Because you asked

So Facebook has asked for ten interesting facts or observations about India.  I started the list there, but thought it would be better shared here.  I don’t know if these are all facts or interesting.  But here’s ten:

1)  The phrase “wait in line” does not exist in Hindi or Kannada.  I don't know if that's true or not, but it should be.  Usually, everyone just gathers around, and the quickest to move is “next” in line.

2)  All the guidebooks seem to have their own nicknames for Bangalore: Pub City, Pensioners City, Silicon Valley of India, etc.  The one that seems to be most accurate is Garden City.  For all its traffic, people, and pollution Bangalore can be stunningly beautiful.  The trees, the flowering trees, flowers, the parks... all of it is, at times, simply breathtaking.  

3)  The most posted street sign in Bangalore exhorts drivers to “Follow Lane Discipline.”  This is also the most ignored street sign in Bangalore.

4)  You might think that rickshaws are made to carry a maximum of three people, and motorcycles are made for two.  You would be wrong. 

5)  Gas stations are called fuel banks and offices are called cabins.  Which is to say, Indian English is really fun. 

6)  Commercials are way more effective when they are shown three times in a row.  Commercial breaks in Bangalore are usually three different commercials each shown three or four times, so that each commercial break lasts about ten minutes.

7)  Yes, cricket is that popular.  There are nine sports channels on our TV: four are dedicated to cricket, although every once in a while they will slip a soccer game in; four are general sports channels, each with the same programming schedule of 40% cricket/40% soccer/15% badminton/5% old school WWF; and ESPN India, which started off showing a very random mix of sports that favored the X Games, but has of late caught Olympic fever.    

8)  Being fluent in only one language makes me feel very, very dumb. 

9)  The newspaper is way more fun to read when politics is treated as it should: like a soap opera filled with petulant and childish characters.  The real news and the serious writing should always be reserved for the mundane stories of human suffering and joy, for stories of living.  Newspapers here understand this. 

10)  Indian food is amazing!  And not just because southern Indian food is mostly GFree.  I am still trying to figure out how to describe it, but maybe this will get close: Indian food can be very spicy, especially for those of us who have or who have developed a Minnesota palate; the spice is very much the slow burn spice of Asian food, where you don’t realize you are eating something spicy until you are halfway through your meal and your lips go numb; it is also, like much Asian food, a very rich and complex spice, filled with flavors that are equally slow in appearing; but unlike other East and Southeast Asian food that I am familiar with, Indian spice has a very smoky flavor to it, so that it is incredibly rich, without the citrus or acidic taste of, for example, Thai food.  Yes, it is amazing.