Of Indian weddings, cows & the kindest gesture from a hotel staff

My most memorable trips are always trips where I have meaningful conversations with strangers from the place I'm visiting or where I witness or experience a gesture that truly moves me.  During my trip to Bangalore, I experienced both.

Let's call the driver who drove me around Bangalore as Rao.  As a hotel driver, Rao's only duty is to bring me to target destinations but he accompanied every time I got off the car.  When we stopped by the Lalbagh Botanical Gardens, he walked with me and brought me to the points of interest which saved us a lot of time. This also made me feel safe especially since India isn't the safest place to explore for solo female tourists. Though in all of the cities of India, Bangalore is actually considered the safest city.

I could sense that Rao was a devout Hindu by the way he prayed when we visited Hindu temples.  I asked him what kind of prayers do Hindus pray - if they have standard prayers they recite or if it was in free form. He said they just say whatever they want to say to their gods but that particular day, he said, he prayed for blessings since it was his birthday.

Come meal-time, I told him to bring me to a restaurant with really good Indian food.  He brought me to a restaurant called Tandoor.

I said he should join me for a meal so we could celebrate his birthday but he politely refused and said that he would just eat outside and wait for me.  I was persistent but he kept on politely refusing.  But I think he realized I wouldn't stop until he said yes though I could sense he was a bit apprehensive.

I wonder was he apprehensive because there were social rules imposed by their caste system?  For example, in India's caste system, if you belong to different castes, you never share the same source of water, or if you're from a higher caste, you never accept food from a lower caste.  I wasn't sure if there are some unspoken social rules in their local restaurants. Or maybe he was just shy.  But anyway, since I'm caste-less and simply put, we were just 2 hungry people who wanted to eat, there was really no issue.  Haha..

We ordered the restaurant's bestseller - Tandoori.   Veggies for him since he was in some kind of religious fasting - and chicken for me.  Super, super yum! :)

The restaurant's staff was very welcoming and friendly.  The manager even approached our table for a quick chat (maybe since I was the only non-Indian customer at that time).

I got to know more about Indian culture through Rao.  One of the things I've always been curious about Indian culture is their tradition of pre-arranged marriages.  In this day and age when people have a lot of options, I wonder how people feel about it now.

So I asked Rao if his marriage was a pre-arranged one and he said yes. He said that he only met his wife-to-be a few months before the wedding.  They now have 2 beautiful daughters.

Out of curiosity, I asked him if any of his friends were runaway grooms or brides! Haha...
He said there's none because they trust their elders.  He explained to me that the people who know them best are their elders because they saw them grow up - they know their values and character, the way they behave, their strengths and weaknesses   - thus, it's their elders who are in the best position to find them their perfect match.  Elders know best, he said, so they obey and respect their decisions.

I do remember reading a study in the past that sometimes, a pre-arranged marriage's chance of success is even higher than when you choose your own partner because the parties in a pre-arranged marriage know that they don't have a choice but to make the marriage work, whereas in a regular marriage, when a person's concept of ideal marriage or soulmates doesn't pan out, the relationship slowly fizzles out.    Not that I'm considering the concept of a pre-arranged marriage. Hahaha.... Besides, even if I were Indian, I am way past the age threshold of 18 to 25 when they usually give the daughter's hand for marriage. Wahahaha.....

Source

Anyway, Indians usually have big weddings which last for days. I asked him how many guests he had on his wedding and he said about 1,000. Wow.  But guess what? 1,000 isn't actually a big number by Indian standards.  In another caste, the minimum is like 3,000. And it could go as high as 10,000 for another caste.  Crazy, right?!  I can't even imagine myself entertaining 30 guests in a simple party. Wahaha...

I also learned that it's very common for an Indian family to have a cow.  Cows are actually considered sacred by the Hindus.  In fact, they have a Hindu goddess in the form of a cow called Bhoomi who represents the earth. This is also the reason why Hindus don't eat beef.

A small cow, he says, can produce 4 to 8 liters of milk a day and a big one, pointing to a cow we saw on a street, can produce up to 20 liters of milk day.  That's a lot of milk for a day!:)   What a nice thought that Rao's family especially her two daughters are able to enjoy fresh milk everyday.

Other than the interesting snippets of conversations with Rao, he also did one of the kindest gestures.

At the time of my visit, India was having some changes in their currency system.  Establishments stopped accepting 500 and 1,000 rupee notes so there were long queues in banks and ATMs. In short, I didn't have any rupees.  I was totally relying on my credit card for expenses.

