Landing in Bangalore: May 14, 2012

Landing in Bangalore May 14, 2012

Unlike the bus station airport of several years ago, the new Bangalore airport is state of the art and could be located anywhere in the world, but then as I came through customs I noticed that in the vestibule exits there was some sort of fascinating light show dancing like mirror ball flashes behind each set of sliding doors. These turned out to be millions of moths. Step out side and the air is full of them, like enormous snowflakes fluttering in the breeze. I am told by the guy escorting me to my cab that it is the beginning of the monsoon season and these moths signal its coming.

My cab driver is listening to Bollywood pop tunes on the radio so I have an appropriately exotic sound track for this 40-minute trip to the hotel. Leaving the airport we're on a modern, well-lit four-lane highway. But for the soundtrack we could be in California - except for the air. It is moist and balmy, and at 1 AM there is the perfect cool breeze. The driver has a little garland of flowers on his dashboard that smells like plumeria. The air, the flowers and the silhouette of palm trees are definitely sending vacation-in-Hawaii vibes.

Then, without warning, a large black and yellow arrowed diversion sign looms directly in front of us, and sends us veering off the highway onto a side road.  The road is patched and lanes are merely suggested. We pass crumbling cement hovels typical of so many third world countries, which stand next to a gleaming Toyota dealership which is not far from an ornate Indian temple centuries old. Then a wall of corrugated metal appears, but this stuff is mirror-bright and stretches for some time. The new luxury apartment towers appear next, then empty lots, which soon give way to another cluster of makeshift houses while to our right is the freeway under construction, dark and ghostly, like the old, unfinished Embarcadero.

We swerve again, and are back on brightly lit freeway zipping through the 21st century, but look left and there are unpaved side streets lined with homes and shops typical of any barrio. The cab ride was like sitting in a time machine flowing through a patchwork quilt of randomly scattered space/time events. Finally, at 1:50 in the morning, two days, by the calendar, after I left California, I end up here at the Taj West End; five star luxury nestled in this tapestry of endless contradictions.