Bengalooru

Associations inevitably come into being aided by memories. And years later when the memories have no co-relation to the present the association still sticks, perhaps this is what constitutes nostalgia. Like or dislike for a place can stem in various ways. Some places have a romantic air about them that lend them a quality of Shangri-La. Some have an oppressive and foul name attached to them, like a malignant canker. The former and latter are talked often talked about leading us to attach epithets to those places. Some places are famous because of some natural attraction, or political importance. And there are some places that exist only on maps nestled along treacherous contours or nested unluckily in between page folds or margins; places that are just meaningless dots on a railroad.

For someone who is in the lesser twenties, talking about any earlier era seems redundant, even if the ensuing decades are littered with major changes. Even if I am a child of the new age, googling away to glory and crippled without wikipedia I cannot but look at the nineties with a simple longing. And my memories of the India I saw and experienced then threaten to go away to that wispy place where all memories eventually go to. The more I remember, the more I hazy it seems until the past and present merge into a continuum. So cutting a long thread short, my associations with places date mainly from the nineties. Chennai was the sunrise, temples and strains of MSS's suprabhatam. Kolkata was a thirty six hour train ride on the Geetanjali and the fervent bleats of a goat before it splotched in blood, Mumbai was Bollywood and gangsters and Bangalore was for retired people.

Today's Bangalore contrasts with my minds Bangalore with a violent clash amidst honks of incessant traffic. For a wide eyed kid taking in notes furiously ( yes yours truly scribbled in notebooks while travelling, made lists of stations encountered and described landscapes ), Bangalore was confusing even then. Was it a small city? Was it a large town? How could it be a city if it had such gorgeous weather ? I remember standing with my mouth wide open at the Visveswaraiyya technological museum, especially at a display showing a continuum machine with balls running though it. My mouth remained open as I awed at Kids Kemp, and stubbornly refused to close strolling along M G road with its book shops and old fashioned coffee houses and a tree lined pavement, Brigade road with all its 'modern' shopping and Ulsoor which suddenly seemed like a suburb of Chennai (I know I'm ruffling feathers here :P ). When the train pulled out of Cantt station, I silently prayed we got transferred and could live there. A recent trip to the city also had me agape, at the airport first, then at MG road where trees were furiously being hacked, but as India moves so must old sensibilities.

I wish this wizened twenty something could visit the Bangalore of the nineties again, but don't we all want to relive the past?

PS: Happy birthday, to a pesky Banglorean.

Ambrosia

Circa 4.30 pm. A cold Mumbai day.

K: “Outside my office in an hour”

Me: “Roger”

I started the piece of junk my bike had become and parked outside the station. Had a nimbu-paani just before I got in. At Durga’s. Set up by an enterprising housewife outside the local train station, slaking the thirst of a million commuters since 1975. Tickets in place and the 4.31 CST fast. K’s office in 25 mins sharp.

Khau galli in Ghatkopar is a small lane. Full of stuff to eat, obviously. All illegal carts parked flush with great food. The Gujrati palate meets South Indian. Half a kilometer of pure hedonism.

“1 Jain spring dosa and we’ll leave ok man?”

“Sure”

And we take Best bus 385 in the aftermath of the Jain delicacy to Sion circle.

Sion Circle is a circle. Surrounded by decrepit businesses, 3 restaurants all of which are mysteriously called Peninsula and the Cinemax theatre. Printing presses and small businesses thrive. S joins us there in all her bohemian glory. Kurti. Purani jeans.Cigarette and a sheaf of papers. Always the girl carries those mysterious papers. I wonder.

L calls and says she will be 10 minutes late. We wisely take that to be an hour and proceed.

Cutting chai at the tapri. Awesome.

“Let’s take a taxi to Matunga circle I say in a moment of inspired lukkhagiri”. They acquiesce.

Lounging around Matunga circle is very pleasant. Matunga circle feels right, anytime of the year. Old buildings look disapprovingly at newer towers. Maamis mingle with Bawas and trees overshadow humans. All round great places of learning (VJTI, UDCT) and tons of other not do great places abound, with their inexorable campuses. Mumbai was a surprising 20˚C that day. Browsing second hand books under wide peepal trees, politely haggling to buy books and a relaxed filter kaapi at Madras café.

“Oooh…lets go to the temple” S says. “It’s been ages since I went to one”

The Asthika Samaj stands in Matunga, a former tam-brahm bastion perhaps as a testimony to more peaceful times in Mumbai. It’s very south Indian, from the gopuram to the flower vendors mouthing invectives in unchaste Tamil outside. Inside, S outdoes herself by correctly recognizing 3 Gods and we are rewarded for her religiousness by hot dollops of chakkara pongal by the priest. Lucky day!

Out again and this time R and C join us. R is very very hep and frowns upon us for having eaten at all the aforementioned “sad” places. C is meeting a friend at garnish for notes. We all giggle. C admonishes us, chastises us and proceeds to blush when a hunk of a man hand her ‘notes’ to her. Meanwhile K and S are gobbling dabelis outside at a cart as I pounce to bite my rightful share.

“Philistines” R announces.

L calls “Yaar yahaan koi nahin hai! Kahaan ho tum log?”

Oops. L is politely asked to come to Matunga. She politely replies (as polite as a string of four letter words across three languages can sound), and finally agrees.

7.00 pm and all of us finally outside New Yorkers. Facing bad bosses, personal prejudices, exams, placements, errant moms, global warming and other such vagaries finally we managed to meet at the same time. In we go and do what we do best. Eat.

“I’m not having this Jain pasta. What Rubbish ya”

“Oooh look look chocolate fondue!”

