Beautiful Bangalore

Arrival at Bangelore Airport at 1:00 am

When I arrived in India I was afraid. I had been on a plane from DC to Germany for 9 hours and then another 10 hours from Germany to India. I am grateful for the trip, but the journey seemed endless. We left on Monday July 11^th and arrived in Bangalore in the early morning of Wednesday July 13^th.  I was really, really far from home and felt uneasy about it.

Beautiful Bangalore. Bangalore is in the southern part of India in the state of Karnataka.

We arrived at the Lemon Grass Premier Hotel in the middle of the night, early Wednesday morning. The hotel was beautiful and chic. Colorful paintings adorned the walls. The Indian visual aesthetic was apparent. I tumbled into the plush, king - sized bed and slept. And slept. And slept. I didn’t wake up until 6:00 pm for dinner. I opened the window and there was a view of the city, full of palm trees.

Beautiful Bangelore

 Dinner was marvelous. Chutneys, Naan…pickles…delectable meats. The buffet breakfast in the morning was even better. They had watermelon juice and cucumber juice. All kinds of fruits. No pork and no beef. Only chicken sausage. During our time in Bangalore we toured the city. There are rickshaws everywhere. Most people, from grandmothers to grandsons get around on scooters. India has completely different driving rules from the US. Horns are used in a unique communication system. Several honks can mean, “Please move to the side so I can pass,” or “I’m coming through!” People drive in between and over the lines, sometimes drifting between lanes! (without the use of a signal.)

I traveled to India through a program called Teachers for Global Classrooms. There were fifteen members of our cohort. There were teachers there from Hawaii, New York, Boston, Alaska and Vermont. All had very different life experience. I enjoyed getting to know them. One teacher was a former curator who had a fascinating career putting together Picasso exhibits. I learned a lot from her. I was one of two African – Americans in the group. Conversations about race and class, along with the US presidential election were constant. (Our trip was during the Democratic National Convention, which was constantly on the news on the televisions in the hotel’s public spaces.)

The Wonderful Staff of the Teacher Foundation

Maya Menon, Executive Director of the Teacher Foundation

Our hosts in Bangalore were from the Teacher Foundation, which is working to reform India’s
  educational system. Their opening seminar was intriguing. The Director is also named Maya. Maya Menon. She and her colleagues had on the most gorgeous saris, earrings and bracelets that I have ever seen. (I am sure that you can guess that earrings immediately went on my shopping list). And when they took us shopping, I saw some beautiful earrings. This was the India that I had come looking for. Intricately crafted adornment. Some of the boutiques we visited had exquisite body products. Everyone in our group began shopping for Indian scarves, and didn’t really stop until we boarded the plane to come back to the US. Indian scarves have breathtaking colors and stunning patterns. The Pashmina is from India.

A highlight of our time was a visit to a craft market at the Bangalore art school. First of all, the sculptures that adorned the entrance gate were so interesting. There were all kinds of crafts to buy. I learned a lesson from Ghana however. I didn’t want to overload my luggage with too much – especially since I was flying to two other cities during the trip. So, I paced myself.

Beautiful Indian Scarves

Vendor at Craft Bazaar

The Earrings of India

We had one visit to a government school. Our conversations with the teachers were interested as we played quid pro quo. They asked us about schools in the US and we asked about their experiences. What I noticed about their students was the absolute respect given to teachers and all adults. During one teacher’s lesson we observed, a little girl dropped her pencil. She met eyes with the boy sitting across from her and they both shrugged their shoulders and smiled. Their look said, “Oh well.” They knew not to get up in the middle of their teacher’s lesson – especially not with visitors present.

Maya Cunningham at School Visit

Part of the trip required the cohort to travel in twos or threes to different areas of the country. Up to this point, I had been very sheltered within our group of Americans and by the exclusive hotel. By sheltered, I mean that everything we did was in the group – we traveled together, ate together, visited different sites together. This was the first week. For the second week, I was assigned to travel to Gujarat state with a Caucasian man from Chicago. His name was Chris.  As the time approached for us to leave a little niggling fear arose in my heart. I was afraid of experiencing racial prejudice and for good reason. The print media in India depicted that a premium was placed on light skin and whiteness. And I mean all print media – from billboards to postcards. Images of extremely light skinned Indians, or whites, permeated all visual culture. The disconnect was that all of the Indians that I saw were brown. Some even dark, dark brown. The kind of brown that is associated with Africa. What did these images mean? Did they indicate a color hierarchy? If so, I knew where I would fall in as an African – American. I had felt no discrimination up to that point. Could it mean that I had just been sheltered? As I sat with my white male colleague discussing our upcoming trip to Gujarat, I began to wonder how I would be received. Would I be treated differently? We had our meeting on a Friday afternoon and were due to leave Saturday morning. My questions would be answered soon enough.