Bustin’ Bangalore
Bangalore, India
The best memories of one’s life are from early days – like unblemished gems of our true individual personalities, shining on in the dim corridors of our clockwork-orange lives, they yet manage to tease that unknown hidden smile out from behind the façade of civil society – a time when we were ourselves. Bangalore to me is one such place. The first remembered trip there was in my high school days, when the seventies were rolling over into the eighties and the world was opening up before me, a wonderful place to set out into, a cocktail of opportunities spiked with the exuberance of youth. On a family vacation to South India, we spent a week in Bangalore, staying with relatives, when such things were still common. It was lush, cool and simple. The house was in Ulsoor, on a lane called Rama Krishna Mutt Road, wooden beamed and brick tiled, with a single fan in the living room and skylights everywhere. It was hot in Delhi where we came from, but blankets in Bangalore were the norm as nippy mornings roused you awake with a soft caress across the senses. The sounds of mantras being chanted in the many temples; the skylight turning successively lighter shades of blue; the sweeping of the stick broom across an uneven Cudappah stoned courtyard; the smell of southern spices, curry leaves, coconut and coffee intermingling and stealing up your nose to tease the hunger centre in your brain; the sound of the incessant prayer bell from Mr. Iyengar’s house next door, his sandal incense wafting in with the sharp, fresh morning air through the open window; the loud sizzling of the dosa griddle as my aunt deftly kept up a supply chain of thick, soft, fluffy dosas to be eaten with coconut chutney and gun powder (Mulluga podi) – finally rousing me from under the cozy covers. It must have been the collective force of these memories that nudged me awake on that sultry morning in Delhi, before the alarm could wreak its neural damage.
I was heading back to Bangalore after a long hiatus. I remembered vividly the days spent there on subsequent vacations, allowing the place to court me, falling in love with the easy pace, the great weather, the gentle people. I ended up doing three years of management studies there, and later an year of work. It tickled me no end that distances in Bangalore just didn’t exist. If you had a bicycle, a moped, a motorcycle or the luxury of a car, you could travel across the city in no time at all. Zipping about on motorbikes, we would congregate in the evening at Ramda’s, probably Bangalore’s first beer-on-the-tap pub. Our hangout changed yearly, to Oaken Cask, Peco’s and finally to The Pub World. Munching happily on peanuts masala, with Led Zeppelin or Def Leppard helping us along, we would tank up on inexpensive draught beer by the pitcher and finally saunter down for a meal to Punjabi’s, bang in the center of Brigade Road, for his dhaba style food and service, or to Impy’s (Imperial) for his bright red chicken pakoras and smooth magaz masala. Talking of food, I still remember the old Phanoos at Johnson Market, which had some great kabab rolls and chelo kababs at ludicrously low prices. Also the push cart in Indranagar, at the junction of 100 Feet Road with the 12th Main Road, where a hardworking Tamil couple toiled over an idli steamer and a large frying pan, to conjure up an endless supply of idlis, bhajjis, uddin and medu vadas, served with two varieties of chutney on large, coarse leaves. We would jostle with auto-rickshaw drivers to grab the next lot of hot stuff and, packing ourselves to the gills would pay less that rupees ten per head! Preparing for examinations in college, studying though the night for the next test, we would take a midnight break, walking from our campus near Law College to the Gandhi Nagar Main Road (leading to the city railway station), where an assortment of carts would serve dosas, boiled eggs, bun-omelettes, coffee, tea and cigarettes, to get us through the long nights.
Floating through this world of yore, I headed for the airport to catch the early morning flight to Bangalore, watching the sun come up through Delhi’s smog. Standing in line at the check-in counter, I found myself behind a very tall, gangly man who was dressed in a faded pink t-shirt and baggy electric blue track pants. A large black sitar case in one hand, shoulder length dark blonde hair, gold capped teeth, sandals that looked like small boats on his feet, he smiled a disarmingly genuine smile at me as I accidentally bumped him from behind with my trolley. ‘Desperado’s Antonio Banderas meets anorexia’, I thought. He was Rudy from Germany, traveling to Bangalore from Kathmandu. When he spoke, it was with a shy lisp in a soft, squeaky voice that belied his 6 and a-half-foot tall frame. Rudy was quite a sight, pacing about restlessly, his hair flapping around his face, never letting go of the black, gleaming sitar case. An unusual but delightful travel companion he turned out to be. A deeply spiritual person, he had traveled to Kathmandu to learn the sitar. He was on his way to Bangalore, from where he would move on to Mysore to meet other spiritual masters before heading to Kerala. We talked about spirituality and Indian culture, and he as an ardent fan and supporter of all things that, in history, made India great. Rudy ate only uncooked food, i.e. fresh fruits and vegetables and curd, and had been doing so for the last seven years. He wouldn’t drink water as all the water his body needed was in his diet and he felt healthier and better than ever (so he told me). This gentle angel from Germany touched my heart and I thought to myself as I pondered over the apparent contrasts of this man, if this was a precursor of what to expect on my trip.
