Tag: bangalore

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Relationships on the run

Forget pubs, cafés, golf courses and cinema theatres. Dating, therapy, networking—it’s all happening as you sprint to fitness

Two years ago, Genieve Bodiwala saw Sandesh Shukla, 31, at a runner’s bash in Mumbai and fell in love. “I knew I wanted to marry him at that moment. From then on, I plotted to make him fall for me,” says the 32-year-old, who has participated in one marathon and 13 half marathons. Since they were both passionate about running, all she had to do was join the same running group, Mumbai Road Runners (Mumbairoadrunners.com), and then create a subgroup on WhatsApp to coordinate drills, go on treks, and spend time with him and a few other friends. “One day, while we were running, I asked him out,” says Bodiwala. Shukla and Bodiwala, who got married in December, did a 4-hour trek and a short run on Yala beach, Sri Lanka, the day after their wedding to celebrate.

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BONDING ON THE TRACK

Running, the new hangout activity, not only helps bring couples together but also keeps them together. A few years after their marriage, Bengaluru-based Jyothsna Reddy Bathula, 31, and Rahul Tripuraneni, 34, got busy with children, work deadlines and Tripuraneni’s parents, who live with them. “We just didn’t have enough time for each other,” says Tripuraneni. “At one point, we were worried about our relationship.” The couple decided to do something and zeroed in on running, since “Bangalore as a city is so pro-running”. For more than six months now, they’ve been getting up early and running 5km together while their three- and six-year-olds play in the park. “We are fitter, more energetic and spend time talking to each other,” says Bathula.

For many youngsters who are moving cities, running is a way to meet new people. Jay Ashar, 29, who works in the field of knowledge management, moved from Hyderabad to Mumbai. “Shikhsha Shah, a colleague from Hyderabad who had moved at the same time, asked me to join running and I did,” he says. It was during the long training periods prepping for a marathon, and volunteering activities, that Ashar got to know Shah better. “I used to take a train from Dombivali to Powai on Sundays just to train with her. If it hadn’t been for running, Shikhsha would’ve remained a colleague. Now we’re best friends,” he says.

THE CULTURE OF A GROUP

Giridhar Ramachandran, who has been studying social groups like running clubs at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, since 2013 as part of his doctoral research at the department of management studies, compares these groups to gali nukkads. These spaces, which have all but disappeared from the big cities, allowed people to meet, away from home and work. “Running clubs, a recent phenomenon, are the new nukkads,” says the 40-year-old. “In these spaces we don’t play a specific role, of an employee or a spouse, but are just there.” Ramachandran, who has interviewed people from various groups in Chennai, Bengaluru and Pune, says these clubs work as support groups too. Continue reading “Relationships on the run”

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Are stories real?

This story was recently carried in Swarajya magazine and got over 150 shares online. Thrilled! Editing this a bit and resharing.

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Of stories, Oh muse speak to me.

Some time ago, I took a friend and her nine-year-old daughter to Bull Temple in Bengaluru. It’s the place with one of the country’s largest monolith bull, in the shape of Nandi, the servant bull of Shiva. The majestic Nandi far surpasses the tiny Shiva here, who you almost miss in a small alcove behind the bull. He is spectacular in size, structure and sheer architecture. To excite her, I promised this little lady, who was still sleepy and not too thrilled with the idea of seeing a temple, with a true story after she had seen the Nandi.

Once she was dragged her feet around the bull inside the temple, we sat outside in the temple courtyard, the black sculpture of Nandi behind us and I began the true story I had heard from someone at the same spot the first time I had come to the Bull temple:

“Hundred of years ago, Nandi, one of Shiva’s bravest warriors, was invited to come to the city of Bangalore to save it from its enemies. With all fanfare, a small statue of Nandi, the bull, was placed on top of a hill so that he could protect the city. But there was something special about this bull. Every morning when the people living around the hill woke up, they would find that the Nandi’s sculpture had grown in size. So it kept on happening again and again. At first the statue became the size of a dog, then a bull, then an elephant, then a dinosaur. This caused fear in the masses. Politicians and the adminsitrators of Bengaluru became afraid that if the bull keeps growing and becoming bigger and bigger, it will destroy their entire city. That was when a poet suggested that they build a temple around Nandi. If he is indoors, the poet predicted, he wouldn’t be able to look at the sky and his desire to grow more and more will stop. That will save their city. And so it was done. A temple was built around this ambitious Nandi, the walls so close that the ceiling touches the Nandi’s golden horns and there’s barely space enough to for the Nandi to stand inside. And as soon as a structure was created around the Nandi, the dinosaur-sized bull stopped growing in size, content to remain at that size forever.”

