On loving one's city

I have been in Bangalore for over 2 years now, and after the initial rush of the brilliant weather that strikes you the most if you move here from Bombay, all I have really done is crib. See that's my thing. Some people are good at photography, some write like a dream. I crib - that is my special talent bordering on superpower.

I had dismissed a lot of things in Bangalore. Like malls. I had dismissed UB City completely. After seeing most of what there is to see here (and I haven't seen Cubbon Park yet, mind you) I had decided that if you don't want to eat, drink, or shop, the only time you need to leave your house in this city is when you are getting out of the city (and thanks to R's work hours, getting out of the city has not been happening as much as I want it to). Which is not entirely wrong, Bangalore does not really have a lot of options for people like me. The food is good. The clubs are often unbelievably wannabe but Purple Haze more than makes up for them. There are movie theaters, and there is that one Rangashankara. And there is the UB City Amphitheater. And now Gig Box is bringing some brilliant concerts to the city. There is Oktoberfest, and there will be Storm Festival. The weather is to die for, it makes everything better. And for a home bird of the chai-beer-baarish-music fame like me, this really is enough. I will have to agree, and I have known this from the day I set foot in Bangalore, that Bombay may be my favourite city in the world, but if I want a life that counts in every possible way, Bangalore will have to be home.

Yesterday, on a quintessential chilly Bangalore evening, R, Thakur, and I listened to the Dire Straits live tribute at the amphitheater. It drizzled. High spirits flowed. And it rained. We walked along the rain kissed roads, and talked. And ate. It felt like freedom. And camaraderie.

And suddenly, I feel like writing again. A change of scene is more important than we give it credit for. And a change of scene does not always have to mean getting out of the city. I am not too fond of most things that Bangalore has to offer for entertainment outside the awesomeness that is my house (You probably remember that narcissism is also my thing), except maybe food, but it is not fun anymore when your clothes start getting too small for you :P. But concerts like yesterday's (that ended too soon because of the rain) on an evening like that, make Bangalore what it is. Home.

I am in love all over again. And not just with Bangalore and Thakur and Mark Knopfler. Go figure!

P.S. I saw Raghu Dixit in concert a couple of weeks back. I spoke to him backstage. And I really believe that there are rock bands and then there is the Raghu Dixit Project. Their rockstarness goes beyond their music. It is a pity not too many people get that.

 

The Dravidian Revenge

One of the things that strikes me really odd about this part of the country is just how much they think of us "Northies" as "different" people. I lived in Maharashtra for 7 years of my life, I NEVER had an issue with the language. People made an effort to understand me, and in return, taught me a little bit of Marathi. I enjoyed learning it, it was a new language to me. Which brings me to an entirely different topic - it is one thing to not know a language, but to be proud of one's ignorance is a little pathetic, don't you think?

When people relate/ hear of stories about how a North Indian who asked for a Hindi movie on a bus ride, gets insulted, they make it sound like gloating! These are the same people who will scream the loudest if there is a racist attack on an Indian/ South Indian in a foreign country. I can only define it as hypocrisy. I am no angel, I have, many times over, made fun of certain eccentricities one would encounter in this part of the country. Like right-aaaa. But I have never not been friends with someone based on the language they speak at home. I would not "admire the guts" of a random auto driver or bus conductor who does not know his manners and asks hindi speaking passengers to get off the vehicle or asks them to carry their own TV in a bus if they want to see a Hindi movie. Here. If I am in an overnight bus ride, I would probably not want to see any movie. But to spend 10 hours in the dark of night, listening on loudspeakers, to a language I can't understand a word of, amounts to torture. You know the quality of speakers in these buses! On the other hand, most of the people from this part of the country, follow Bollywood and understand enough hindi to watch a movie. They spend money on movie tickets, goddamit! Why then, is this an issue of regionalism? It should be more like common sense, right? It is the same bloody country!

I am not even talking about auto drivers or bus conductors. I am talking about people who have had a cosmopolitan upbringing, they ideally should have a workable knowledge of Hindi from their CBSE curriculum. They belong to the new India, go clubbing, study in fancy schools and colleges, but often they forget everything about being an Indian and wear their "Karnataka" badge like it is a different country. I have had friends and new students who came to our school for a couple of years from very far flung states like Kerala and Karnataka. We helped them! We helped them with their Hindi, their getting around and learning all the ropes they needed in a state where everyone spoke a language that was so foreign to them. While I do not have a vivid memory of this, I do remember my mom and one of my teachers telling us categorically that if there is someone in the room who does not speak the language we are used to speaking in, try another that is common. I don't remember listening to English news and music channels with my great aunt in the same room, more often than not I don't speak in Hindi with friends if there is even one person in the same room who does not understand the language. Basic. Etiquette. Right?

Ever since I moved to Bangalore, there has been only ONE person (in two years), who took the effort to make me feel welcome and agreed with the fact that there could possibly be a language issue here. She was not from a fancy college, she was more from Karnataka than anybody else. She probably just had some common sense in place. I cannot learn Kannada overnight, nobody can! And there was a reason that Hindi is still taught in schools. Or English for that matter. If you don't want to speak either of the languages strictly for regional reasons, maybe it is about time you stopped pretending the whole cosmopolitan bit and admit to what you really are. A very hardcore supporter of regionalism, a little small minded, maybe a little mean, and not cosmopolitan at all.

