We were finally overcome by our cravings for meat, and decided to buy some. It is possible to buy meat with an arbitrary degree of filth and skin or feathers, but we chose the see no evil approach and went out to buy frozen meat. One thing that we discovered on this journey was that street addresses are completely arbitrary, and do not form any identifiable pattern as one goes along the street.

After buying the meat we headed for the market area north of Commericial street. Commercial street is full of modern stores, and even had car parking along the street. One even sees a few westerners along Commercial street. The market area to the north is full of street stalls and is quite a pleasant place: not too filthy, the merchants are not too agressive, and there is a lot of variety. This is an area of the city that has a large percentage of Moslems. It is not uncommon to see women dressed completely in black, including a heavy vail which completely hides the face. The area has many interesting sights, but no tourist impact. On a previous trip I saw a snake charmer wandering up and down the street with his pet cobra in a basket, and on this trip we saw a musician going from store to store. The musician was dressed in a baggy costume and a turban and was playing a very long, antique horn. It was clear that the routine was that he would play in a store until he was paid to go some place else.

We then went to the vegetable market. The only down side of this market is that we encountered a tremendous number of beggers, and most of the time would have at least one or two following us. This is a hard problem to deal with. In the market the beggers were primarily older women (and I have no doubt they were in desparate need of money). We picked up a several days supply of fruits and vegetables - everything was of fairly high quality and looked clean (although as a precaution, we soak all of our vegetables in a potassium permanganate solution when we get home). There was a comical incident where one of the fruit sellers was attempting to give us an avacado that had been dropped. Nancy would say "not that one", they would remove it, exchange words in the local language, there would be some sleight of hand, and it would reappear. When they packaged up our two avacados, we checked the bag, and sure enough the bruised one was back. We insisted on an exchange, and came home without the bruised one. (Incidents of this form have been relatively rare.) There is a tremendous variety of fruit in the market - I particularly like Custard Apple, which is a green, lumpy fruit which breaks apart into seeds covered with a sweet pulp. Mango season is over, so we will have to wait until March or April. Casey is happy to eat a large number of (very small) bananas. When we left the market, we inadvertently went through the fish and fowl market which had an overpowering odor. Some of the fish was covered with ice but it still stank. Ironically, there is a row of spice shops right next to the fish. Our other errand was to pick up a plastic waste basket. We went to a stall where I had been previously (they remembered that I had bought a laundry basket on the last trip.) Although they didn't have what I needed, they sent a boy to get one from a neighboring stall. This has happened on a number of occasions, the store wouldn't have what we asked for, so they would get things from other stores. I am sure we weren't getting bargains, but the goods had prices marked on them, and my impression is that haggling is only over a small percentage of the sale price.

We left the market and were in a square that was packed with people. Traffic had been blocked off, and people were selling trinkets, candies, and household goods from blankets on the ground where there were usually many vehicles. The police had set up barricades which only had the purpose of impeding pedestrian movement. We were weighted down with bags and Casey. Street hawkers will often give things to Casey, since he is very happy to accept gifts, and then we have to give back the stuff and make it clear to both Casey and the hawker that there is no sale. We were trying to get to an area with autos and pushed our way throught the crowd for several hundred yards. We were adjacent to St. Mary's Basilica, a large Catholic church. There was a massive queue of people trying to get into the church, from the number of people involved, I guessed it must be an event such as the second coming. When we got to the end of the street the queue was blocking the street, and there was no way we could have gotten through - our choices were to join the queue or turn around. Since the queue was moving very slowly, and we had no idea what they were in line for, we just turned around. On making our way back we had to pass through a guantlet of beggers, although in this case it was people suffering from leprosy or other physical deformities. It is not uncommon so see a person on the side of the road with missing limbs, but in this case it was a fairly tightly packed row of people hoping for a few stray coins. The final strange sight was a man crawling on his belly, slowly making his way up the road. Since he did not appear to have a physical deformity, my guess is that this was some strange act of penance. We finally got out of the market area, had idli (rice cakes with coconut paste) at a fast food restaurant, and took an auto home. Although the auto driver did not know the way to IISc, he insisted on a price in advance. I missed one of the turns so our route was a little longer than optimal, so he insisted on a higher fare when we got to IISc. It is just another strange experience negotiating on the price after the ride was over (since he had little leverage, and I knew the appropriate fare).

When I went in to work in the afternoon, I told a colleague about the morning and her reaction was "You went to Russell Market on September 8!" as if we should have known what was going on. It turns out that this was "St Mary's Feast". The highlight is a parade where they bring out one of the icons. This event is also very popular with Hindus which believe that this icon will bring good luck. It turns out that the majority of the crowd waiting to get into the Church probably were not Catholic.

MONEY I don't want to make a big deal about money, but here is some basic info. First of all, prices are generally very low (when coming from the US), and second of all my level of support is very high when compared with the income of a member of the Indian middle class. One of my friends here emphasizes that it is just not appropriate to compare prices between the two countries (but I will do so).

The exchange rate is approximately 31 rupees to the dollar. It is not possible to convert rupees back into dollars. However, recent financial reforms seem to have reduced the black market. I have not seen any evidence of it, and people have had little interest in accepting dollars (and I'm sure they would if there was a premium.)

My rupee stipend is about 25,000 rs per month. I believe the take home salary of a full professor is about 6,000 rs per month. Our neighbors are Russian, and receive about 4,000 rs per month. They are able to live comfortably on this amount, but have to be careful about spending.

Things are generally much cheaper than at home. The only items we have encountered that cost more than at home are gasoline, diapers, toilet paper, and raisons. Some things are very cheap, for example, lunch (for two) at Radhika's veg. fast food was 5/- rupees. There are some real anomilies in what we pay for different things (although both of these examples don't stand up too well under scrutiny): We pay 50 % more to rent a TV (which has only one station, and broadcasts in Hindi and Kannada), than we pay to rent the apartment. When we arrived in Bangalore, we spent three nights in a nice hotel, and charged room service and laundry to the room, the cost of one 11 minute phone call to the US was half of the hotel bill.

There are a number of curious things relating directly to the currency. First of all, the largest bill in circulation is 100 rs (and it is at time difficult to use these.) This means that when I go to the bank, I bring home a very thick wad of cash (a stack of bills an high, stapled together in wads of 100 notes each.) The other day when I was at the bank, the bank had not yet received its delivery of money for the day, so they were just using the notes on hand. One man was very upset at receiving his 500 rs in 5 rupee notes. It is often difficult to get people to accept torn bills. Since the notes are kept in circulation a long time, some get very worn out. It is a strange feeling to be arguing with someone about which of your notesbills he will accept (especially just after finishing and argument about how many he will accept.) Another problem is that small change is in short supply, so there is often an argument in getting a big bill changed. However, I suspect that quite often someone will pretend not to have small change with the hope that the amount will be rounded up to the larger denomination.