The Mall

We are spending our last day and a half in the city of Bangalore, or Bangaluru by traditional name. This is our port city so we decided to come one day early so that we could tour this city, one of the largest in India, and be ready for our 7 am flight back to London then home.

We are staying at a hotel called The Monarch which is not a bad hotel at all and it is located right in the heart of the city. The two main roads here in Bangalore are Brigade and M.G. road. It seems that every city/town in India has an M.G. road, which stands for Mahatma Gandhi. This area is where most of the shopping is both for local middle class and the tourists. Here in the city of Bangalore they have at least two malls that we know of. They are very western in thought, and are similar to what we would call a mall, however their size for the whole mall is what we would think of as just one department store, say Macy*s.

The one we visited yesterday afternoon actually had 5 floors and half of the top floor was a movie theatre, very new, and appeared to be very clean. They had the electronic signs telling you the movies, show times, and even if the movie was selling fast, or sold out. There were 6 theatres and they were showing 2 American movies, Rambo 4 (please!), and Enchanted. The other side of the 5th floor was Staples. What else would you put next to a movie theatre but an office supply store? On the directories for the mall, they only put down the stores located on the floor you were on. So if you don’t know which floor the store you want is on, good luck, and head for each floor!

Here in India they number things a little different than we do in the states. This goes for hotels, office buildings, etc. The ground floor is just that, the ground floor. The next floor up, which we would consider the 2nd floor is the 1st floor. In the elevators the ground floor is 0, not ground or Lobby, but 0. Plus, our hotel has a parking garage underneath so our elevator has the buttons for -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4. No parking level or Lobby here, just -1 and 0. This means that if you are staying in room 103, you are on the second floor, room 3. We are in room 312, on the 4th floor.

In the middle of this mall we were in was an atrium that went all the way up to a glass ceiling. Right above the ground floor was a huge net across the whole atrium. Daren and I joked that it was to catch people who are trying to commit suicide, but then came to the conclusion that because there are no doors at the entrances to the mall that it was to keep birds from coming in and flying up to the upper levels. For kicks and giggles we asked a security guard what the net was for. His answer, and I quote, “to catch children falling from the upper floors.” My questions is how many times did that happen before they thought of putting up the net? We won’t even go into where the parents are.

As you entered the mall we were required to go through metal detectors. If the system went off you were asked to step aside and they would then wand you. They were not set very high as I got through with my camera, belt, etc and it didn’t go off. Not sure of the reason, other than fundamentalists don’t like the western ideas coming to India so these places could be targets.

While we were in the mall the power went out several times. The first thing that came to mind was, “Oh, the palace lights must have been turned on!” This makes sense if you read the blog; Mysore. However, business went on as if nothing had happened. The employees continued to work and not even miss a beat, and so did most of the customers, they didn’t even stop to look around. This happens often here in India, and even in Kovalam Beach the power was actually scheduled to go off once a day for an hour (not because of the palace, that is in a different state), so they don’t even think about it.

The last thing that was fun to watch was the people, especially the mid to older ones. I’m talking about 40 and up. The main source of attraction for me was the escalator! When we were in the airport in Trivundrum heading to the Maldives, we needed to take an escalator down to the ground floor, sorry, the Zero floor, and many of the locals, especially women stopped, looked at the escalators, and would walk over to the stairs to walk down. This mall didn’t have stairs so they needed to use the escalators! I really hate to say this, but to watch them, watch the steps go by and try to calculate stepping onto the stairs was funny, and just think what went through their heads when getting off, because they can’t stop and think about it! I know this is mean, but I guess if they want to be more like westerners then they must ride escalators!

Some places are very western in thought and practice and others try to be, but just don’t quite make it! There were a few places that if you were just placed there, it would be difficult to say you were in another country, and others would take long at all. My favorite example is a coffee shop called Coffee Day. This would be our version of Starbucks. It truly is a knock off of Starbucks, right down to selling whole bean coffee. However, they don’t open until 9 a.m.! Explain that to me please? Plus, we were one of the first customers of the day and both ordered drinks. We only had a 500 Rupee bill, that is what the ATMs give out, and our bill was over 200 Rupees, but they didn’t have change. This would be like us spending about $12 at Starbucks and trying to use a $20. No change - They sent one of the workers out somewhere to find change! This happened several times in the mom & pop stores, which I can understand, but this should be a western thinking place, with change!

By this time in the trip we stopped asking the questions why or how come, and just smiled, bobbled our head and laughed! The head bobble is something Indians so to each other while they are talking. A waiter will bobble his head when you place an order, or you are asking for directions, etc. However, this head bobble does not mean anything! It doesn’t mean yes, no, maybe, okay, anything. It’s just a head bobble. There were several times I would be somewhere watching two guys talking and bobbling, and I would just break out laughing!