P.S. I may have come across all the wrong people. If you have had better experience in Bangalore, please share so I know there is still hope.

Edited to add: As if the every day jhanjhat was not enough, here you go - http://bangaloremirror.com/article/10/201106072011060700050557789635d05/%E2%80%98NonKannadigas-will-have-to-learn-the-language-in-a-year%E2%80%99.html . I wonder if they have considered asking for a separate country yet, like so many of their counterparts. Ridiculous!

And then, it rained

I am running out of wide eyed wonder and small happiness. I wonder if it is age or the desperate need to go where the streets have no name.


Even a place where everybody knows my name would do. I want Bombay, its people, and its energy around me RIGHT NOW.


I want to wrap Bombay around myself and take it with me wherever I go.


I am "homesick".


I was not so incapable of being nice in Bombay. Never told an auto driver what a chutiya he was. Even after a 1 hr commute. Coz they weren't.


I even miss the auto drivers of Bombay. That's how much I miss that city.


With all its rain and trees and slow pace, it's just not Bombay. How can I EVER forget that. Rains don't last, friends do.


"We’re just a bunch of punchline peddlers hoping to run away from our inner voices." Well said @gkhamba. This holds true not only for comics


@asashutosh the weather's nice?


@asashutosh not outside my window yet.. gotta give it another hour.


@asashutosh iss migrain mein beer day manaya toh death anniversary bhi aaj hi manegi :P i just want to go home, have some chai, and sleep!


And then, it rained.


After a day of existential angst and migraine, it rains. God, you are somewhere up there and you are a good man.

Weather blues continued

If you disregard the fact that I have been spending too much time home alone because the husband is swamped and I am not, and my incapability to do anything fun on a weekday, and the heat, life is looking good. Just that, nothing more, nothing less.

I am falling into in a strange kind of insouciance and I am not particularly happy about it. Some would call is growing up, some, calmness. I just think it is a disease that needs to go away. And go away real fast. Be it by a para sailing day out, a long road trip in April or July, or just another major campaign at work.

Not for long, I assure you myself. I only wish though that this phase of insouciance, that right now feels a lot like boredom, happened during the Bangalore rains. Because a book and adrak ki chai are not fun in an air conditioned room, no sir.

Someone take this heat away. I wonder how I will ever be able to live in Bombay again if I had to. Oh wait a minute, Bombay does not let you get bored, insouciant, or even complacent. And that makes all the difference.

Image courtesy - findicons.com

Wide eyed wonder

.. Or why I love doing what I do.

I have been quite the cynic in the last couple of years. And cynicism does not go too well with my image, if you know what I mean :D I have been in the IT city, and the flaws that I had recognized a very long time ago, had resurfaced all over again. The sheer propagation of mediocrity, the whole sham of "offsites" and tech parks that surrounds what is essentially just another job/ degree/ industry, had been laughing in my face, and I had often been questioning my own decisions. But today, at the lunch table, I realised that there are still some people in the industry who see through the sho sha for what bodyshopping is really all about, people who still believe in the sanctity of journalism, people who don't need the veil of jargon to hide their flaws and stupidity and complete lack of anything intelligent to say because they have a point of view and they know how to put it across, people who believe in doing and not just "thinking out of the box", and people who see value where it really belongs. Of course I am talking about more than one person here, and I have come home with a lot more pride in my choices and decisions, and it seems like a blessing after living in cynicism for such a long time.I can now let things be. "The point that needed proving, mostly to myself, has been proved".

And I saw Irrfan Pathan. Aren't Fridays the best?

Where everybody knows my name

Coming to Bombay and meeting with the mad bunch I used to work with once upon a time in history, makes me realise just one thing. Every single time. That I haven't lost my touch yet :-)

This is a bunch that I belong with, the bunch that understands my jokes and whose jokes I understand. And more importantly, the bunch that actually has jokes to crack. My desperate need to be in Bombay every few months stems out of the fact that in Bangalore, a city with 5,840,155 (Google search result) people, there is just ONE person I am in sync with. And while that one person is all that is really going to matter in the big picture, it still makes me doubt my sensibilities every few months. But Bombay gives me a strange kind of reassurance that being a square peg in a round hole and not exactly being supremely liked for it, is not such a bad thing after all. If anything, it comes from a strange kind of complex and fortunately not in my head. The kind that I will never either get nor be able to explain. Bombay is the city where everyone fits. Seamlessly.

And then there is Maaaaaaaa, the shopping, the food, Daddy and his smug grins, and the baby sister and her random arguments. Am I just loving it? You bet I am!

Am I missing my Bangalore, my orange walls, the mindblowing weather, and my goofy husband, already? YOU BET I AM!

What I have done this week

It is finally Friday. Somewhere mid week I had lost hope that this day would ever come. Ever! I have been quite the headless chicken all week, and for once I cannot blame anyone else for my "headlessness". Almost. You will know soon what I mean. What have I been up to-

1. Work. Oh work. Learn, apply, and a couple of times, unlearn and reapply. And an almost oversight. A blunt one at that. It has been crazy. Demands Fragile egos. And my obsessive need to finish everything in 8 hours, not more. I cannot begin to explain how exhausting it has been. And boy am I happy! Like I said, I am weird that way. I am also glad that word documents have taken over a lot of my excel files. I did miss the excel madness after a while, and then EOM happened. And then there was no running away from numbers. Just when words threaten to bore you, numbers come along. And words reappear before you start getting nightmares full of jumbled numbers. Perfect balance I say! Finally, finally I think this is what I was looking for. Finally.

