Bangalore Traffic
I’m settling into life in India. The traffic in Bangalore is a nightmare, something that is taking me some time to get used to, coming from Lexington, Va. I, obviously, have the benefit of having prior experiences in India, being an Indian-American, who has traveled here for past 40 years. I’m not in total shock when I land in India. However, it’s still been an adjustment. For me, it’s been a challenge getting around, i.e. taking care of my FRRO registration, SIM card, etc. , as I am not fluent in any Indian language. (My parents always spoke English at home., so I never learned an Indian language fluently. However, I probably understand Bengali the most). I am actually renting a room from a close friend of my mother’s, who has been very helpful getting me settled. I take the faculty van to get to the Institute. Thank goodness her place of residence is close to one of the van’s pick-up points. The commute each way is about an hour. I take an auto-rickshaw in the mornings to catch the faculty van. I can’t imagine what it’s like for an American who has never been to India before. Even I’m struggling with the concept of trying to establish a daily routine admist the chaos. For me, India has always been the place to go to see extended family or have a vacation. I feel so lucky that my mom’s close friend lives in Bangalore, otherwise, I don’t know what I would have done. Bangalore has some of the best weather in India, and this is where most of the call centers are located. Therefore it’s become highly congested with the high-tech industry. Most people speak Kannada, which is not even close to Hindi or Bengali. If I even attempt to speak Hindi with my American accent, the price of Auto-rickshaw doubles. I’m definitely living between worlds as I try and fit in to my parent’s homeland.
Like this:
Like Loading...
About somanii
Indira S. Somani, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Journalism and Mass Communications with Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va. She began her tenure-track position in the fall of 2008 bringing 10 years of broadcast journalism experience as a television producer to the classroom. Somani teaches online and broadcast producing and broadcast reporting and has introduced two new courses called "Media, Race and Gender" and "Cross-Cultural Documentary Filmmaking." Somani studies effects of satellite television on the Indian diaspora, specifically the generation of the Asian Indians who migrated to the U.S. between 1960 and 1972, and their media habits. She has been published in the Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, and the Asian Journal of Communication. For the fall of 2011, Somani has been awarded a Fulbright research award to study the Western influence of Indian programming in India. Somani is also an award winning independent producer and director of documentaries about how Asian Indians maintain and preserve their cultural identity. Her most recent production is “Crossing Lines” (www.crossinglinesthefilm.com), a personal essay documentary about her struggle to stay connected to India after the loss of her father. The film has won numerous awards, screened in film festivals nationally and internationally, screened on PBS affiliates, and has also been distributed to more than 50 university libraries in the U.S. through New Day films. Prior to W & L, Somani taught for five years at American University and the University of Maryland. Prior to transitioning to academia, Somani was a television producer most notably with CNBC and WJLA-TV, the ABC affiliate in Washington, D.C. She has been a leader of the South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA), where she has also won several "Outstanding" awards on her coverage of South Asians in North America. Somani earned her Master's in Journalism from the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University in 1993, and her Ph.D. from the Phillip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland, College Park in May, 2008.
