Week 4:

   Our team lead, Kumar, reminded us the other day that in two weeks we will be getting transferred to a new, and to us as yet unknown, assignment. All we know is that we won't be getting as much hands-on time with the equipment, so if we should get as much time playing in the lab as we can. This weekend we went on the aforementioned trip to Mysore, starting with a 7:00AM train ride from Majestic Station here in Bangalore. It was about a 2 1/2 hour ride to Mysore, during which I got to know the people we were riding with a bit, and managed to shake the gaze of Antony, an 11-year old boy from Mysore for a total of perhaps 10 minutes. The kids eyes were glued to me the entire time, my very existence must be fascinating!

  Upon arriving in Mysore, our first stop was the Palace. Built in the early 1900s after the original Mysore Palace was accidentally torched by a ceremonial fire in a wedding, the palace was the huge residence and audience hall for the Monarch of the state of Mysore, now called Karnataka. Shoes and photography wasn't allowed in the palace, since it was in the same building as several temples. The place was incredibly designed, with granite columns, painted walls, and intricately designed woodwork with ivory inlays. The ceremonial hall was made almost entirely of granite, and featured a solid silver door, presumably to stop future wedding fires from getting out of control. In the front of the palace there is a balcony with stadium seating on either side of the center, as well as 3 floors of viewing windows for "guests and royal ladies" to observe the Maharaja on the balcony govern and take petitions from the ground, 25' below.

  While we had our shoes off, we entered one of the temples proper, there are actually at least 5 temples on the Palace grounds. The things that characterize Hindu religion were there in full force, brightly colored patterns, traditional music, statues and pictures of some of the core gods in the Hindu Panthenon such as Rama, Vishnu, and Ganesh. There was also a man administrating over the temple standing behind a candled collection plate with a small, flat bowl with a red paste on a table to his left. A woman approached the candles, heated her fingers above the flame, touched her head and put her hands together under her chin in respect. She then touched her finger into the small bowl and put a mark in the middle of her forehead. She then stepped over to her husband, who was looking at a picture nearby, and placed a mark on his forehead. It was an intriguing process to watch, I'd like to return to a Hindu temple in the near future and learn some more about their traditions and ceremonies.

  From the palace we took a short, yet wild, bus-ride up the hills to see Chamundi temple. One of the other passengers was so scared of the speed we were taking turns he started sweating heavily and had to put his head down to avoid looking at the drop we would inevitably take if the driver lost control. The hill was a lot quieter than the city. Cows roamed the area in greater numbers than the city itself, and you had to watch your food and belongings for fear of monkeys making off with them. From this high area there were some great views of the city and temple, I felt a little less out of place since even Indians were snapping photos of the area. On the hill I stopped by a museum where I was enthusiastically taught some Hindu theology, including the 5,000 year social cycle and the approaching commencement of the new Golden Age. On the way back into the city we saw the intimidatingly fortresslike Church of St. Philomena. Although a Christian building, people payed respect in the same way they do at other religious edifices, by leaving their shoes at the door. This can be a risky practice, as it's no mystery how the local street-vendors maintain their shoe stock. While leaving the city, we crossed the Muslim part of town and saw the mosque. In one afternoon we stopped by a Hindu temple, a Christian church, and a Muslim mosque, all three of the worlds largest religious families.

  An interesting side-note; Mosque aside, you can always tell when you're near a Muslim part of the city because you can pick up on the smell of beef. Cows are held as sacred animals in Hinduism, so they don't eat it and it's hard to come by. On account of it's rarity, Muslims (and American students) take advantage of every chance they get to grab some beef. My favorite restaurant is literally called "The Only Place," likely named as a result of it's position as very nearly the only place in Bangalore to get a good burger or philly cheese steak.

As it was about to get dark, we closed the day by attending a musical water-fountain concert in a very-well decorated and maintained garden by a dam, and jumped on a bus for the 3 hour trip back to Bangalore. I realized 20 seconds after I stepped off the bus, still groggy from sleeping on the ride, that I had left my cell phone on the seat...too late. The bus was out of sight. I got a slight rebuke from Savio, who then frantically, and fruitlessly, made calls to try and figure out where the bus was going. Fortunately, it wasn't an expensive (or even my) phone, so replacing it shouldn't be too difficult. There was a girls phone number in it I'm a little sad to have lost, but I'll likely be able to track that down.
  No traveling this weekend, as we're going to be staying in town on Saturday preparing for an internal lab audit at Cisco, so my next post is likely to be more of an article than a narrative. Until then,
-Scott