“Thu parakkadhe...saniyane!”

Hour and a half later, with bursting bellies we tumble out, laughing raucously.

“Desserts?”

7/11 near Matunga station. Ice Cream.Bliss.

And like most meetings conversation had almost staled. We needed alcohol and since Murphy was our patron God, we couldn’t find any. So the awesome day ended with a pursuit of cheap alcohol. Ashish beer bar, Roshni deshi Daru and Laxmi wines later all we had managed was a little beer. Split among five (C lectured again). Time to say goodbye. S took a western line fast train. R borrowed fistfuls of notes form all of us and took a cab. C whistled for her chauffeur and magnanimously decided to drop L. K dropped me at Ghatkopar station and I hesitated a little before I plunged into a crowded fast train, heading homewards.

In the train I thought a lot. Of the awesome food I had had. More about the people I had them with who had changed through the years, yet stayed same in essence. More importantly I thought about the city that had fed us. The city that has seen us grow, fall, stumble. Love, burp, eat, puke and sweat. The city that in all its doom could not stop its benevolence. The city of tired nights, weary days and crowded noons. Of spicy chaats, dirty iced golas, filling vada-paos nurturing the immigrant. Seaside cotton candy, corn in the rains and pizza by the bay, with jazz. Wine soirees and beer drinking binges. Pav bhaji with chikoo milkshake in the rains. Mumbai in all its infinite gastronomic glory.

11pm.

Thoughts flew as I was pushed onto my destination by harried people and the station was awash with vegetable vendors selling wares at half price. Getting rid of stuff before they too caught the last local home. I got a bunch of badishop in a Rupee. I delicately plucked them enjoying the taste as I burped and kicked my bike to life.

A day in the life of Mumbai

Nerul, Juinagar, Sanpada…

Stations flashed by as she straightened herself. Soon Vashi would come, bringing along a dreadful rush of people, pressing on from all sides. She backed herself against the walls and compressed her belongings. Her umbrella by her side now was pressed to her hips and her handbag hung not elegantly from her hands, but from her throat. People clambered in even as the train slowed down and soon the train was whooshing over creek.

Mankhurd, Govandi, Chembur…

She clenched her teeth and pushed a fisherwoman away. Feeling her surroundings tentatively, she kicked. Aah it hit someone. As the offended foot backed away, she spread her feet into the crevice. Chembur next. Saroja would get in. She idly wondered what Saroja would be wearing.

Tilak nagar, Kurla, Chunnabhatti…

Saroja had pushed and managed to weave her way all the way across from the other door to her side. Time passed gossiping, cursing bosses, talking of sexless husbands and errant kids. She was in a position of minimum volume now, she and Saroja entwined like participants in a pagan orgy. Saroja’s hair strewn across her sweaty neck, with those irritating flowers she wore, her wet umbrella dripping into the folds of her saree. Her own handbag was not seen, only felt somewhere in the deep recess between her and that fisherwoman.

GTB nagar, Wadala, Sewri…

Conversation still flowed freely, like oil over a jar of mango pickle. Soon Wadala came and Saroja got off, her flowery hair brushing past and nauseating briefly. A sudden view of the city blurring outside as the fisherwoman shifts her leg. A brief look at the time. Plans for what to do in office.

Cotton green, Reay road, Dockyard road…

The train rose and fell across bridges. Plans were made, plots hatched, some discarded, some to be implemented. Gently shoving the fisherwoman away she reaches for her mobile phone and texts her daughter, reminding her to have lunch outside today. She amuses herself trying to text a romantic message to her husband. Futility and bad network conspire and in the phone goes.

Sandhurst road, Masjid, CST.

All the fisherwoman are bustling now. Some make the exchange at Sandhurst road, but the majority get off at Masjid. So do three burkha clad women. She hastily gives way for the latter. The train slowly pulls into CST. Tired, weary, crumpled and disheveled she sighs. Disembarks. A slow walk at first, a brisk trot and then a full fledged run to catch the bus, waving on the way to her train friend from the middle compartment.

Travels and Travails in America

In one fell swoop I lost three hours of my day. Travelling eastward around the globe, unfortunately takes time…literally. Returning from glorious, sunny California to snowy upstate New York was forbidding enough, additionally I also had to cope with the brutal way in which my hours were taken away from me. Often we look at some guy, and think wow he has it all..a great life, career..whatever..California is that guy of places. Since much has already been said and written of the glories of the pacific state, I won’t expound much here, but believe you me when I say, CA’s the place to be.

Riding the metro was fun. Coming from a city like Bombay where riding the metro can be a life or death experience, San Francisco was very very cool. Calm collected, orderly and not crowded. One dwells too little on micro moments of joy that life throws at us to enjoy them thoroughly. Like the rush of the train when it accelerates, travelling alone in a new city, roaming footloose, wherever mind dictates. Not wanting to do the ‘touristy’ stuff that normal mortals do, I decided to see SF my own way. I roamed downtown and its dark streets among skyscrapers, and walked through Chinatown with its pungent aromas and quaint charm. I took the metro randomly, only to arrive at the seaside. The train was all things at once, bustling underground telling of corporate deals and big city life, trudging through dreary suburbs, reeking of an ennui that only urbandom can bring and unexpectedly issuing above ground to merge with the streets and wait for road signals. The last stop was an unassuming square, only the horizon was endless. The Pacific. Somehow I was excited. I couldn’t help it. Here it was the pacific in all its glory at 32 Fahrenheit. Belying its name, the waves roared, surged and hopelessly ever kept crashing. What is it about lonely humans and the ocean?