Bangalore Diaries

My mind is still fresh with the memories of my visit to home and home town. I sense a rush in me to complete this write up, I also sense the restlessness that I will not do justice in translating my thoughts to this blog. 

There is something about Bangalore (for me its specifically South Bangalore) that is hard to explain especially to someone who doesn't belong to it. They just don't get what the gaga is all about. 

Let's face it. It's not the best city on earth. It definitely does not score any points on the infrastructure aspect of it. It has too many people. It's become very expensive. The traffic is a mess and the weather isn't great anymore. In spite of all this there is a certain old world charm that stays hand in hand with the progress of modern day. 

I noticed myself noticing certain things that make a difference to me. Some of them are so simple, so silly that I was surprised that I was even bothering about it. This is what makes it home for me and makes the place unique. There are many memories etched in many different places  that makes me go back to it. 

Most of the main streets in Bangalore have huge trees on either sides of the road, the names of which I know not . It forms a beautiful canopy to the main, typically traffic clogged road. The tree lined streets for the residential areas blooming with May flowers form a pretty sight. Most houses have a coconut tree or two, the sky scape is filled with high flying coconut trees. In season, Mango trees everywhere are completely clad with fruit. 

As you step out in the hot summer sun, the majjige from Nandini diary cools you. Just as you think that the days are too hot and unbearable, the evening brings with it summer showers and makes the air pleasant like there was no heat.  The morning after the rains are the best, the air is fresh, all the trees having had their wash, the green looks greener.

Though, a big city, residential areas do have a community feel to it with most of the residents having lived there for 30+ years.

That street side vegetable vendor who saw me after ages enquired how Pune was, remembering that I worked there when I first had a job, something which is fading away from my own memory.  Makes me remember the other vegetable vendor who came to the same street every day at 4:30pm for 32years. If that seems long, the gentleman who brings butter and door delivers it every 3rd Sunday so my grandma can make ghee has been visiting us for 45years. 

I will have to write about Prakash who runs a little 'Masala Puri Gaadi', we overheard someone calling him this, years later we found out that his actual name was shivanna. Eating paani puris from him are so entertaining. He incorporates cricketing terms while he's serving the gol guppas one after the other. He usually serves it for 3-4 people at a time on a round robin basis and treats them as a team of players, actually batsmen. He throws in an extra piece in between and calls it a no ball. If while placing the puri on the plate, it breaks , he calls it a dead ball. If the puri is a huge one, he terms that a googly. Just after one plate is done, he asks if we are ready for another over and if we are done he declares us Out and calls out to the next team to play the new over. I cannot think of this happening anywhere else. 

It was the time of the year when then SSLC and PUC results were out. The newspaper was full of it. The talk from the maid, to the milkman was about someone who scored well, oasis with flying colours and their ambitions. It's that phase every child in India who's fortunate enough to get education goes through. So much is decided about your life at these two points.

There is a balance in life that most people do. I saw myself going for a walk in lalbagh, attending a wedding, visiting the temple for a puja, watching a movie, catching up with a friend at a coffee shop and going out to the pub all on the same day. The variety of activities that's thrown at you is so random.

I could perhaps go on and on about many things and each line will be out of sync with the others. What I feel about being in Bangalore and what I do there cannot happen anywhere else in the world and no matter how much I try, I can't express well enough in words.