I Take Many Pictures of Animals...

I take a lot of pictures of animals it seems. I'm not sure precisely why I do this. I think in part because it has something to do with it being more socially acceptable, or personally acceptable for me to whip out my camera and take a photo of a random puppy, dog, frog, cat, cow, or other animal than to pull out the camera and start taking photos of people. Somehow one seems miraculously less awkward than the other.

I'm also happy to make the assertion that these animals are simply indexes of what I see a lot of here. However, for the most part I feel less like a creepy tourist or random sweaty white guy taking photos of these animals than if I were to take photos of other things. Some random academic part of me also believes that Donna Haraway needs to come here and check out these companion species for a bit. For those of you that haven't read any of her recent work on dogs and companion species, that wont make a lot sense, and that is alright. Just think of dogs and other animals as offering a kind of special insight into both the canine and human conditions.

So, this little pup was hanging out at the Fireflies secular ashram where FoU (Friends of Udhay) was held this year. He and his buddy were pretty freaked out by anyone they didn't recognize. Then I callously went and snapped his photo. Dogs have been particularly interesting for me here. Mostly because when I first arrived in Bangalore I saw a lot of them. I see quite a few of them, but as I've written about before, the ecology of cows and dogs was particularly interesting there. I've referred to them fondly as "road dogs" because you'll often see them walking along with people along the side of the road, or fast asleep almost in the road. Which brings me to my next two photos.

This guy has wisely chosen a non-road spot, though his compatriot cares significantly less about the logic of this idea.

Most of these dogs are stray it seems, though I don't think that means that they don't have friends or relationships with humans. Most of them have bumps, scrapes, missing chunks, gimps, post-litter tits, and numerous other aspects that make it clear that this is how things go. While on a trek across town last night I saw a puppy blindly crossing the street, if he made it safely, he's lucky. I'm sure you learn pretty quickly if you're not doing things the right way, the primary question is if you'll live to learn from the experience. I didn't look back to see if he made it. It was rush hour, and I was too scared that I already knew the answer to the question.

It can get really warm (especially in Chennai) during the day. I can't decide what keeps these dogs sunning themselves rather than opting for the shade. I suppose that's what the sweaty American dogs would be doing. They're surely used to the weather. They're also used to the spicy food too. I noticed a dog getting a munch of some leftovers, and I couldn't help but laugh thinking that surely I would be sweating, and an American dog would be rubbing its face in the dirt trying to figure out what the heck was going on with the inside of it's face.

While in Bangalore you could hear the dogs at night. One person even talked about how since the city pretty much shuts down at 11:30PM, the dogs own the city after that point. All restaurants and stores are closed, and for the most part the auto-rickshaws stop running. I suspect that the buses continue to run for those people working late at the call centers, but by and large things are very quiet once 11:30PM rolls around. It's at this point that the dogs come out to play, presumably expending all of that stored up photo-electric energy gathered during the day. Whether they're doing battle with the cars out late, or arguing with one another, they are much more vocal than during the day.

This little guy wandered into the parking lot of RedOctane the other morning. He was just so cute and tiny that I couldn't not take a photo of him. He walked into the courtyard looking like he'd thought he had found what he was looking for, but alas, I was not that. He then turned around and walked back through the grates of the gate.

The guard found it interesting that I'd take the time to whip out my trusty cell phone camera to take a shot of this little guy, but I guess it's just a habit of mine.

One of the workers at RedOctane was saying that recently they've begun a neutering program in this state, and perhaps it is country wide of neutering the male dogs. Veterinary volunteers go around giving the boy dogs a little snip-snip here and there. My first thought was that it must suck being a female dog in heat in a city of boys with no balls. This new policy apparently replaces a previous one where rounded up and disposed of.

And now for my recent favorite. When I was out wandering, I found this "road cow" hanging out with the bicycles and motorcycles. Apparently she had an itch which she couldn't quite reach, and was using this motorcycles handlebars to reach the spot. I stood and watched for a couple of minutes while she scratched and scratched.

The juxtaposition of all of these animals (I saw a chicken the other day, but did not have a camera, it was quite sad) with the rest of society is interesting. It has just prompted me to think about certain things, and I couldn't bring myself to not post these photos, even though I feel a bit silly in retrospect seeing just how many animal shots I have taken while being here.

