Always Room For One More

Part 4.... Basia joins a family to go for a bike ride to the country for a picnic.

Whoa! You actually got a six pack?!?

Ben: Yup, I sure did! Two of them...

Shannon: LOL, no, not quite. But that would make a great shot. Maybe I could be the #7 on the lap of the six-pack?

Hi,

Love your site...especially the pics. Just outta curiosity-When you travel to different parts of the continent, where do you upload your pics onto in order to save it to the blog? I would assume you carry a laptop.

Hi Mango, Actually, I rarely take my laptop with me when I travel. I have enough memory cards to hold about 1000 pictures, so I just keep them on the memory cards and upload to my computer when I get home. My trips within India have been generally short -- 2 to 4 days. Even the longer ones, like the Himalayas, were only two weeks, and I ended up with about 800 pictures on that trip.

When I blog while I travel, it's usually just text. Trying to upload photographs at internet cafes can be frustrating - they are either quite slow, or very expensive. I do separate posts for the photographs after I get home.

Basia, I grew up in India and as a kid and young adult I don't remember ever, even once wondering about things like safety, comfort etc whenever I came across scenes similar to the ones you have posted above. It is so funny and refreshing to read your comments about things you notice in India. Having spent three quarters of the last 2 decades in the US I must admit how comfort conscious or safety conscious I have become whenever I return to India. I used to travel everyday by train to college in bombay dangling from a crowded train during peak hours with nothing but just the strength in my index finger holding the entire weight of body and kept me from falling off the train and getting squished like a insect against a windshield.

I am bit ashamed to admit that I cannot do it anymore whenever I return to India. While it can be considered as moving up in standards I sometimes think of it as becoming a gutless softie. Its like I have lost my "third world survival gene" and gained a "buckle up and always check brakes,air bag and insurance card " gene. I am curious to know if you have thought about all this deeply, ever wonder if indians riding like this are really "fatalists" or "Optimists" ?

Hi Suresh - well I guess I would consider Indians dangling from a crowded train or bus "pragmatists" - in many cases, it doesn't seem like they have much of a choice. The public transport system is what it is. I think the U.S. and India are at the two extremes of this - American completely safety conscious to the point of paranoia, Indians not really being aware of the danger. Seems like somewhere in between would be a good place to be-

Dear Cool Blog Owner, please use smaller JPEGs rather than GIFs for the bandwidth-deprived (ie. me). Some of these pics are hilarious. Thank you :)

shukla: This blog is no longer active - I've relocated to another site and will be closing this one in a few months. I'm in the process of migrating this content to the other site. All the pictures there are jpgs. Go here for this entry on the new site:

http://basia.typepad.com/india_ink/2006/06/always-room-for-one-more.html