On a long flight, especially if you are traveling alone, the people you meet can set the mood for things to come. The interaction is on many levels, some quite subtle. If you are lucky, you will come away with a positive charge, sparkling insights and lingering memories. And sometimes, such an encounter could point towards the general direction of what to expect during the next few days. Helping Rudy into a taxi for the Mysore bus stand, I waved both his precious black sitar case and flowing mane goodbye, and took in the activity around me. A very nice taxi driver, Jaffar, helped me with my luggage into his immaculately maintained van, and off I went, beaming, like the returning prodigal son.
Letting Jaffar steer me towards Koramangla, where pressing matters needed urgent attention, I gawked at the traffic. The airport road was jammed, peppered with many traffic policemen and lights. The once quiet ribbon of a road was flanked by huge swanky edifices that grew more opulent as we approached the Indiranagar – 100 Feet Road crossing. A massive, colorful fairy tale fort loomed up to my left, hiding within it a children’s store. A 5 star hotel, lavishly grandiose, to the right. A professional looking multi-facility modern hospital. A Diamond District, gleaming in its American style glass frontage. Pubs, bars, restaurants � there was everything. But hey, we turned LEFT, where only marshland had existed before. At my cousin’s house, which was one of the last in Indiranagar towards the airport road, I would wake up to cool mornings, and through the wide bay windows watch aircraft taking off and landing into an expanse of nothingness. That was 1987. Now this wide, smooth road connected you directly to Koramangla. The road was like a carpeted drive, though the banking at some curves was too optimistic, and housing blocks in varying degrees of completion were propped up like a straggly guard of honour. We reached Koramangla in no time at all. The earlier route would have been down the airport road via Vivek Nagar, passing through defence areas, past an old Church and through a tenement colony. Koramangla itself was like a suburb of any big Indian city, albeit greener and quieter in the residential interiors. This time I had decided to stay on my own in Bangalore. Taking the same route back from Koramangla after work, it took a while to find the small guest house, hidden away in a nondescript lane of Domlur Layout, owned by (and also the residence of) Mrs. And Mr. Rao. Mr. Rao was a medium built swarthy man who had been is Moscow as part of the Indian Foreign Service. The bustling Mrs. Rao was an active lady, with sneakers on her feet. A wrought iron staircase outside the house opened onto the first floor, on the right side of which was a spacious bedroom with an attached bathroom (it had a tub!), a TV, telephone and comfortable seating. Mrs. Rao quickly sent up thick, sugary kapi (coffee) in the finest South Indian tradition, and petite idlis with a thin, spicy chutney. Hearing male voices, I came out of my room to find a motley group of young men in shorts and other minor attire grouped around a table and some others lounging on a couch in front of a TV set. All I.T. professionals, for which Bangalore is now a well known hub, they were living as paying guests in the other rooms that the Raos had on their first floor.
Walking around Domlur, and on to the main road towards Indiranagar, where I had lived earlier, I bought a handful of kallekai (boiled peanuts) from an old lady by the roadside. They tasted as cold and clammy as always. Laughing at myself, I walked on, determined to check out the Bangalore of my memories. There seemed to be a vast increase in the number of people and vehicles. Ulsoor was a mix of the unchanged, the unchangeable and a slew of bright new jewellery shops. Brigade Road on a Saturday evening was like rush hour at Kolkata’s Hoogly station. Commercial Street was quite the same though huge trenches were dug up on the sides for hi-tech optic-fibre cable. There were an amazing new number of restaurants, pubs, cafés and food stalls alongside the old ones, all doing brisk business. The mix of the people on a week-day afternoon is different now, with sharp young executives of both genders powering about, or talking animatedly over coffee, with their I-cards looped around their necks on thick bands, branding them as the I.T. people. The pensioners and old British ladies in floral dresses were almost non-existent. Autorickshaws were more easily available at all times, and the drivers as crafty or nice as I remembered. That weekend, I stayed at the same house in Indiranagar where I had lived many years ago. The views were all gone and there was no parking outside at all as a Kerala Ayurvedic massage centre had come up on one side and a counseling center on the other. The mango tree that had been planted by Mary, the eccentric young maid, had grown tall and massive, with luminous green fruit hanging in luscious loads. The old Ta-Ta, with his benevolent toothless grin and grizzled look was there as well and he looked the same as he always had. I guess he was already too ancient to seriously age any further. But perhaps, his eyes looked a bit more rheumy as he walked up the driveway with our freshly ironed clothes.