Before I left the hotel for the city tour, I actually checked with the front desk if I needed cash.  They said that the places we'll go to like the palaces accept credit cards so I shouldn't have any problem.  Unfortunately, they don't.  At Tipu's Sultan Summer Palace, good thing Rao had enough cash so he advanced for me.

When we reached Bangalore Palace, they didn't accept credit card either.  I saw Rao count his remaining cash but they weren't enough. I told him that it was really ok and that we should just go.  I said I was happy already just to see the palace from the outside but he didn't want to give up.

Bangalore Palace

He said he saw a friend outside the palace and he will check if he could help us.  I think his friend didn't have money either but he asked if I had euros or US dollars because the cashier would accept those, he said.  Unfortunately, I only had Philippines pesos in my wallet. :(   However, Rao's face lit up and he got his wallet out of his pocket. In a small compartment of his wallet, he pulled out two neatly folded US dollar bills - a USD 5 and a USD10.

Those bills must be precious to him.  Maybe he kept them as souvenirs.  So I told him that he didn't have to use them and that I was really ok if I couldn't enter the palace. But it was his turn to be persistent.  He walked back to the cashier and used his USD10 bill to pay for my entrance fee.

How many hotel staff would do such extra mile?  His only duty was to drive me to destination points. Note that he was wearing a thick, long sleeves' hotel uniform and he could have just stayed within the comforts of an air-conditioned car but he accompanied every time I got off the car - on a hot, humid afternoon.  And he could have easily driven off to the next destination every time we found out that the cashier doesn't accept credit cards but he didn't.  He even gave up his precious souvenir bills so I could just enter the Bangalore Palace.  The thing is, it didn't even seem that he was exerting any effort. It was as if he was just doing the most natural thing to do.  A proof that he was really a kind soul.

When I got back to the hotel, I was able to pay him back for all the expenses he advanced for me plus a good tip by asking the front desk to swipe my credit card.   But really, no amount of tip could repay such sincerity and kindness.

When the hotel sent me an online survey the day after I checked out, I excitedly answered it and relayed about Rao's excellent service with a note that they should commend him. I told them that Rao's kind gesture was my best hotel experience ever.  Sadly, I never got any reply from the hotel. :(

But I do hope and pray that more blessings come to Rao and his family's way. :)

Bangalore Trip & How to remove a Henna Tattoo

India isn't in my target list of destinations but I had an opportunity to visit Bangalore last month for a business trip.  I was actually half-hearted to go because it conflicted with a personal trip to Yangon which unfortunately my friend and I had to cancel.

Because of this, I had very little expectation of the Bangalore trip. There were actually only 2 things I looked forward to - (1) the learnings I would get from the conference I was attending and (2) Indian food! :)

I think having little expectation worked to my favor because the trip turned out to be a pleasant surprise.  I actually had a great time in Bangalore.

We stayed at The Leela Palace which I heard is one of the nicest hotels in Bangalore.  Because we were in a hotel, it was buffet everyday.  Happy tummy.  Haha...

I learned a lot from the conference.   Startup founders from India and some parts of the globe shared best practices and insights.   Amazing experience.  Can't share any though because most founders requested that the information discussed be off-the-record.

Part of our business itinerary was also a tour at the Infosys compound in Bangalore.  Infosys is India's second largest tech company.  How big?  It has 200,000 employees worldwide and an annual revenue turnover of USD10B. Whoa...

Below are some photos from our tour.  Infosys Bangalore compound is 80.5 acres big and it has 50 buildings.  

If I heard it right from our guide, they have 20,000 employees in the compound.  But team members from other offices also train here so they have a hotel that could accommodate up to 18,000 on a twin-sharing capacity. Wow.  

Infosys hosted lunch for us in their executive dining room.  Super yum. :)

With the conference and Infosys tour, the 2 things I looked forward to in India got ticked ticked off. :)

But I had some bonus.  My return flight to Manila on the last day was close to midnight so I had a few hours to explore the city.   The driver who drove for me was very efficient so we were able to cover a lot. Check these out - 

This is called the Lalbagh Botanical Gardens. Lalbagh translates to Red Garden.

Lalbagh is famous for its glass house (the photo below).  The glass house hosts 2 major flower shows every year - the first is every January 26 and the second one is every August 15.

Here's a photo I googled on how the glass house looks like during the annual show.

Source

When you stroll along the grounds, don't take the trees for granted.  On each tree, there's a marker that shows the tree's birth year.   This tree's birth year for example is 1904 which makes it 112 years old.  :)

There's a popular white silk cotton tree inside the Botanical Gardens.   This tree is 200 years old!