2. Dealing with insecurity.

3. Cooking and cleaning. I always thought I did not believe in inertia. Don't ask me to explain that. But I saw an example this week. After a crazy day, I still went around getting laundry done. And how! And making full meals everyday. Folding clothes, even. It was like I was on fire and refused to stop!

4. Watching Frasier.The adorable pompousness of the Crane brothers has completely replaced the madness of Friends. I think it has something to do with age. For the last 11 years, Friends has been the background music of my life - padhai, party, cleaning, doing nothing were all always accompanied by the American canned laughter. Oh wait. It is not the canned laughter that has disappeared. Only the faces on the screen have changed.

5. Waiting. For the man who has been working late everyday. That explains a lot of the inertia and crankiness this week.

6. Watching Arnab Goswami. Every night. As usual, I am not sure why. From 12 to 1 at night, I have seen boring old men and loud old women scream their lungs out. I have seen my Biharis get kidnapped, and it only felt like the times gone by. I saw Pakistanis foolishly screaming foul. Again. This time about cricket, not terrorism. I will have to say this - with Pakistan, it is now a little difficult to see the difference. I saw Siddhu scream at rotting grains. And Nitish Kumar helpless and hapless just when the world was beginning to think that Bihar was a changed place. At least I was. And I felt sorry for myself and all those people mentioned above. And for the way me and mine entertain ourselves after days full of madness.

6. Dealing with red tape. And overcoming it. A bank locker is like a trophy these days. Banks will quote an obscene figure like Rs 3,00,000 deposit for a tiny locker. Know your rights, ladies and gentlemen, banks cannot put a condition like this to give you a locker. The RBI website clearly mentions this. So you need to know the numbers. And you need to know the branch manager's senior. Nepotism, you say? I say "loha/heera hi lohe/heere ko kaat ta hai".

6. Learning a lot about car windshields. Because ours got devastated. Bangalore rains and Bangalore greenery at their best. A big, strong branch fell on the car while R was in it. He is fine, and I don't like Bangalore again. You will know why, if you do not already.

7. Having street brawls. I have spineless creeps for neighbours. Bloody Bangalorean spineless creeps. I have never seen a bunch of creatures that claim to be alpha males in everyday existence duck, while a woman, an outsider, deals with an auto driver pointing his fist at her. Because she first refused to pay extra and did not have change. For one, I have not seen such rowdy auto drivers. And I have not seen cowards that hit or threaten to hit women, and cowards who hide behind the nearest tree in my oh so green neighbourhood when it comes to dealing with something man-to-man. I say man-to-man because apparently they take a lot of pride in their ability to do it, these bloody spineless Bangaloreans. I was angry with the neighbours for being. With the building watchman for going for an evening stroll. With R for being at work. But most of all, I am angry with myself. I have reported rigged meters, but today, when there was an issue much worse, my brain froze and refused to react constructively. So yes, I hate bloody spineless Bangaloreans. I cannot help it. I have met the worst of the lot I guess - my one time project manager, the auto and cab drivers, 3 other burly bastards who would have been better off being auto drivers, and a bunch of relatives that have made Bangalore their home for generations. All of them bloody spineless creeps. Non Bangaloreans, do not rattle on about how bad your city is. Because I want to wallow in my misery in this post, that is why I am writing it. And Bangaloreans, don't try defending. Apologize, if you just have to say something to this. Except you Chinkurli, I have to tell you that you are the only one that makes me think I have probably only been unlucky until now. So I will listen to whatever you have to say :-) (I cannot wait for my Activa. I know already that I am going to love it like one loves their protector.)

I have been operating like this on very few hours of sleep. Judge me all you want, but 6 hours is just not enough for me. I am fine, in case you are wondering. I have had a rough week, yes. But I did buy a lovely jute bag and 2 books - Shashi Tharoor and PG Wodehouse. And it is finally Friday. And there is chilled beer and rajma and Daily Bread cakes to keep me going. And the aftertaste of a session of stupid accusations that at one point threatened to turn into a full blown fight (which is always good, btw). I need this weekend.

Image courtesy: www.edupics.com

I do need some education

Image courtesy - http://sgaissert.wordpress.com

Piyu tagged me in this post, and it got me thinking. Everyone around wants to learn something. I will be honest with you, I have never really wanted to learn anything. I am not kidding! I studied what I studied because I first thought it sounded cool, and then I wasn't allowed to quit. I could probably tell you things I have wanted to study - all "at that moment" sort of things. Journalism after watching Burkha Dutt (in her better days) on TV for an hour, policewoman after watching Udaan (the TV series I used to see when I was 6, not this recent movie that everyone's raving about and I hated - horrible acting!), psychology when I could not for the life of me "understand" people. Then I realised I never really cared! English literature when I thought I read/ wrote something I loved. The latter was subjected only to my opinion.

I wanted to learn how to draw once. That was only because I assumed it would help me pass Engineering Graphics.Until of course this friend of mine I strongly believed should have studied design instead of the uninteresting things we studied but never learned, also flunked the paper.