Since all Sundays of yore had been beer and biryani lunches with friends, I convinced my hosts to stick to tradition. To give respite to my aunt, who tired easily now, we decided to do the biryani bit outside, at one of the famed plantain leaf Andhra style family restaurants. I was sorry to hear that old R-R had closed down so it would be either Amravathi or Nagarjuna on Residency Road. Around 11 that morning, lazing about in my cousin’s house, I heard the doorbell ring and a short, rotund man with a faded baseball cap wished us politely. This was Subramaniam, who came around every Sunday morning on his rattly old moped, carrying large canvas bags stuffed with home-made goodies like murakku, appalams, congress nuts, wafer thin Kerala banana chips and what have you. He spoke fluent English and was courteous to a fault. Enquiring about everyone’s health, he commented on the weather and proceeded to give inquisitive me an education on all his scrumptious snacks � how the Kerala chips were home made in Kerala from a special variety of bananas that was sliced at just the precise stage of ripeness ; the congress nuts were so called as they were broken up just like the party had broken up many years ago and so on. I ended up buying most of his stock, highly recommended as it was by the ladies of the household. And, to tell the truth, it was some of the best chow chow I had ever bought in Bangalore, the nipattus and rice flour fryums proving to be mega hits back in Delhi. Biryani lunch on banana leaves was hot, in spice and freshness, and the choice of ice creams at Corner House was apt � Death by Chocolate!
Browsing through Chikpet (the old city area) was the same old mad tango, with silk and saree shops, crockery wholesellers and jewelers in their quaint little nooks managing a steady turnover. Dancing the whirligig with the sea of humanity there, it is the best place to pick up sarees and silks in bulk at wholesale prices. The next day I hired a self-drive car and drove up the Kanakapura road that swoops and curves away from busy-busy Jayanagar. Once out of the suburbs, the greenery and the red soil look the same as always. I drove up to the ashram of the Art of Living Foundation, and met up with Zaver Bhai – a glowing apparition swathed in pristine white, with dark frizzy hair like a rock star’s. A guided tour of the lovely ashram grounds, culminating in a simple vegetarian meal at the community kitchen, where each one has to wash at least his or her own dishes, was enough to infect me with the atmosphere pervading there. Climbing up to the highest point where a circular gallery has been built atop a hill for meditation, I contemplated on Bangalore and my life, before deciding to head back to town. As I was leaving, I saw a woman walking towards me with her two children � a 10-year-old boy with an arrogant look and a diminutive little girl of around 5. We nodded to each other and got talking. The lady’s name was Radha and she was here on vacation from Gwalior, where her husband had a business. Her parents were in Bangalore � the city of her maiden days. She had come here for the holidays as the schools were in recess for the summer. Her parents were regulars at the ashram and they were all here for a day out. The little girl, Priyanka was shy at first, but soon was chattering non-stop with me while her brother concentrated on the beeping screen game in his hand. As we chatted there, waiting for Radha’s parents to join us at the car park, I pulled out a pencil and paper and sitting on the tickly grass, wrote a small funny poem for Priyanka. The little girl was thrilled and read it loudly over and over again laughingly, pausing often to ask me a word here and there (bad handwriting has been a long standing forte’ of mine). As I drove out of the parking lot with my windows rolled down, Priyanka ran behind my car and tossed in a freshly plucked crimson wild flower. The preserved dried flower sits in my car in Delhi now � a direct link to Bangalore and the experiences there.
Finally, it was time to leave Bangalore. Taking the evening flight this time, I bid adieu to memories old and new, and was mulling over my experiences when somebody bumped me from behind. I turned around to see a young man with pierced eyebrows and upper lip, wearing red shoes. As he bent over to retrieve a fallen magazine, a multi-hued tattoo on the small of his back came into view. Turquoise beads formed a bracelet around his wrist and wooden beads were strapped tightly against his neck. This was Jobby, who hailed from Kerala, had studied in Bangalore and now worked in Delhi. An apprentice designer with one of the big names in Delhi, his creative heart lay in installation art, about which we had an extended chat on the flight. Jobby was in Delhi biding his time, saving up money for his own dream, his quirky creative urges, his vision of the future. As we spoke, the plane banked, sweeping over (and away from) the lights of Bangalore city, which I could see framed at an oddly unreal angle in the window, behind Jobby’s pierced face.
We shook hands and said our goodbyes at the airport exit gate. Looking up, I saw my perky sister come bounding up with a crackling, “Hi!” I smiled at her as she grabbed my hand bag. “So, how was it – your trip? How was Bangalore?” she chirped.
I honestly didn’t know what to say.
