Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Karnataka Politics and a Quiet Weekend

The city of Bangalore is the capital of the state of Karnataka, India. Last Saturday we had in interesting introduction to politics in India. As we prepared to start our day, our friend Agnes called and said that we should not venture out today because of the "band". We were confused, but we promised her that we would stay safe.

I picked up the newspaper from outside my door and we turned on the television to a news channel. There was video footage of a bus on fire, and constant updates about the political situation. Evidently the governor of the state and the chief minister were having a bit of a disagreement. The chief minister has been accused of a land scam, and to retaliate he and his party (the BJP) had called a "bandh". They were asking all stores to remain closed in protest of the governor's action.

We did some more research and I called the co-worker who we were scheduled to have lunch with. He said that we should come on over, as the bandh did not affect travel on the local sidestreets. We were a bit hesitant but decided to trust him and venture out. It was a very quiet day, with 1/10th the traffic of a regular Saturday. It was a nice change from the normally hectic Bangalore!

One result of the bandh was that the police had forbade the assembly of 5 or more people, so we also stayed home on Sunday morning. While we did venture out Sunday evening for dinner and some very stressful shopping, the rest of the weekend was very relaxing. One quick note about dinner, we were not very adventurous and had a quick meal of Taco Bell...


3 comments:

  1. Praying for you safety:) You're learning all sorts of new things;) LOVE YOU!

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  2. It will be a continual learning experience, eh? I'm wishing the shopping was less stressful for you, though. Glad you got to spend some time w/friends. Love you!

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  3. That definitely sounds a little different from the US!

    And it's appropos of nothing, but can you see the stars from where you are at, or is it too metropolitan? Because you can only see the two galaxies that orbit the Milky Way from the southern hemisphere... so I hope you get a chance to see them while you're down there.

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