‘Is the story real?’ asked the nine-year-old wisely. ‘Yes, I think it is,’ I answered, ‘the person who told me, told me it was a true story.’ ‘No, you’re making this up,’ she replied, looking up to her mother for confirmation. Her mother, in an equal mood to make her daughter believe answered, ‘It could be real.’ She looked back at the majestic monolith of Nandi, doubt in her eyes, but also a newfound interest. Her mother looked back at me and smiled, conspiratorially. We had done it. We had plotted magic in a child’s heart.

I came back home and started to wonder why more and more of the children I see are not ready to believe in things beyond their five senses, in anything beyond rationality. I ask this to all children I meet in the various workshops I conduct in schools. They call believing in anything other than what’s been proved by science as superstition.

To a four-year-old who I met at a party one evening, I asked if he knows why we don’t see stars in the morning. When he shook his head, I told him because every morning a monster called the Sun gobbles them up. So when you see Sun, you cannot see the Stars. For a second, I saw doubt in his eyes and then he shook his head. ‘Not possible,’ he answered. When with all the dignity of my adulthood I insisted that that was the truth, he went back to his parents to confirm.

We have become a rational, logical society. So much so that we explain to our children that myths and all stories they hear are not real, not factual, but lies and fiction. In our eagerness to divide and tag everything with ‘facts’ and ‘fiction’, somewhere we lose out on the magic and in many ways the emotional truths that stories carry in themselves. Stories can capture the truths of love, creativity, imagination, dreams, aspirations and emotions, the way facts never really can. They give us a glimpse into another world. A world which is beyond what we know or understand, can touch, see and feel. They bring a sense of wonderment, of mystery, of the unknown, of possibility. Stories make us dream, so that we don’t live by the rules and facts provided to us, but make new rules, new societies, new cultures. Stories make us creative, they make us look at ourselves in a new way and bring about change in our beings.

By telling us tales of other people, other creatures, other cultures, other beings and other societies stories show us a different point of view and make us more accepting of differences. They make troll less online and accept that there can be multiple perspectives to the same thing, with none of them being completely wrong and none of them being completely the truth too. They turn us into mature, accepting beings.

I end this blog with yet another story, which my Nani told me a few months ago, sitting in her bedroom. She’s 75 now. I am, well, have been an adult since quite a while. Still, she sat me down like I was the little kid I used to be, her rheumy eyes watery (she has acute cataract and can barely see) and her voice quavered as she told me this story. A true story, she insisted which she had heard from her brother who had been to Haridwar recently, who had heard it from someone who had in reality experienced this:

‘One day in Haridwar, there was a fat-fat lady. She was so fat, so fat, so fat (Nani’s hands spread wide) that her body could barely fit into a car’s backseat. She stood on a road, asking for a ride from a rickshaw-wallah to Hari-ki-paudi, the popular holy ghat on the banks of Ganga. Since the fat-fat lady was so fat, no rickshaw driver was ready to take her up to the ghat, which is a winding road that goes up and then down and up again. She seemed too heavy! She asked many rickshaw drivers, and all of them refused. Finally a thin, scrawny driver pitied her and agreed to take her. He helped her alight on the rickshaw and started to peddle. Surprisingly, though she was so fat, the driver could peddle the rickshaw as if it was empty. She felt weightless.

‘He kept on turning back to see if the fat-fat lady was still on the rickshaw. God forbid she should fall! It was an easy ride for him and he reached the steps of the ghat, the Hari-ki-paudi. The fat-fat lady stepped down and said, “Please wait and take me back. I will just take 15 minutes for a quick dip in the Ganga and come back. Till then, hold on to this. It’s for you.’ With that she took out a handkerchief which was tied into a small pouch from her fat bosom and gave it to the rickshaw-puller. He nodded and waited. Fifteen minutes passed, then thirty, then an hour and then an hour again. The driver started to worry. Had she drowned? Worried, he went to the ghat and inquired. A lot of bathers saw a fat-fat lady go into the Ganga to take a dip but no one saw her come out. One bather informed him that he saw her clothes, floating in the water, but no woman inside them. ‘Poor lady,’ cried the rickshaw driver, ‘she has drowned in the waters of Ganga! She was so fat!’ He finally remembered the little handkerchief that she had given him and opened it. The kerchief had precious emeralds and rubies and diamonds! He went back to the same road he had picked her up from and inquired about the fat-fat lady. Finally he found out that the fat-fat lady had lived in an ashram in Haridwar. She was a rich lady and had died there with a wish to take a dip in the Ganga on her lips. She had died a year before she had met the rickshaw driver! ‘She was a soul who needed to take a dip in the Ganga to be released,’ he thought, ‘and because I happened to help her that she gave me so much money.’ The precious stones had made him enough money to make sure that he and seven of his generations wouldn’t need to work. ‘This is the biggest tip anyone will ever get,’ he thought before giving his rickshaw away. He wouldn’t need it now. This is a true story. My brother heard it from a guy who had happened to meet the rickshaw driver.’