Posting Pictures

It has come to my attention, that I'm boring. ;) Just kidding. I know I haven't posted nearly enough pictures of my trip, but I'm going to remedy that RIGHT NOW.


This was the place I stayed while in Bangalore. It was a cute little service apartment about 4 blocks from Dhruva Interactive, the company that I was working with there. The kid who worked/lived there was nice, putting up with me coming home late. That was probably the most interesting aspect of the service apartment was that the help actually lived and worked there. He was around at all hours if you needed something. Service apartments came about actually because hotel prices in Bangalore are astronomical, even by US standards. In many cases people will stay at a hotel during the week and fly somewhere else on the weekends to avoid paying the weekend rates at hotels. I was happy to have this spot though.

One evening I ordered Dominoes Pizza (I know, I'm a sissy American), but I was craving cheese. Anyway, I ended up sharing a couple of slices with the kid. He was really nice and always willing to help out. His English was ok, but he got the important things, "shaver" (razor), "coffee", "laundry", "beer". It worked out well.


This is the main office of Dhruva in Bangalore. They actually own the building next door, as well as another building a block over. It's a cute place. It's got a spot on the roof of the building where they serve lunches. Parking is limited, but most folks ride mopeds or motorcycles into work anyway. Only a couple of people drive in cars regularly. You can see the corner of an auto-rickshaw in this picture. I think they were dropping off lunch actually.


I managed to make it out to the country on one day, offering myself up to the mosquito gods. It actually was just fine. I think I'd managed to consume enough spicy food by that point, that I wasn't totally attractive to mosquitoes, certainly not as much as a McDonald's fed white-boy. This was at a secular ashram outside of town called Fireflies. I was was there to meet with some members of the SILK list, a mailing list started by a guy named Udhay, and also referenced by Chris Kelty's work on Geeks and social imaginaries. I met all sorts of interesting people at this event. It was actually really neat, while we were there, about dusk there were thousands of dragonflies buzzing around, I can only assume they were munching on mosquitoes, but I'd never seen so many in one concentrated area. It was quite beautiful.


So, from ashram to the Bangalore pubs. This is one thing that Bangalore is known for, it's pub scene. There are numerous urban professionals that frequent these pubs. Many play hard rock or heavy metal. This particular one "Le Rock" played Led Zeplin, Metallica, and numerous other "metal" bands, however they did so from DVD rather than from CD or MP3, so one wall contained a large TV showing the video that went with the music. Quite interesting. This is Vinay from Dhruva. No, he's not drinking it all by himself. Keyshav and myself were quite capable as well.

Oddly enough, if Bangalore has a pub scene, Hyderabad has a lounge scene. I'll try to get some pictures.


So, auto-rickshaws, my primary means of transportation in Bangalore. Now that I'm in Hyderabad, I'm fed up with rick's. The ones in Bangalore, as long as you knew the town name, and cross streets, you were fine. You would likely arrive with only minor detours along the way. Hyderabad has been another story completely. Between them not wanting to run the meters and negotiating rates up front and then changing the amount they want on arrival, pretending to not have change, attempting to drive you all over town, driving like speed demons, and my recent favorite was the knocking over of a pedestrian, I've been mostly walking here in Hyderabad. Though the infrastructure here in Hyderabad is far superior to Bangalore's, it is counteracted (at least for me) by an inability to explain to rickshaw drivers where I want to go. Naming a town and streets does little good, and even when I do manage to convince them where to go, I have to actually direct them most of the way, often being dropped off prior to where I had been expecting to be dropped off. Not so fun.


Here is the hotel I'm staying at in Hyderabad. It's quite nice. Tequa has even gotten the royal treatment here. No, I didn't place her there, the cleaning people did. She says it's not time to go yet. She likes the people working here.

(50.0)

Leaving Bangalore Soon

I figured it was high time that I post some photos of my place here in Bangalore, now that I'm going to be leaving here pretty soon. Below is a picture of my bed at Aranha Homes here. I was going to be staying at "The Haven" but instead wound up at "Park Avenue." It has been a very nice place to stay, and compared with the cost of hotels in the area, it is very reasonable. All told it runs for about 1500 INR (~$35.00) per night. It's comfy, and the help is very nice.


