Tag: IISc

Our apartment

We chose to live in faculty housing on the campus of the Indian Institute of Science, where I am spending my time as Fulbright Scholar and my sabbatical year.

The early morning sounds woke me today, our first morning in the apartment on the campus of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). There were the sounds of many tropical (and thus unfamiliar) birds, the distant whistle of trains, and just a few neighborhood noises. Traffic, so noisy in Bangalore, was just a faint and distant hum,  I’ll take birds over traffic any day.  Once again, I decided that we had made the right choice.

We have apartment E8, at upper right.

I am extremely grateful to the IISc-ECE staff who have been helping to coordinate our housing on campus, and working with the housing staff to clean, repaint, and improve our apartment (when Andy and I arrived yesterday, they were replacing all the light fixtures).  Although the outside is not much to look at (photo above), we have a second-story space with 3 bedrooms and 2 baths, a small kitchen and a comfortable living room.

The apartment is nice, but will take some adjustments on our part.  There are few electrical outlets – one per room, for the most part (tricky for me and my many gadgets!).  There are two showers, each with a water heater, but those are the only hot water.  Want to wash your hands? cold water. Shave? cold water. Wash dishes? cold water. Wash clothes? cold water. It’s a bit like camping: heating water to make some dish water, and brushing teeth using a cup and bottled water since we can’t trust the tap water.

On the other hand, the neighborhood is green and lush with tropical trees and flowers, children play in the parking lot, and I can walk to my office 100 yards away.  Want to see where we are?  Check it out on this Google Map. [Later, on Sept.28, I made a short video of the walk down our street and up to the apartment.]

We have ceiling fans but no A/C (or heat). The temperature this time of year is pleasant – highs in the 80s and lows in the 60s – and so we keep most windows cracked open to let in some air.  Yesterday, staff were repairing some of the screens – although it’s nice that the IISc campus is wooded, it means that there are more mosquitos than in other parts of the city.  Although malaria is not a big problem here, we still take some precautions. We purchased “Good Knight” devices – small nightlights that include a mosquito-repellant solution, and installed one in each bedroom.  We’re looking for some bed nets. 

Last night, the kids argued about which bedroom to use, and who gets what bed, but what else is new.  The mattresses are thin, but somehow the new sheets barely fit over them.  We have no blankets, so our first night was rather chilly.

We need to learn how to hire a housecleaner, who apparently is also the person who washes the laundry – there is a stone in the courtyard where they beat and scrub the clothes and then a clothesline for drying. We have a small washing machine, with a basin for washing and rinsing on the left and another basin for spinning on the right, a hose that connects to the sink and another that goes to the drain in the floor.  Awkward, but workable.

We have cable TV and telephone but we need to arrange Internet (DSL) next week.

We have a sizable porch, which would be nice if we had some plants or maybe a table and chairs.

Overall, it’s starting to feel like a home.

This post was transferred from MobileMe to WordPress in 2020, with an effort to retain the content as close to the original as possible; I recognize that some comments may now seem dated or some links may now be broken.

First day

Our first day was focused on key logistics; checking our apartment and doing some basic shopping.

After resting in the hotel for the night we had breakfast at the hotel.  The kids were faced with their first meal in India, a traditional breakfast with idlees and sambar and other treats.  Andy and John tasted everything but Mara mostly nibbled at the corn flakes.  I thought it was good, though I’ve had better. (Our hotel, the Woodlands, is 2-stars and leaves a lot to be desired.)

Everyone was buzzing with excitement because today India won its first-ever Gold medal in the Olympics, in the shooting competition.  It was headline news in all the papers.

We met up with our Fulbright-provided facilitator. Professor M.K. Sridhar at National College (Bangalore) is a former Fulbright Scholar himself. (He visited U. South Carolina in 2000, I think, to teach sanskrit.) He has been extremely helpful, explaining how things work and taking us around the city as needed.  On this day we visited our apartment at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). I am extremely grateful to the IISc-ECE staff who have been helping to coordinate our housing on campus, and working with the housing staff to clean, repaint, and improve our apartment.  

Street view of our apartment, at top.

Later, we went to M.G. Road, the busy upscale shopping strip.  Although touristy and somewhat expensive, one can find most things here.  We bought sheets and towels from a Bombay Dyeing outlet, nice quality at a reasonable price.

After my visit to the cellphone store I walked back to the hotel in a drizzle, after dark.  [Here in the tropics and in this part of the timezone it gets dark at about 6:30.]  The streets were busy with a meleé of honking “autos” (three-wheeled motorized rickshaws), cars, and pedestrians trying to weave through the traffic.  The sidewalks were packed with people, many who stop at little hole-in-the-wall (literally) shops that sell all manner of cooked food for a few rupees. It’s hard to describe the powerful blend of noises and smells that come from the traffic, people, and cooking.  Exciting, overwhelming, interesting, stimulating, all at once.

This post was transferred from MobileMe to WordPress in 2020, with an effort to retain the content as close to the original as possible; I recognize that some comments may now seem dated or some links may now be broken.