Thank you, Nani, for making my eyes go round with wonderment, even though I insisted after the story had ended that there was no way it could be a true story. Could it?

PS: I hope instead of facts in comment boxes below, everyone tells stories and tales that they heard in temples, roadsides and from grandparents that made their eyes pop out in wonder.

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Teaching comics at Bookalore

Making comics is such a difficult task. I have always appreciated the dedication and the love of comics in artists that i meet every day online and offline. So it took me a while to say yes to the kind people at Bookalore when they suggested that I do a comics workshop in their July event for kids. I went back to the drawing board (my whiteboard in my study) and figured what to do with kids. How does one teach about making comics? As a writer that too? So I asked Bangalore-based, soft spoken artist Ojoswi Sur to join me in the workshop to give an artist’s perspective to kids.

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It was all experimentation on our part. We loosely structured the workshop and decided to give the kids the basics of comic making (panels, balloons for dialogues, types) and gave them a chilling scene from The Ghost Hunters of Kurseong and see what they came up with. The results were surprising and so much fun! The kids huddled, discussed, wondered, had a nervous breakdown, scribbled, begged each other for erasers and mostly I hope had a grand time. Of course I had grossly underestimated the time they would need to make comics and given them a long scene (poor things), so none could complete the effort. But they did have a gala time and I requested them to complete the comics at home and email them to me. Hope some do.

Some pictures that my dear, dear Ashwani who always comes with me to workshops, took. Enjoy 🙂

If the pictures don’t open in your browser, see them on either of these links: Google+ or Facebook depending on your choice of network.

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An auto driver’s story

198_Para_autorickshaw_thumb.jpgI don’t really know his name. Never needed it I guess. The conversation with him happens because we cannot find a parking spot. It is eight in the night on a road near Commercial Street. The shops are still open and cars fill the tiny road. Me and husband are hungry and want to buy a burger from a shop nearby. A rickshaw driver stands parked on the road, blocking the space our car can fit it. I get down, request him to back it a little and direct my car in triumphantly. While the burgers are being ordered, since I stand just outside the car and have nothing else to do, I ask the auto fellow about whether he had broken his Ramzan fast yet (he wears a skull cap, it is Ramzan month and he looks in his 60s, someone who would keep the fasts. I know I assume but in this case it works.). He nods and then begins to tell me his story.

He’s been driving an autorickshaw on the roads of Bangalore since fifty years and lives in Shanti Nagar. His driving has paid for his children’s education and he has six of them, four daughters and two sons. A few of them, he informs me, have completed college and are now working at different places in the city. In fact, he is there at Commercial street to pick up his eldest daughter who works in a shop nearby. His mornings are busy too. He drops off one daughter to college and the second to this shop at Commercial street. In the middle, he plies the auto on the streets of Bangalore and earns for his family. He is happy, loves Bangalore and its people, though he feels that the politicians and the government don’t care two hoots about the city. But Bangalore is made of better people than Chennai. Tamilians, he says are grumpy people who fight a lot. I ask him what language he speaks at home. Urdu, he replies, though his children are much better with Kannada and English.

We have become friends now, though we were strangers ten minutes ago. I tell him my story. How I came to this city and love it here. He asks me whether I want to sit in the auto’s back seat and offers it like he would ask someone to sit on the sofa at his home (in spite of the fact that I am standing next to my car). When my burgers come, I bid him an unemotional bye. Story has been told and I am hungry enough to be distracted. But the old man cannot let me and husband go. He gets out of the rickshaw and stands next to the driver’s seat. My surprised husband looks up at this old fellow who keeps on blessing both of us and our relationship. He’s emotional, he’s happy, he waves and calls me his sister and then perhaps remembering his age, calls me his daughter.

I wonder what made him so happy. Was it because I listened to his story? Or because I from the privileged lot (who owns a car and wears modern clothes) stood there and chatted with him like an equal? Was it my age or my social standing as he perceived it? He was an eyeopener to me. Someone who has taken care of six children in Bangalore and made them study hard, all while driving an auto rickshaw. I know I could have never done it myself.