You can see that using Skype as my main communication back to home has meant that my laptop winds up next to me on the bed. It's just more comfortable than sitting at the desk talking to people. The bed is pretty stiff (which took some getting used to, but isn't bad), so you could probably jump on the bed (if the frame doesn't break) and the laptop wouldn't fall (until it did, because you broke the frame). Tequa (the dog) game along for the ride. I think you can see some Dhruva business cards, my headset, toothbrush, and iPod hanging out.

If you look on the back wall there are all the switches for things. Pretty much every outlet has an on/off switch, which is pretty impressive. The little night-light actually doubles as mosquito protection. I have no idea how bad it is for me, but these little lights are all over, so if I was going to grow a 3rd eye, I hope it would have happened by now. I have noticed that it kills more than just mosquitoes, it's managed to take out a couple of ants and little bugs that have wandered into my room.

The water heater. This my favorite. No, not because it has horses, but because it's got an on/off switch! I know that ones in the US do too, but because they're so big, if you shut them off it will take a while for the water to get hot again, plus you typically have to go into a closet/basement/garage/etc there the thing is. Not this baby. I've got my own personal on/off switch, and it takes about five minutes for it to rev up. It also means that no one can steal all of my hot water. My guess is about 5 gallons, though it would be liters here...


Related to water, I figured out water flows in Bangalore, which is quite different from the states. Rather than the system being fully pressurized (which it is in the states, and I assume requires all those huge pipes that when they break gush water onto the streets) here they are much lower pressure. Water flows into a storage tank at the base level of the house (it's actually lower in the ground, so it uses gravity to help pull the water in). Then that water is pumped into another storage container on the top of the house. Gravity then does the trick of giving you the tap pressure. Pretty cool.

I discovered this, because apparently the storage container on the roof ran out, so I watch the young man that works at the house trying to figure out what had happened. It was fun watching him troubleshoot it, because it allowed me a chance to observe how the whole system worked.

Back to work with me, I've got three interviews this afternoon! Phew!

(30.0)

Road Cows and Road Dogs - An Ecology of its Own

So, the other morning I woke up to find "Bessy" sitting just outside he door of the place I'm staying. Now, the thing is, it's not all that interesting, it's just the first time I've seen one of these cows just chilling out. I've seen a fair number of cows munching on random garbage and food leftovers.

There are also a lot of random "road dogs" as I call them (and Bessy was a "road cow") because well, they pretty much wander around the roads. I'm curious who they belong to. I mean, I can accept stray dogs mentally, but not really stray cows. I have not seen any stray cats, though I thought I heard a cat in heat behind the building a night or two ago.

The interesting thing about these road animals are their ecology. The garbage collection infrastructure here is not so hot, so you wind up with a lot of garbage just being dumped along the side of the road, or over walls of discarded buildings, or fences that were put there for some reason or another. Garbage gets tossed into/onto these different areas, and it collects. But that's not to say it just sits there. First the road cows seem to get first pick (assuming they're around). What the cows don't eat, the dogs get a crack at. Just the other day I saw a road rat, which I suspect is what gets to eat once the dogs are through.

A day or two ago, on my way towards the office, I encountered the Bangalorian equi sewer rat. However, there largely isn't rain water drainage system, but there are rather large troughs dug out (and often even reinforced with stone, and some are then even covered with stones as well (water can then run through the cracks down below). Well, this rat (who wasn't far from a food vendors regular spot...smart rat) had set up home invalent of a one of these drainage ditches. He was attempting to snag some food as I approached, but got nervous and scurried into his hole. He then poked his head out to watch me pass.

Tomorrow I'm going out on a little trip for a gathering of the SILK mailing list members. It should be a fun trip, and I'll get to see parts of the area surrounding Bangalore that I would not have been able to otherwise. The camera is going to join me. I'm trying to get a little less shy about using it. Sitting around with a notebook/laptop is one thing, the camera is a whole other ball of wax.

(17.5)