It's Still Raining

Yesterday I headed to Ulsoor Lake to hopefully see some Ganesh idols being immersed. The idols used in the Ganesha festival are considered inauspicious if they hang around too long after. It's best to do this an odd number of days after the festival, which was last Saturday.) Although I did see a handful of trucks carrying Ganeshes and chanting worshippers, and even an especially large one strapped to a bus, they kept speeding by, probably to the other side of the lake.

And by then it was time for the mild sprinkle to become a downpour. The monsoon is always funny that way. Anyway, it was also time to head west to catch a string quartet concert at the Goethe-Institut. It was really fun to hear some live music; haven't done that in quite a while. The concert started with some High Modern stuff (12 tones, icy notes, dissonance, not sure when it's going to end). That was OK, but it did have the effect of making the Schumann in the second half seem like getting ice cream after a scary macrobiotic meal.

The hall was over-filled (maybe 200 people or more?), which seems usual for "cultural" things in Bangalore. I think there's a big thirst for concerts, theatre, etc. here, but often the spaces are too small for the crowds. Another aspect of the way that the infrastructure here doesn't at all match the city's size.

Almost as wonderful as a Romantic string quartet was the fact that the exterminator came today. He sprayed lots of chemicals all over and applied mysterious "gel" to cracks and walls. He told me that we had many, many cockroaches in the kitchen. I could have told him that. He also asked if we had any servants -- probably because the house seems extra-messy today.