, jarring and death-defying adventure, but if it were otherwise, it wouldn’t be a rickshaw, and it wouldn’t be India.

I love it.

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As a side note, I fixed a few bugs in Pliny last night. Those of you in Thailand and India can now update your account so that your posts reflect your local time. To do so, click “Update Account” at the top. I’ve also added the framework for a search function, which is ugly, but semi-functional. It’s interesting, just for novelty’s sake. For example, never in the three years since this began (until this very sentence) have I used the word ‘volcano.’ Go figure. =)