I have had my moments - photography, guitar, singing (I daydream about being able to sing in front of a bunch of people and getting a standing ovation. That is exactly what it is - a daydream. You have to hear me sing to believe it. Photoshop, even. But I don't think about it long enough. I once learned Kathak for some 3 years. Imagine! Quit one day because it was beginning to bore me to death. The fact that there were sudden rumours of my guru ji being involved in something illegal, made it easy for me to convince Ma. I had joined art classes, but that was only because my art teacher strictly thought I needed extra lessons to keep my brush within the margins. Even that was a tall order for me! I started playing drums in the school band. One week. Taek Won Do - 3 days. Singing. With harmonica, mind you. I never got beyond Sa. You can say that I don't have the discipline to learn anything. I can try to sound cool by saying that the theoretical first few days of learning something bore me enough to quit, and it might just be true. No wonder my college years were such a torture initially. Because of my complete, unapologetic inability to sustain the first few days of learning. But then again, what does education have to do with learning? (And that I really mean.)

There are things I want to learn. I am not sure if one can. Like shopping well. I shop. Not too expensive, nothing extraordinarily cheap. Most of my clothes are quite nice too. But they are all the same. Similar colours, similar patters. Cotton and denim. That is it. And I won't count the wedding sarees and salwaars, because they were all packed to perfection exactly one week after the wedding. There is hardly any variety in my wardrobe. I wish I could go on a shopping spree and find 5 pieces of clothing, all completely different from each other and from the ones I already own. Even if I buy a new top, it will look like one of the older ones. I don't know how I always end up doing this! How can unlearn this?

My patterns of love, hate, and indifference are extremely erratic. If I am let down by someone I REALLY care about, I just turn away. Indifferent. But it is the non entities I lose sleep over. I just need to know they are alive. That is enough to irritate me. Turn me into a bitter person. Irrespective of whether that person is around or not. And there is a chance that these people neither betrayed me nor personally did me any harm. What the hell! Another thing that I need to unlearn, and learn the opposite of. Only I don't know what the opposite is.

I want to learn how to really read something that is important but uninteresting. Rent agreements, bank letters, forms. I have the attention span of a... I don't know. I can't think of a simile. But I can never read anything important. Important to everyday existence that is. Except Marshall Goldsmith of course.

I want to learn how to weave magic with words. Be cryptic yet make sense. That is not my style (if I have one that is - I have an obsessive need to put this disclaimer every time I talk about style), I know. But I want to learn. And I know I can't. One can't learn something like that. Right?

I sound as (adorably) pompous as Frasier when I say this in my head, because I cannot relate it with the image I have of myself. Or the one that a lot of people who know me, have of me. Of late I have wanted to learn Indian History. Not study. Learn. I wish someone had taught me how to put history lessons in perspective back in school. As you grow up, you realise that a lot of your present finds its roots in history. School emphasized on that, but they never told us why or showed us how. The more I read/ watch TV shows, an odd NGC show, Saira Khan's Pakistan, Story of India, the more I want to get that elusive learn-all book of Indian History. Not a refresher course, there is nothing to refresh. (It is a strange feeling to have foreigners excite me about Indian History).

So that is that. Do you know who can teach me all those things? All except Indian History. Quick question - is learning always a result of teaching? I know the converse is not true.

On an aside, the weather is magical these days. Happy-sunny and happier-rainy in parts. I was reading Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth for the 100th time (I have nothing else to read right now, and there are some books I keep going back to for no apparent reason). There are these lines that say something to the effect that the protagonist hasn't lived anywhere long enough to really belong. Beautiful lines, but I can't find them in the book right now. I felt a sudden connection to those lines. I have been so far for so long from the one place I ever belonged, that I no longer feel that sense of belonging. Go figure. And then I switched cities so often that I never grew roots. Same country, and yet such stark, in-your-face difference in cultures. That is a story for another day. I remember a time when people lived in a place for so long and left it even for vacation at such long intervals that they knew everything there was to know about a place. The people, the galis, the sabji mandis. Everything. I don't see that happening now. I think that is a good thing about small towns. Or bad.  I am now beginning to think Bangalore is going to be the place I eventually grow roots in. I will know this place like one knows home. It is not Bombay, so it is not even difficult. There are days when I have my doubts. But then one evening after a crazy day at work, I return home to an overkill of green and the aftertaste of a heavy shower. This is where the auto stops. In front of the gate of my building.

And suddenly I feel all my doubts melting away.

Saturday bliss

I never knew gardening (if you can use that word for planting some greens in the balcony - the joys of an apartment!) is so much fun. Especially if the only hard work you need to do is buying the plants and stepping in when it is time to fool around with the water hose. Like many, many years ago. Both in time and in demeanor. Now bear with this.

 And this.

 And this.

 And this.

Ugly pink chappals? You can blame the sister :D

The Auntie Chronicles/ The Goddess of Small Things

Because I couldn't decide which one of the two headings was more accurate.

(If you are still pretending to be the kind of wife that doesn't need to be responsible for anything around the house (like I had been until a couple of months ago), just close this tab!)

(In almost 7 years of REGULAR blogging, I have finally managed to churn out my most boring, mundane, I-had-cornflakes-for-breakfast-it-is-a-sunny-day post EVER.)

