Bangalore

“So, are you excited?” people keep asking me in recent days. Yes, I am! Only one more day, then it’s down to brass tacks. Tomorrow, I’ll be flying to India for four weeks. I am part of the Close-Up journalists’ exchange project celebrating 60 years of German-Indian relations.

My journalist colleague Florian Meesmann from the MDR asks whether I have all my vaccinations. The 41-year old just returned with his family from India, where he was the ARD correspondent in South Asia for four years and he knows the ropes. He tells me to be prepared to find cows and elephants running about the city, not to leave the window open in my hotel, or monkeys might get in – and to simply be prepared for all kinds of animal life.

Yes, I have my vaccinations. My vaccination card was already well stamped, now typhus (one shot) and rabies (three shots) have been added at a cost of almost 200 euros. I am also armed to battle diarrhoea, insect stings, and the hot sun. Florian leafs through the travel guide with me, offers some ideas for outings, and makes me curious. “India is a fascinating country full of rich sensations, and it’s worth taking a very close look. You can love the country or hate it, but it won’t leave you cold.” He advises me to be prepared for different hygienic customs and to watch my money: As soon as someone with blond hair and light skin shows up, the prices triple.

I will spend the first three days of my four-week stay in Mumbai, the largest city in India with 18 million inhabitants. I have never been in such a megacity, but luckily my host, the Goethe-Institut, is there. Mumbai is a harbour, business centre, and headquarters of the Bollywood film dream factory. I am drawn to visit Mobile Space, a sort of travelling expo. I imagine artistically designed pavilions in which Germany presents its culture, industry, sciences, and research. The federal, state, and municipal governments will also be represented. In Germany-India Year 2011-2012 this exposition will stop in a number of cities for ten days each.

Yet I will spend most of my time in the city of seven million, Bangalore, where I will work at the newspaper Deccan Herald. There I will see my Indian colleague PM Raghunandan again who I was able to assist during his four-week stay in Leipzig last autumn. I had taken him along to the Leipzig opera ball and he had to wear a tuxedo for the first time in his life. We’ll see, maybe I’ll try on a sari while I’m in India and Raghu’s wife can give me wrapping instructions? I would also like to spend a long weekend in an Ayurveda Centre. I’m curious if any of these things come to pass and will report on it in the LVZ. The Leipzig tourist office also equipped me with plenty of English language literature for anything that the Indian people might want to know about Leipzig.