Entry 9 - A Day in the Life: Hebbal

bananas (top) and concrete and rebar (bottom)

A Day in the Life – Hebbal

I have enjoyed reflecting on my India experience so far, but this entry is less a reflection than simply a description; if a picture is worth a thousand words, maybe I should just not write, and add another picture instead.  The description that follows is that of Hebbal, a town centre that has been absorbed into the expanding city of Mysore.  Hebbal sits next to the industrial section of Mysore, and area which has factories, chemical plants, information services (call centres), small hospitals, and the Vivekananda Institute.   Hebbal itself has all the usual features one might expect in a outlying commercial section of a city: bus stops, banks, main roads and side streets, slums, shops and businesses, a temple complex, open sewers, vacant lots, schools.

Hebbal is a place where ordinary Indian urban life unfolds.  The streets are constantly alive with people coming and going, autorickshaws being repaired and drivers waiting for fares, where vendors push their carts along the main roads selling flowers, mangoes, coconuts, and other items.  The streets themselves are full of people, walking, riding motorcycles and in buses, driving delivery vehicles; occasionally a herd of water buffalo, or a cow, will alter the traffic flow.  There are building supply shops but they are unlike our Home Depot or the lumber yards we are used to.  Instead, they are small shops that deal with one or two building materials: there are shops that cut or plane wood beams and planks; rebar and concrete is sold in one, plastic pipe in another, wire or cable in yet another.  Sometimes they are close together, but not always.

There are grocery stores, and they have some familiar items: bottled pop and boxes of apple juice, Dairy Milk chocolate, corn flakes, and peanut butter, much to the relief of some of the students on the trip.  Some items seem familiar at first glance, but on a second look show that they have an Indian flavour (literally!): toothpaste in the same kind of package, but in a different brand (Babool, “with T3 power for strong teeth”); mangoes, since it is the season,

familiar, but different

except there are eight or ten or a dozen varieties on display, each with their own unique flavour; Indian oranges, which are smaller than the ones we are used to – and why do they call them oranges when they are green?  And snack foods, in the usual plain, salt and vinegar, and sour cream flavours, but you can choose other flavours like curry and Naughty Tomato!  Then there are those items that are completely unfamiliar to me; loose and bagged and boxed, I cannot even guess what some of them are.

Stores, too, have their differences that arise from the land and the culture.  There are banana stores in Hebbal, at least three of them, possibly more, and all they sell is bananas.  There are “medical supply” stores where you can buy your personal hygiene needs, shampoos and soaps and disposable diapers, but they are not designed for browsing for various items as we would in Canada, such as gifts, snacks and batteries.  Rather, the items are on display on shelves in the windows, and customers step up to the counter and request the product they want, and it is brought to them.  There are small electrical supply stores, where I bought a plug adaptor – 42 rupees, about 80 cents – using the universal language of numbers displayed on a calculator, since the young man at the counter spoke only Kanada, the language of Karnataka.

And everything is crowded together, and often juxtaposed with seemingly odd things.  There is no sense of space here. There is no space between vehicles on the road (at one red light, I saw a delivery van, an autorickshaw, and three motorcycles lined up in what may have been two lanes, or possibly only one).  There is no space between buildings which are crammed together and whose wares spill out onto what may or may not constitute a sidewalk, and even into the street itself.  Parking is where a vehicle stops.  And, as one student observed to me, not only is there no sense of space here, there is no sense of place; smouldering piles of ashes from burnt garbage sit beside – and almost on top of – roadside tea stands, or medical supply stands.  There is no sense of place evident, where men openly urinate on street corners next to where women shop for flowers or fruit; in the newspaper today, there was an article about a government member who wants to bring an end to public urination and defecation in the next decade, but this in a nation where millions of people do not have access to a toilet, in some cities as much as fifty per cent of the population. 

the school van -- children inside, bookbags up top

Amidst all the differences, it is nice to see some things that are familiar and universal in the global village: I think first and foremost of the children, and their zest for life.  Coming to and from school, in their uniforms, bookbags slung on shoulders, I love their easy companionship with one another, their smiles and energy, evident joy and laughter as they walk in pairs and groups, their faces lighting up in greeting at these strange western folk going by. We have walked through Hebbal as a group a couple of times as well, perhaps the only white people to so in a while; there are looks and stares, mostly kindly intended I think, and occasionally greetings and smiles.  It is interesting for me, as the lone and older male at the back of a group of young women, to note the looks that come their way (after all, no one is looking at me, so I can notice them); naturally, the young men look a little longer and more obviously, but it is the young women who look the longest.

People move all manner of things on the roads through Hebbal, as throughout the areas we have travelled so far, and I think there is nothing that cannot be transported by motorcycle here.  To date I have seen, on motorbikes: a family of five; building materials, like lumber in great lengths; a man sitting behind the driver carrying twelve foot lengths of steel rods; a man carrying concrete blocks; three women in saris on a motor scooter with the two passengers riding side-saddle; crates of live chickens going to market; swathes of fresh cut hay; a small child sprawled across the gas tank sleeping while dad drives; sacks and sacks of coconuts.  Each night, some of our supper arrives at the hostel by motorbike, the rear passenger holding two large insulated bags each with two big stainless steel pots holding hot food.

Hebbal throbs with life.  There is a brand new ice cream shop (North Pole).  At a vacant lot there is almost always a cricket game going on, and at the edge there is a pump where some people come to get their water in plastic pots in the traditional Indian shape.  Several businesses advertise themselves in signs that read “Jewellers and Bankers.”  It is good to walk through Hebbal and sense this life and energy, knowing that this is real India, ordinary people carrying out the ordinary business of life.  And despite the many and great differences, it is good to be reminded of the common elements that bind us in one creation, one humanity, one world.