Of late the quality of my posts has gone down the dumps? Why? I haven't had much to say. And things that I want to say are either already said on someone else's blog or I don't have the time (I have surprised myself at how often I have said this recently. Am I complaining? Hardly!) or the patience to write. Life has been awesomely and brilliantly busy of late, what with loads of interesting work, stuff around the house to be taken care of, so much of it carried over to weekends, and all the shopping and planning to do this month - an anniversary and a birthday (not mine!) and Fathers Day (call me cheesy, I celebrate everything) and a long overdue visit from my sis - I simply love June! R has been very busy at work, and I am finally beginning to understand what people mean when they say that handling both home and work isn't easy. However it is definitely not rocket science. I think we are managing quite well. So far so good!

One of the most awesome things in the world is to reach office in the morning and realise you are the first person to walk in. The first cup of office coffee in such amazing, and such unlikely silence is definitely the best way to kick start to the day. Highly recommended! There was a time when reaching office that early was a regular thing. Primarily to escape the rush hour crowd in the local train. But it's easy to do that when you have a bowl of steaming hot oats (yuck!) and a cup of chai waiting for you on the dining table when you decide to bless the world with your freshly bathed, awesome smelling self :P But now mornings are a rush - with R deciding to take on the world by cleaning every corner of the house early in the morning, and the overcome-with-guilt me try to match up by pretending to be very busy making chai. LOL! A word of gyaan - refusing to boot the laptop in the morning helps! No Facebook. No blogs. No gmail. Not that early in the morning for sure! Sigh! When did I grow up? :-)

I have a saviour for my morning rush - the new maid. Parbati. This girl from Nepal. I feel bad for her - she has just moved to Bangalore from her village in Nepal. She can't read time, speaks broken Hindi, and looks like the quintessential kanchi. I wonder just how lost she must feel in the big bad world. Tells me though that her husband helps her in the kitchen. Men have evolved. Such a pleasant far cry from Ma quietly listening to her domestic helps' woes of a drunkard, violent husband every other morning, quietly because those women didn't seem like they particularly wanted to change anything. That said, if Sholay was made in our day and age, I would have told my kids "beta so jao, subah subah fir Parbati didi aa jaayengi". Seriously! No matter how much I plead with her, be stern with her, she will always, without fail, come before I can even think of getting out of bed. And once she is in, the busy body starts turning the kitchen upside down, and I am not sure what I was thinking when I decided to live in a house with an open kitchen. While this is blessing in disguise on weekdays, it can be such a pain in the wrong place on a weekend when all you want to do is sleep in late. And she can't cut vegetables for peanuts. And I must tell you than bhindi torn from the centre doesn't taste half as good as one that is cut well. She is worse than me! I still like her. I must be crazy!

Has everyone watched Rajneeti? Prakash Jha, my dad, and R are all from the same school. So my otherwise hardly-movie-watching dad (That's new though, he has spent many afternoons doing back to back in Regal and Metro) saw the movie on the Friday that it released. And I, of the FDFS fame, the only one in my extended khandaan that still believes in the wonders of FDFS, hasn't seen the movie yet! Surprisingly, I am not depressed about it. Where is the time? But this Saturday I will have to. I really can't lose my identity in this mad rush of life (big words, no?), so what if my identity is primarily defined by the number of Bollywood masala movies I have seen on the first weekend. There is Rajneeti and Toy Story, and I am waiting for IHLS. And I missed Well Done Abba and its DVD is almost never available on seventymm and Big Flix. So I have a whole lot of back log to catch up on.

I finally managed to finish 3 seasons of Frasier, and I am glad I did. Even Niles is coming around now, I quite like him. Never thought I would, when I saw him in the first season. Which reminds me. Has any one of you watched Heroes? I started, and I couldn't survive the first couple of episodes. Am I missing something? What's the the fuss about?

I read something in the newspaper today, and I am raving mad. Most of the times it doesn't take much for people to drive me there, but this one I think is not one of those small things I over react at. I read Jeffrey Archer's interview in Bangalore Times this morning. And unless it is proved that this is case of yellow journalism, I am not going to read his books again. And no, this is not an excuse for not reading his books because I don't understand them. I don't remember if I do, because the last time I read Jeffrey Archer was in class 10. I think someone forced it upon me, I have never been so fond of suspense thrillers (that's what he writes about, right? See how much I know about him?). Except maybe Daphne Du Maurrier. Not sure if I will manage to survive her now too. See Mr Archer? You don't like India (I guess you are secretly afraid we will drive you back to your high and mighty phoren country, the Englishman that you are.), I don't like you. Case closed. Give me an Indian writing in English. Or Enid Blyton. Any day.

Which reminds me. I managed to finish all my Malory Towers. All the books I had that is. One of these days I will go book shopping again. Any recommendations? I already told you my preference, so. It was fun to revisit Darrel Rivers and group again. I never knew that the second series of Malory Towers was released last year - with Darrel's sister Felicity taking the lead. As is the case with all sequels, it is not as good as the first series. But the characters are nearly the same as Darrel's batch. The names are new though. So it helps. I liked it. There's nothing to not like.

Have you been watching the soccer WC? I prefer Indian Idol! But I gave in to the pressure after my FB homepage was full of self confessed "soccer freaks" (that only remember they like the game during WC - I think they watch it for the WAGs. I know all the abbreviations, see?). Then of course are the genuine ones. Some of my friends. They bunked/ reconsidered taking university exams because they had matches to watch all night. I say this passion for soccer in Indians comes from the lack of pressure to win. Cricket has been disappointing recently. Anyway coming back to succumbing to the pressure of watching soccer. I tried last night. But slept off. In a match between Italy and Paraguay, even I know who will win. Not Paraguay by a long shot, right? Let me go check. Ah! It was a draw. What do I know about soccer?

