Society and Reality

Today we went to Mysore. We had fresh bananas. Wow, so much better than what you get at the store!

Old methods are still in use, but given that many of the roads are dirt and that the cost is low, it works well. But the old an new get mixed, as does this wheeled cart.

This is a three wall room used to bag grains.

All surfaces are multi-use. Here we have cows, wood stored on the roof, and peppers drying in the sun.

The flora is quite beautiful.

Coconuts are quite common.

Another mix of old and new.

This is the sultans palace. We learned all about the war with the British, the princes, etc.

This is the Mysore temple. It is in much better shape than temples in Tamil Nadu, because it is not by the ocean where blowing sand wears down the sandstone.

This was my final day around Bangalore so I’ll try to point out some of the nicer places to contrast with my other photos. Here is what a nice house looks like. New. Clean.

Of course you will have neighbors:

You can get away from these kind of neighbors. You can live in a closed gate community and be isolated, or live in a wealthy part of town.

Hotels have similar contrasts. I am staying in a hotel that is better than most hotels in the US. But there are also budget hotels for those lower on the economic scale such as this one:

Look for the sign above the jeep. I don’t think there are individual rooms. I think there is one communal room.

We went to Infosys today. The grounds at this company are better than anything I have seen in the US. The strategy of infosys is to hire raw material (college grads), and us training and process to build a world class company. In Mysore they have a training center with a capacity of 13,000! Yes, that is bigger than many colleges. The whole company is about 100,000 people. This means up to 10% of the whole company can be in training at the same time.

This is what you see when you enter:

This is the entry way:

Jets shoot water up once a day. People go to the window at the right time to see if anyone gets caught unawares.

Given the contrasts, you might just say that Bangalore is:

Today was a day of contrasts, so perhaps I’ll just give you a city tour with a few comments:

We went to Wipro in the morning. Wipro is an outsourcing company, mainly IT, but moving in to consulting. When Wipro was young, it was learning from the USA, not the USA learns from it.

Looks a bit like Silicon valley. Well, not exactly. Let’s take a tour of the street out front.

The work crew behind the Wipro employee is taking a work break. There is a lot of building going on around the city. For example, a metro is being built to relieve traffic:

And here is a typical building going up:

So on with the drive. Here is what the commute is like:

What is the hold up? Could be anything. Later in the morning, the hold up was a motorcycle incident:

The guy in the yellow shirt helped him up, but he was dazed. They will take him to the regular hospital, if he can’t pay, he’ll be taken to the government hospital, and if he can’t pay some, he’ll be let out to the street.

Motorcycles are every where:

Here is a typical market. There are regular stores as well, but more people shop at markets like this than what we consider normal markets.

There are plenty of nice homes, but there is a splattering of tent cities. Sometimes they are workers, but sometimes they are more permanent:

Here is some contrast for you. Nice modern building next to an oder shop next to the new metro being built:

Just as stark are this old and new building next door:

Back at the hotel, I discover where the 4AM chanting is coming from:

And if you need to wash your clothes, well here is one way:

There are many normal looking things here. For example, the insides of buildings are neat and clean. Many shots are nice inside, some very modern. But what you see here is the experience you get when you drive or walk around and is the first thing you see when you come here. To see the rest, you have to take some time. If you lets your first impression keep you inside the hotel, you will miss the rest, and you will miss the humanity of what you see here. Commerce is everywhere. Some based on a few rupees, and some on millions.

After Dubai, this place is a relief. Dubai is a top down designed city based on the aspirations of a rich ruler. Bangalore is bottom up all the way, organic, and full of emergent behavior. It is like being in a gigantic ant farm, and you are one of the ants.

it is 4AM and someone at the Mosque is chanting over loud speakers. No rest for the wicked…

This evening I ordered steak and mushrooms for dinner from the Indian server. These are two different menu items. I received a steak with mushrooms and onions on the main plate with a side of mushrooms. Why didn’t the server mention that the meal came with mushrooms already?

I encounter this behavior on software projects in India as well. Programmers want to do exactly as they are told, and therefore require detailed specifications or they can freeze. There is a strong sense that they are under your control and should not act independently.

Earlier today a car hit a pedestrian and then drove off. I inquired about this behavior from a former student who lived in the area for many years. She explained that that the driver would have been found guilty, a heavy fine given, and likely would end up in debtors prison when not able to pay. Furthermore, had it been a taxi, the passenger could be liable. Sharia law was mentioned, but upon further probing it just seemed to be a middle east way of thinking. In American law the proximate cause is a troublesome problem, but ultimately foreseeability became a measure of legal responsibility.

As an American it all seems strange, but I suspect that our notions of causality are deeply informed by the idea of direct cause and individualism, which is related to scientific thinking. The driver that hit the pedistrain is a direct cause, unless the man he hit stepped in front of the driver such that the driver could not forsee the accident or steer around him. The fact that the passenger hired the driver does not make him responsible for his behavior, it is simply a contract where the driver is responsible for its fulfillment and for following the law in the process.

Perhaps for the Indian server it is natural to be an extension of the diner and assume no responsibility whatsoever for the order. Perhaps that is based on the authority of the diner who is paying him to serve.

I think what all this means is that notions of individual responsibility, direct cause, and contract run very deep in our conscious, and whatever the notions of the driver and server are, they are just as deep. These deep assumptions can get you into lots of trouble. Suppose you were an American passenger in that car. You could argue with an imam all day, and the arguments may be senseless to him. You might be better off to argue that you were ordered by your employer to take the taxi to a customer and let the employer be the ultimate cause and take the heat. I suppose the employer could blame their customer, and if this chain goes on long enough eventually Allah would be responsible. I am not sure I would want to make that argument with the imam, but if it worked, Allah at least could pay the fine!

Well, enough speculation. I know nothing about sharia notions of cause and effect, nor of Islamic notions of cause and effect. If I meet an imam, I will have lots of good questions.