Image for representation only. Unfortunately, I just remember this man. I didn’t ask his name and neither did I take a picture of his.

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Working for giants

Advertisements have always fascinated me. They reflect desires, cravings and thoughts of the people that they are aiming at. Ads, all be it print, or television or online, show who we want to become, what we aspire towards. I was browsing in the morning through the Thursday edition of my loo-paper, Bangalore Mirror, when I came across these two advertisements in their recruitment section:

Now, let me add in a disclaimer before I continue – this blog post is NOT about the companies to whom these adverts belong to. It is just about what I thought about when I saw these ads.

 

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Both these recruitment ads target middle class professionals (in Bangalore) with something that they would want: Work with a Giant or a Global Organisation or an MNC. It’s something that Indian professionals aspire towards—a big, fat, well-known giant of a company. To work for a big organisation which has gazillions of employees. And maybe big, fat, giant cheques too. Bigger, the better. Big is good, giant is simply spectacular. It’s about feeling good that your name comes before a well-recognised brand, an MNC/foreign brand. Working for a Giant is about aspiration. Like in the second ad which shows a young woman and says: My parents are proud of me (because I work in an MNC. Rhymes, too!). Indians want to work in big places. Bigger the company, better it is for one’s ego. Bankers prefer to give loan to people who work in these giant organisations, thinking it might be safer to. If you tell a banker that you work on your own, the assumption is, I don’t know how much you earn, so I won’t give you a credit card.

In the pubs, over a drink, you hear proud, arrogant conversations like: I have just joined (add big brand MNC name) company. If the person sitting opposite doesn’t work for a giant, she answers apologetically, that she’s on her own, or works for some relatively unknown mid-size company. Come to think of it, the person might be saying that one is a VP or CEO of an organisation (big giant ego-tags instead of big giant company tags).

Ironically, I have never heard these conversations veer towards what these two people might actually be doing in the big or small company. For what kind of work you do, is not that important, not for parents or friends or relatives. There are two things that everyone wants to know, actually three: your giant position, your giant company’s name, your giant paycheck.

An NRI lady, who has returned from the USA to open an NGO in Bangalore, noted the question that people ask her in this city: Where do you work? (as opposed to What do you do?) Since then, I (who work on my own and I am NO giant) have noticed what people ask me as conversation starters: Where do you work? AND Who do you work for? When I tell them, they lose interest. It’s as if the servile mentality which started with the 200 years of British rule still continues in this city (I work for the British government as a clerk, said proudly). But, what about the kind of work you do in it? Are you a clerk in a big org?

I just remembered an incident which happened to me at the passport office in Bangalore last year. The IAS officer (the final one who took the passport for renew) asked me where I worked. When I replied, on my own, a conversation of assumptions developed. His assumption was: Oh, so you are a writer, eh? That’s not a career/profession. He was sure about it. When I asked why, his answer was, it doesn’t pay much, does it? Then it’s just a hobby and not a career. With that he dismissed me. As if, I, as an un-earning member of the society, who does uneconomic things like writes blogs all day for free view and stories for pittance, is not doing something worthwhile, for a simple reason that I don’t contribute to the economics of the society. That’s the aspiring middle class of India today. That’s most of  the people you meet in Bangalore. They want giant jobs, giant salaries, giant cars, giant houses to appease giant egos.

And I am a little ant in a world of giants. I like it that way.

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yellows at lalbagh

yellows at lalbagh, originally uploaded by Shwetawrites.

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Sanskrit Book Fair 2011 in Bangalore

 

It was a place to remember and a place where some prejudices about Sanskrit, our ancient language, were discarded. Spent a day at the grand Sanskrit Book Fair cum conference held in Bangalore. With 1300 volunteers, 154 stalls with 128 publishers and 4 crores worth of sales (took it form the same website), the fair was a grand success. See the enthusiasm and energy for yourself.

 

Outside the book fair

 

I was also surprised by the sheer amount of people who spoke fluent Sanskrit (Read up the Wikipedia entry on it). Enthusiastic city dwellers, villagers, students, teachers, scholars and passionate people were just ambling along the area suffused with sunlight, chattering with people in sanskrit, picking up books, hugging each other like long lost friends and generally having a ball walking in the midst of the ancient language. The book exhibition was huge with publishers and titles from across the country on epics (which is why I was there). They also had a village built into the exhibition area (other than the all pervasive food stall of course) which had a post office, a school, a repair shop, a vegetable seller, the works.

 

Enthusiastic seller of vastra!

 

Modern reading and writing in an ancient setting

 

Kudos to the NGOs and the government that made it happen. I aim to learn the language and practice it at the fair next year (or is that too hopeful?).

