In case I haven’t mentioned it, I’m relocating to Bangalore, India to take a full-time job with a media startup. Moving to India means uprooting my life and literally restarting halfway across the planet. Such is the life of a TechTrotter.

Although I spent much of the summer months in Brazil it’s nice to know that India was never as far away as it seemed. In particular, a soap opera on the Brazil’s most watched network, Globo, helped to create a common link between the two continents. While I wait for my connecting flight to Mumbai in the Brussels International Airport, allow me to tell you about one of my favorite Brazilian TV shows, Caminho das Indias. (The following contains excerpts from a post original intended for publication on SAJA Forum.)

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India’s impact on the world is felt in myriad ways, but the form it takes can often come as a bit of a surprise. Members of the Indian diaspora are found throughout Africa, Oceania and the Caribbean, but there is one place few would expect; Brazil.

One of Brazil’s most popular television shows is soap opera is called ‘Caminho das Indias‘ or, ‘Way of the Indies.’ The show airs nightly after the 8PM news broadcast on Globo, the largest television network in Brazil. The show has three inter-linked plots that unfold simultaneously in Mumbai, Rio de Janeiro and Dubai and the cast features more than a dozen Portuguese-speaking, Brazilian-born Desis.

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The girls in Rio De Janeiro don’t wear makeup and the mountains slide straight into the waiting ocean. As if by magic, I had a 30-hour Rio adventure that stirred my soul and restored a sense of childlike wonderment that had been flagging.

Sao Paulo is gargantuan, overwhelming and nondescript. Its packed subway cars, high prices and air pollution have lately been causing me to wonder aloud if I left New York at all. Rio de Janeiro is one of the world’s few special places; passionate and delectable, known for it’s raucous Carnival, iconic beaches and gorgeous people. It is simply unique, a gem in Brazil’s crown.

The hostel where I was staying threw a delightful dance party and afterwards, I went to Lapa with an Australian named Dave. Lapa is a strip of bars just outside downtown Rio bisected by a Roman aqueduct that acts as a bridge for the overhead trolley tracks. By the time we arrived, at half past 4 in the morning, the Lapa crowd, which was in the upper hundreds, or even thousands, was disintegrating into a drunken melee. At home, in the States, these bars would be closing in a matter of minutes, but it’s quite possible patrons here continued to samba and sing on the street until the sun came up after 6.

The long bus into town and the subsequent week of late nights left me content heading home as 5 approached. There’s something about Rio though, with it’s sticky climate, soaring hills and the energy of 6 million souls that could have made me push through the exhaustion to find another thrill.

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I have been told that Rio de Janeiro and Cape Town, South Africa were once joined when Africa and South America were a single land mass. The geology of the two areas, Cape Town’s Table Mountain, besides Pao de Açucar in Rio, makes me think that this could be true. But while Rio is unlike any city I’ve visited, it somehow conjures the best: The lawlessness and hedonism of New Orleans, the architecture of Buenos Aires, as well as New York’s addictive cocktail of grit, hustle and filth that one only has to smell to understand.

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I arrived at the gorgeous Casa Carioka hostel in Copacabana 90 minutes ago and now I’m unwinding with a beer. Rio is warm, humid and lush with tropical foliage. Just a few blocks down a steep hill is the ocean. A party is already underway and after some tense negotiations, the Canadian DJ’s are playing traditional samba music. Although I was exhausted when I woke up, the escape from Sao Paulo has already been worth it.

The Sao Paulo bus terminal was a very civilized and efficient affair, especially when compared with many of the Greyhound Bus terminals of American cities. Most telling was the cornucopia of cash machines from local, national and international financial institutions, such as HSBC, who bills itself as “the world’s local bank.”

After boarding the bus, our escape from Sao Paulo was a blur. I fell asleep instantly and awoke at intervals when our driver would stop on the roadside to pick up stragglers. As the road unfolded before us, I wondered if the entire journey between Sao Paulo and Rio would be one continuous urban expanse. However, at one hour and 35 minutes, almost to the second, the bus passed through a shelf of incandescent red clay and the megalopolis of Sao Paulo came to an abrupt halt. Where there had been factories and house upon house, crammed right up to the highway, only grass remained with cows to munch it, and termite mounds that  pocked the landscape like acne. The first “lanchonete” we passed had two emus in a fenced enclosure.

Sign: "The flavor of America"

Gradually even the frenetic picaçao that covers every vertical surface in Sao Paulo melted away to thick, unfazed stands of bamboo, dark green pines and row upon row of eucalyptus. The smooth blacktop cutting through rolling hills reminded me of the ride through Northern California as you approach Mt. Shasta on Interstate 5. Here and there we zipped by clusters of bicyclists clad in lycra and at random intervals I saw solitary homeless men walking barefoot. With jeans, a sweater and sometimes a baseball cap, it was remarkable how closely they resembled one another, though in all likeliness, they did not no of each other’s presence just a few miles down the road. Halfway between Brazil’s throbbing industrial heart and its most storied city, these lonely urchins seemed as though they were one million miles from either.

Cruising through hamlets of rust-colored brick hovels, with boys flying handmade kites on the spanish-tiled roofs, I was beginning forget about Sao Paulo behind and, Rio, which awaited, as I focused on soaking up everything outside the windows.

As our bus climbed higher, we skirted a nuclear reservation as the clouds grew thick and low overhead. The road began to twist and the hard top deteriorated, causing our carriage to bounce on its springs. Soon I feel asleep again and when I awoke night had already fallen. We were on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro and every car that passed us seemed to be headed somewhere important and fun. From the Novo Rio terminal, I boarded a city bus that took me near the center of town for $1 and then a taxi took me the rest of the way.

I’m sleeping alone in a room with four beds and for the first time in Brazil, I intend to get a good night’s rest. I’m not sure how likely that is to happen, but at least the possibility exists. And now, my night begins!