200-year old White silk cotton tree

There's another popular tree which you can't miss because it's ultra tall.  It's a pine tree by the fountain.  Its height is double the height of a regular pine tree!  See photo below.

 Not only that - its birth year is 1456 which makes this pine tree 560 years old. Whoa...

I was also able to visit some Hindu temples.  The driver who drove for me was a Hindu so he asked me if I would be interested to visit some temples. Close to 80% of Indians are actually Hindus.  

Here's one of the temples we visited called the Bull Temple.    The bull is the statue of the Hindu demi-god called Nandi shaped as a bull.  The temple was built in 1537 and the bull statue is made from granite, cut out of a single piece of rock.  It's about 15 ft high and 20ft long.      

Do you notice that Indians sometimes have red or white or colored dots on their foreheads?  When you visit a temple, you usually find some colored powder called "kumkuma" (see the white piece of block in a bowl above) where you can dip your finger and apply a dot on your forehead.   The exact location of the dot should be on the forehead between the eyebrows which is believed by the Hindus to be the holiest part of the body. The dot symbolizes the 6th chakra or the third eye.

We were able to visit 2 or 3 other Hindu temples.  One is the Shree Dodda Ganapathi Temple, the other I think is the Dodda Ganesha Temple but can't remember the name of the last one. :(  BTW, if you plan to visit a Hindu temple, shoes are strictly not allowed so get ready to walk barefoot. 

It's amazing that in all the temples we went to, each temple always had a priest in the altar who bless worshippers.  I asked the driver if Sunday was their worship day and he said, they don't have a designated worship day but everyday is a worship day for them. How nice.

See the statue of feet below?  Those are believed to be the feet of one of their gods.  Can't remember though which god.

So Hindus have a lot of gods with different powers. For example, they also consider snakes as sacred.  They offer flowers to snake statues which look like tombs (lower right photo below).  To pay respect or as a form of prayer, they go around the perimeter of the snake statues. 

Saw this trike parked outside a temple.  I asked the driver what the big garland is for and he said that when you see a vehicle with a big garland of flowers, it could mean several things - it could be a wedding, a new car, a celebration of some sort or the passengers are going to puja (worship). 

I was also able to visit Tipu's Sultan Summer Palace.  Tipu one of India's rulers in the 18th century.  The palace is made entirely out of teak wood.  

When you google for top places to see in Bangalore, some of their government offices are actually on the list.  Here are the more popular ones - 

Top  - Vidhana Soudha or India's Legislative offices.
Lower left - Attara Kacheri or High Court.
Lower right - shucks, can't remember what this building is! :(  

Not sure if you can actually go inside but I was there on a Sunday so they were all closed.

Another palace I was able to see was the Bangalore Palace. It was built in 1887 and its architecture they say was inspired by England's Windsor Palace.  

Here are some interesting things I saw inside the palace -

Similar to the Mona Lisa, here's a painting whose eyes follow you whichever angle you look at the portrait.

Here's another similar portrait.  I took the photos from 3 different angles. 

And here's an antique weighing scale.  These visitors were trying to test it if it still works. :)

Check out this antique refrigerator.  It doesn't use any electricity but you have to put ice in the topmost compartment. 

The royal family also liked to hunt before so you'll see some souvenirs from hunting trips.   :(

Since it was Sunday, I also took a chance to visit a church to attend mass and chanced upon a wedding at the St Mary's Basilica.  

Near the church is Russel Market, a flower market. So this is one of the places where Indians buy the big garlands.  

That's my express city tour of Bangalore. It surely didn't feel like it was just a few hours. Haha...

BTW, while in Bangalore, I was was able to catch some Bollywood dancing and got a henna tattoo.  I actually didn't want to get a henna tattoo but our conference hosts egged me to get one for fun.  The Indian artist painted this from memory in less than 5 minutes. Amazing.

When I got back to Manila, I always got asked about the tattoo - from the immigration officer at the airport, to people I knew, and even strangers. Then I realized, I was also scheduled for meetings in Singapore in a few days and I didn't want to explain every time! That's the introvert in me! Haha... So I googled on how to remove a henna tattoo.  The trick?  Just rub some toothpaste, let it dry for about 10 minutes, then gently rub with a soft toothbrush.  The tattoo lightened and I did the same procedure for 3 consecutive days and it was hardly noticeable by the 3rd day. Whew. 

That's  it - my Bangalore trip.  As I said, I wasn't excited about it initially especially since I had to forego my Yangon trip but Bangalore turned out to be a pleasant surprise.  :)