Am I the only one who has extremely annoying relatives on Facebook? The ones who dispense random gyaan that sounds like the back cover of the cardboard bound registers we used to scribble math sums on in school? Quotes on leadership and other such trivial matters in status updates. It gets annoying, doesn't it?

While we are on relatives (and friends), I have a new pet peeve. Why can't a married woman be low without being asked if she had had a fight with her husband? And why can't she fall sick without people asking her or secretly wondering if she is "carrying". Don't get me wrong, my fights with R make me miserable. But it helps that our fights don't last longer than a couple of hours. And no, we don't pretend to be the samajhdaar couple that doesn't sleep without resolving the fight. When we fight, we fight. And we are secure enough to know that neither of us will run off in the night if we don't resolve the fight before sleeping off at night. That said, if I am upset for a couple of days at a stretch, slim chance it is because of a fight. And if I am unwell for over 3 days, please be aware that I am absolutely non-immune to running noses and violent coughs. And much as I want to have kids, I am not "carrying". Yet.

Why can't we enjoy monsoons and pakodas and chai and all the bliss that comes with it without running the risk of catching a cold/ coughing for an entire week/ getting stuck in traffic for hours/ auto drivers demanding the moon to take you home (YOUR home, you dirty people!). Not that I have to deal with auto drivers too often now. Just saying. So the other day I was galivanting in the scorching heat, when the weather suddenly took a turn, and it rained. And the next day I was coughing and sniffing and considering going on sick leave. I didn't. But I remembered another era. When a bunch of us would take internal exams, then sit at a friend's house till 2:30 am, and then ride all the way to Mahabaleshwar on bikes that didn't have gears (to start with), and back, all in a matter of 15 hours. During the crazy Maharashtra monsoons. 15 hours of being drenched on the road. On bikes. I can only imagine how the wheel of the world would stop turning if I did that now. 2 hours, may be. 3 is good too. Not getting drenched and going on abnormally long drives in the pretty red ride we have - that would be something! We are getting old. OK R would not like it if I said this about him on a public forum - he is still my young and dashing Ranchi ka Rajkumar ;) I am getting old. Am I complaining, still? Not in the least :-)

Speaking of weather, I have been unbelievably lazy the last few days. I have been going through the motions of getting up, getting dressed, getting to work, cooking, and all that. But at the back of my mind I can only think of sleeping. Sleeping like there is no tomorrow. Sleeping at the risk of missing the little pleasures of watching the little maid of Nepal/ Mr Frasier Crane/ life in action. And I am not the only one. At the entrance of my office building, I see 3 dogs every single day. They don't move. I am not kidding you. You can do a hop, skip, jump, and they will just about open their eyes, look at you sleepily, and go right back to sleep. Ok now I am talking non sense.

Speaking of office buildings, is it just me that finds these sprawling tech parks a tad bit obscene, to say the least? I mean I am all for a comfortable office to work in. But the amount of land that is wasted on making these sprawling campuses in a country where wealth is not justly (that's a word, I just checked) distributed at all, for people to code comfortably, or make pretty PPTs, or whatever. It's all good. But whatever happened to that thing called practicality? Usability? Usefulness? I don't even particularly like the sprawling building societies, but I don't think I will be able to help living in one of them. I can avoid working in suburban tech parks. So far I have managed quite well. I like to be in the middle of all the action. Know what I mean? It is more about perspective I guess. The same contrasts make sure I am always in awe of Bombay. I respect Bombay for the same contrasts that I dislike Bangalore for. Do I have to think fairly all the time? Or at all? Do I even need to start explaining that I am right? Of course I am!

Coming back to my love for Bangalore (I mean it. This city is by far the best I have lived in. Even Bombay had its faults. I live in a house/ city where I can get pin drop silence when I want to, just when I want to. That says more about Bangalore vs Bombay than anything ever will), the weather is magical. My sister is coming here in a little over 2 weeks. And I have a birthday to celebrate and plan for in exactly 1 week+1 day.

Life's good? Couldn't be better!

:-)

P.S. - Did you actually read this load of crap? You must really love me!

Home is just a place..

Bombay has sea. And restaurants overlooking the sea. And amazing people.

Bangalore has R. And rains. And magical weather. And places like this.

Who do you think wins?

:)

Summer snow

The weather prediction on my desktop says "Snow" for Bangalore today. Why not? After Bombay, 21 degrees does feel as cold as snow to me! Especially at this time of the year. Be jealous, be very jealous!

I know.. I know. I am getting extremely repetitive :P

When I say "awesome" and aaaargh" together

Traffic kills in the morning, heat kills in the afternoon, awesome weather and clouds and breeze and rains kill in the evenings, mild fever and related delirium kill at night. Day after day. Night after night. The magic of Bangalore. I love it. I do!

P.S. I can't get over the forever changing weather here. Neither can my immune system :(

Perfect evening

I envy people who can sleep peacefully in the afternoon. That's how at least one of the two weekend afternoons are supposed to be. I have some sleepy afternoons too - few and far between. R on the other had can sleep anytime and wake up happy. My few afternoon naps make me very snappy in the evenings... 

