Open Duck is Opened!

Writing this off Bangalore, India.

Open Duck comes from a twist into Finnish and back to English: open source -> avoin sorsa -> open duck. It is intended to observe the World and it's happenings, from an open -maybe a bit humoristic- way. Kind of my column, and worthy to myself as a Log of Things if not to anyone else.

Something about my trip to India - first time to Asia in fact.

Messy, smelly, very tidy at the same time. A combo of everything under the sun, and the sun is there each day. Relaxed, in a way. Busy-ness is such an integral part of people's lives, it seams, that they actually are rather cool among it all. Economy is booming, and inflation is around 6.2% right now (read it in The Hindu).

The Hindu is a nice (English) magazine, by the way. The use of English is sophisticated, to say the least, the kind of language that would easily be connected with Boston, Cambridge and the like. A joy to read, and the articles try to be analyzing, not only reporting.

As a Finn, what else? Surprisingly little, actually. I've felt at "home" and at peace since day 1. In fact, this kind of an environment might suit me better than the Nordic. Maybe... I must move. But not yet.

One thing I've noticed is that postcards are out of sync with at least the Bangalore city life.

- haven't seen a single elephant yet
- postcards have empty streets (reality does not, regardless of day or night)
- no postcards of the city (many of countryside)

In fact, a great postcard idea would be to take some of the local Kannada tv shows, and print out a ZOOOOming scene out of them. That tells a lot. First I thought that was a casual soap opera visual effect (overused, and regarded as HIGHLY amateur in the western world), but it actually is the rule. I was valuing Indian directors highly before coming here (say, M Night Shyamalan of "Village") but now I'm having doubts.

What next? Laundry, maybe. :)