From the Vaults

A Bangalore Family Dinner

Keith and I had just disembarked from the plane, upon arrival in Bangalore—finally in India after much anticipation/trepidation. Our first experience was typical of India in so many ways, although we didn’t know it at the time.

Upon exiting customs, we found ourselves stuck in a very long line—mosquitoes buzzing our ears. Little did we know, the line was simply to go down an elevator. For some reason, only a few people were allowed down at a time.

During this extensive wait, the man standing ahead of us struck up a conversation, asking where we were from, where were we going? What were we doing? Saleem told us he was from Bangalore, but had lived in Seattle the last several years. He’d gotten married a year ago in India, had stayed with his bride a few weeks for a honeymoon and then returned to Seattle—but now he’d finally come home for a vacation. After telling us his story, he proceeded to give us all his and his wife’s contact information in both India and Seattle, told us we should call him if we ever visited Washington. We then asked how we could get to a hotel near the city bus stand. He said he’d tell us what to do after we got our bags.

When we finally made it down the escalator, we began a new wait at the tiniest and slowest of baggage claims (this was at the old Bangalore airport—now there’s a new modern, gleaming fancy one). Saleem seemed to have disappeared. So much for him helping us, I thought to myself as I squatted on the floor waiting for my backpack while Keith exchanged our remaining Thai bhat into rupees. Happily, by the time we’d retrieved our backpacks, Saleem had appeared out of nowhere with several large suitcases. We helped him carry his vast amount of luggage, until he was stopped by a security guard. Saleem told us to continue on into the lobby whilst still carrying his bags and to wait for him there. Keith and I exchanged looks, hoping there was nothing illegal in the bags which were now in our possession.

But after some time, Saleem came, welcomed by a large crowd of men who relieved us of his bags. He then introduced us to his friend Umashankar, saying he’d take care of us. Saleem was then immediately swallowed up by a huge group of women and children outside. The friend, Umashankar, looked none to happy at the job which had just been thrust upon him. Nevertheless, he fended off all the taxi drivers swarming us, brought us to an autorickshaw and told the driver to take us to a certain hotel, haggling over the price of the ride. He also got the rickshaw driver’s cell number and gave us his card. We were in an extremely foreign country, for the first time, and we had absolutely no idea where we were going, but we were off.

We’d only been driving a few minutes when the driver’s phone rang. It was Saleem, wanting to talk to Keith. How odd, I thought. He wanted us to come to his family’s home for dinner. As we were still on Thai time, it was already 11:30 PM for us, and we were exhausted. But we figured we’d just roll with it, we were in India afterall, right? So Saleem talked to the driver again and told him of a gas station where we would meet Umashankar.

After about twenty minutes, Umashankar rode up on a motor scooter with a kid on the back who got off and hopped into the rickshaw with us, telling the driver where to go and making sure he didn’t lose sight of Saleem’s friend as we sped down the road, twisting and turning into alleys full of cows feasting upon trash.

Down one last muddy lane, and we had arrived at the family home (Umashankar kindly paying the driver despite our protests), only to be greeted by Saleem, newborn daughter in his arms, as thought we were the long awaited prodigal family. We were ushered into a small marble-tiled house and introduced to extended family. We met Saleem’s young brother-in-law who could recite 250 pages of the Koran from memory without a single mistake and Noor, his sister-in-law who was nineteen, beautiful, and attending university. She spoke perfect English.

Perhaps I looked dirty, or at least bedraggled, as I was told to go wash up in the bathroom at the end of the hallway. Saleem’s wife took her plastic sandals off for me to wear. I wondered why, and soon discovered it was because when you flushed the toilet, the entire floor flooded. At dinner (now 1 AM for us), we were fed copious amounts of spicy curried potatoes, fish and who-knows-what-else. I thought I might choke to death on the thousands of tiny bones in the fish and Keith drank glass after glass of who-knows-where-it-came-from water. After dessert, we were ushered to the couch, offered cigarettes by the grandpa, who was shocked we didn’t smoke, and brought outside to meet Saleem’s mother, who invited us to her house next time we were in Bangalore.

Finally, Umashankar said he’d take us to a hotel. Everyone said goodbye and Noor said, “Don’t forget me!” handing  us her email address. Luckily, one of the family members owned a rickshaw. We piled in with our bags, and Umashankar rode next to us on his bike through the dark back streets. We ended up at an extremely sketchy looking hotel across from the Magistrate bus stand. Umashankar arranged the cost of the hotel with the sleepy desk clerk, warned us to be careful, and told us to call him in the morning (as he insisted he wanted to help us get a bus ticket to our next destination) before vanishing into the night.