This was what I was going to crib about when I thought of writing this post out of sheer boredom. But then look at the weather. Even I can't crib with the last bit of Saturday sunshine streaming into my house through the clouds. It's drizzling. And the plants in the balcony are as happy as me. I know I write about the weather nearly every weekend, but I can't get over how disciplined the Bangalore weather is. No matter how hot weekdays are, weekends are always rainy and pleasant. I love this city. I am lucky to be here. Irrespective of how much I crib about it. You win some, you lose some! But in Bangalore, you lose less, you win more, especially if you are the also the kind of person whose moodswings are guided by weather and weather alone. So here I am. Blogging. Happy. Surrounded by rain on one side, and orange and yellow cushions on the other. And the bright glass of Tang is looking at me with glee. And there is complete silence, something I am no longer used to. (In my defense, I did try to wake R up but he just won't budge!) The song of the moment... It was all yellow. This is one of my many "happy places"... Ones that I think of longingly through the rush of weekdays. Perfection.

Rant Alert

Booking a cab in this godforsaken city is a PAIN. Let's start from where it's always good to start... The beginning. Yesterday I walked for some 30 minutes because one of the most normal things people do in Bangalore is shut down roads for "maintainance" whenever they feel like. JLT. No information nothing. So I got off the car midway, took an auto, then got off the auto, walked on for an eternity, fought with a couple of auto drivers, and finally made a traffic policeman feel guilty for my misery and he instructed an auto driver to help me get to work. I took an auto back home last night too - a good 2 hour in traffic. Woke up with a terrible stomach ache back ache headache and I would have been excused from work on humanitarian grounds (I almost wrote an sms to my boss telling him I was dead). But me, being me, had to get to work, ESPECIALLY today. I am quite sadistic that way.

Anyway so the mutual decision was to book a cab. Now in other cities and with other people, you call the cab company, they take down your address, the cab driver calls you once for directions, he generally understands your language, and the next you hear from him is when he is right outside your door.

But Bangalore wouldn't be Bangalore and I wouldn't be me if things worked like this. So you first call the cab company that has a manager who refuses to hear you out and just says the cab will be on its way in 10 minutes. Now nearly all areas in Bangalore have two names - one is for the locals with colonial hangover, and the other is for the same locals after they realise how difficult it for them to pronounce Angrezi names. One cool, one not so cool. So I live on Wind Tunnel Road, also known as Murgeshpalya. I got a call from the cab driver and he mumbles something. I say Wind Tunnel Road. He says "AAAAAN?" I say "WIND TUNNNNEEELLLLL ROOOAAADDDD". He says "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN????" I say "Murugeshpalya". He still says AAAAAANNNN?

Frustrated, I call the cab company. They say they will try to make him understand. I start rambling my address, and they say tell the cab driver. Ok which part DON'T you get? The cab driver doesn't speak my language and that's why I called YOU, YOU MORON! His reply.. Of course.. AAAAN???

By now I was hurling abuses at myself for having gone to school. See it's easy. You don't go to school->You don't go to college->You don't work. Life's good that way you know.

Anyway back to the point, Mr AAAAAN calls again. Someone get me an award or something. I AGAIN try to explain to him how to get to where I stay. All my attempts fall on deaf ears. The ones that make you go "AAAAAAN???" Screw you man! Called the cab company again and the man in question says he will ask the cab driver to understand me. That must be the funniest line I have ever heard. Only I was in no mood to find anyone funny. So I hurled some abuses in my head and feebly said "I can't wait for him to go to school and finish his hindi classes so he is fit enough to take me to work" and banged the phone as hard as you can bang a cell phone down. And boy! The cab company manager actually got my point. I got a call in a minute from someone who spoke english, knew Murgeshpalya.. Hell he even knew Wind Tunnel Road. Beat that! Just when I was about to fall flat at God's feet for miracles like these, I get a call. He says something totally incomprehensible. All I hear is AAAAANNNNN. Yes. Again. This time around I asked him to handover the phone to someone.. Anyone.. On the road. I explained the way to my house to some random Kannada stranger, who in turn explained it to the cab driver. And in 10 minutes I was on my way to work.

Now here's why I miss Bombay. They speak Marathi, which I had mastered in 2 months flat after I started living in Pune. That said, everyone in Bombay speaks a kind of Hindi which is wayyyy cooler than mine. And they definitely don't speak Kannada and the AAAAAN-Language. In Bombay, it's easy to know your Jogeshwari from your Goregaon. Why? Because they have RAILWAY STATIONS GODDAMNIT! And Powai. Everyone knows Powai even if it doesn't have a railway station. Because hell it doesn't have a railway station. And in Bombay if nothing works, there are always celebrity houses. Let's say I want to go to Fabindia in Bandra and don't know how to get there. All I need to tell the auto wallah is that I want to go to Gulzaar Saab's bungalow. And there you are. Some shopping and the smell of mangoes from Gulzaar Saab's garden (the latter of course is usually just my imagination running wild). If you want to go to the ICICI Bank in Juhu, you tell people you want to go to Amit Ji's bungalow.

Where on earth are the celebrities in Bangalore? Yedurappa you ask? Mujhe meri izzat bohot pyaari hai.

Screw Bangalore, screw the cab drivers (oh yes, I almost forgot - the cab driver fleeced me in Kannada. He charged me for 17 kms instead of 7. Ok he only tried. I am very particular about paying them extra. I probably would have in Bombay. Without any calculations. But I am beginning to realise what some locals in this city are capable of - auto wallahs or otherwise. Rude. Stupid. Complexed. Morons. The auto wallahs, the cab drivers, the bus drivers, the shop keepers, and my ex PM)

Where the f*** are the rains goddamnit???

There has to be an easier way of life. It's on days like this (and only on days like this) that all I want to do is sit at home, paint my (chewed off, non existent) nails, watch TV, and let the husband be the sole "beer winner" in the family. Just how bad/ difficult/ boring can staying home morning after morning be? Really!? Have you even heard of Big Flix?

AAAARGH!

Useless Information

You know bugs? Those irritating, ugly creatures that make their way to tubelights and bulbs around monsoon? For one I don't really understand what purpose they solve in the food chain. Nobody eats them, they don't eat anyone. Anyway that's not the point.

So when you think of bugs, you think agile winged creatures irritating the hell out of you simply by being there, hovering around tubelights and TV and pretty much all other sources of light in the house. At least those are the kind of bugs I have seen all my life. But not in Bangalore. Bugs in Bangalore don't fly even if they have wings. They crawl! Dark black things creeping on wardrobes and crawling around your slippers. And the speed is unbelievable. Even the bugs in Bangalore are lazy!

Why am I doing this "research" on "animals" when everyone I know knows I can just about tolerate all creatures except human beings (except cats of course. Cats I hate.)? Frankly, I don't know. I'll put it down as Friday delirium :P

P.S. My commuting time to work will reduce by one-third starting next week, without even moving out of our little house with orange walls. Company shifting offices to Koramangla.. Which obviously means more food and drinks and work and aaram. And the new office is bang opposite to a company that had offered me a decent role that I chose to give up in favour of better work and more commuting time (and I was almost regretting in the last couple of weeks). The amazing ways in which life just works out for you... It's awesome (errr.. Kaala teeka, touchwood, and all that!) :D

The green green grass of home..

That's a quintessential rainy Bangalore evening for you, mark the stark contrast. How can I not love this city? I so do! Never mind the tech parks!

Go Mumbai!

A Bihari who lives in Bangalore and roots for Mumbai in IPL.

That's national integration :D

Bangalore

After being hung on to Bombay like an obsessive lover, I think I am finally coming to terms with the fact that Bangalore is home. For now. I don't know where home will be in 10 years time, or whether home will be just a bend in the road or the real destination. But for now I am glad I love Bangalore. Yes, I do!

When I moved here last year, I fell in love immediately. But soon the realities of life struck. And the heat (apart from other things)... The only good thing in the Bangalore I knew was its weather, and come February, that too was done and over with! The city had no history, no culture - only tech parks, engineers, and all things frivolous... Or so I thought! Why did I care so much about that? I think because I didn't want to let go of Bombay. And also because Bangalore was too hot and I had too much time to start with and suddenly work was snowballing!

But I have been reading this book called Multiple City the last couple of days... A completely well timed gift I bought for myself last Saturday. And I know now Bangalore has more than just tech parks. It's really been around. From the Victorian times to when the cantonments got set up, to call centres and the booming outsourcing business. I have extremely strong views against outsourcing, always have. First it was a matter of principle (life does seem that much simpler when you are 21!). And then it became something I hated because I was stuck in a sad situation where outsourcing was a nice sounding, nice looking garb for laziness and intellectual masturbation, and they called it "having international clients". But it was only a situation I was stuck in. When you put some thought and perspective to it, outsourcing may not be for me. But it sure has done a great deal for the economy, and consequently, for mavericks like me. A History teacher in school used to always say that when something happens in one country, the rest of the world can't stay isolated from the aftermath. Starting from battles of power to technological advancement. And somehow this made a lot of sense to me as I flipped through the book.

I still don't know how much the book made me love Bangalore again - my first reaction on reading about Ranga Shankara was that if Bangalore has really been a breeding ground for some of India's best theatre talent, why is it that Ms Nag had to draw her inspiration from Prithvi Theatre? But I think I say such things only because Bombay was such a welcome change from Pune and my student days. And I was lucky I met some really awesome people in Bombay. But do I want to go back and live there? I don't know, really! But I do know that I like Bangalore for what it is, in spite of tech parks and rude auto drivers (ya OK so I can't get over them, kill me!), and IT folks, and not too many opportunities for people who define career as something that pays money and is fun, and isn't necessarily going one step ahead in the same direction year after year after year. You win some, you lose some! The idea of local trains can only be romanticized when you look at it in hindsight. I love Bangalore. There. I said it! And this time around, it's a decision I have thought through :D

P.S. - My newfound love for Bangalore might just have happened because this weather that I am so madly in love with, is back. And right now, in this little colourful place that's completely mine, I can hear the sound of the rain (and the generator :P) and I can feel the kind of emotions that only this city and its "cool wind in my hair" (and this shivers it sends down my spine on rainy nights) can evoke. I am madly in love. In spite and because.

Little drops of happiness

Dekho baarish ho rahii hai, it's raining...
Raindrops keep fallin' on my head...
Tip tip barsa paani...
I'm only happy when it rains...


You get my point, don't you? Yayyyyyyy!!! :D

Btw this one's for the place I still call home..