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Notes from Road Trip 2011

Just a short photoblog on a trip which cannot be explained in words which limit one’s sense of experiences. Me and husband travelled across the hinterland of Maharashtra and N.Karnataka during the 26 January week this year and here’s what we learnt and unlearnt

We reached Pune from Bangalore, a total of 850kms in 13 hours flat taking three short breaks. All thanks to NH4, part of the butter smooth quadrilateral road (Quad) which connects Bangalore to Mumbai. Though the scenery is a bit boring (shrubbery for most part), the wind mill farms in the middle near Chitradurga more than make up for it. I didn’t know that a single wing of a windmill is longer than an airplane’s wing! It made me wonder why we don’t use more of wind and solar energy in this vast country of ours.

Amidst work days, we spend the evenings gallivanting across Pune and exploring it’s great street food culture. The thriving energy that one sees in this city is something which I haven’t seen yet anywhere else. The weather’s like Bangalore, the crowd of chattering students bring in a pure brightness to the atmosphere which work-stricken IT crowd can never bring in with all their ‘hobbies’. What I liked best was the street food—Misal Pao, Dabeli and those sumptuous street sandwiches (which also include a chocolate sandwich!), cut fruits aesthetically given to you @ Rs 10 per plate. Street innovations are part and parcel of both Mumbai and Pune and something that make both these cities special. Really loved the Irani chai @ Café Goodluck. Must visit for the mood if nothing else.

 

We spend a day walking around Shanivar Wada which was miss able and the Kelkar museum–a surprise in its cleanliness and detailed descriptions which I havent seen in many museums in the country. What I also enjoyed is seeing 18-19th century household items in a museum. With so much history, museums in India usually don’t go beyond 17th century (less than 500 years old? Don’t even call it heritage). The most interesting was reading the history of paan making and all the tools (yes, tools) to make them.

A must-visit is the lavish Agha Khan Palace, which is forgotten by even Pune-ites. It’s the last rest place of Mr Gandhi and the place where his wife and his closest aide took their last breath. It made me see how a great man is made by dedication and love of not-so-known loving friends.

Pune has the best hill views too. Take a short drive and you are suddenly beyond the city, though looks like it will change fast as there are huge amounts of real estate projects working their way skywards around the city. One must-visit is the Corianthan Club, a beer brewery and a damn fun place. Met the owner, who works with passion and dedication, a deadly combination.

 

There’s not much to do in Aurangabad in terms of places or food. It seems to be a bubble, living in the same space for the last 15 years (or more) years. Take a walk around Paithan Gate, Gul Mandi, Aurangpura and Nirala Bazaar if you feel like getting crowded and need a buzz. We were staying at a homestay where the family saw saas-bahu serials in the evening together. The city is more of a stopover for the next ones and definitely worth it.

 

they made you wonder. How could someone with relatively rudimentary tools, carved out such beautiful and breathtaking sculptures and monasteries out of solid rock? And then plaster them and paint them exquisitely? All done up around 2000 solid years ago. I mean, really? Was I dreaming? The hardwork, the patience and the focus required for it is something that the multitaskting, multi-clicking generation of us cannot even think about. The place was one of the most beautiful heritage sites I have ever seen. If you want actual information on Ajanta, don’t look here, check out Wikipedia. I will be silenced and just say this: if you havent seen it, you should. It’s something that just cannot be missed. Oh, and the weather is always dry and hot so keep the sunscreen, hat and water closeby.

 

We had seen Ajanta, so what could better it? Ellora was it. Ajanta which is an earlier period, astounds you by the extent of carving and excavating that people at that time did to create these retreats. Ellora on the other hand, from about 600ACE, astounds you by the sheer size and detailing in temples than can be carved out of a mountain. Kailasa, the largest cave in the group of 34 caves (It’s called Cave 16) astounded me by the sheer size first, then the planned temple area (they didn’t just put rock somewhere, but excavated to finish a temple) and finally by the sculptures created in relief all over the temple. Complete Ramayana, Mahabharata episodes, avatars of Vishnu. Most of all, Shiva in iconography which I hadn’t seen much – killing Mahashisura, Kalabhairava in his wasting away to a skeleton when he’s dancing to destroy, Shiva and Parvati playing dice, getting married. The iconography was more sensual, more in your face than the apologetic ones we see at present. I have already been inspired by what I saw and am doing a comic series on Shiva with a friend!

Cave 29 was again huge and is a must to see the sculptures which have been cut beautifully. In Cave 12, which is an earlier Buddhist temple and has three levels of building excavated into the hill side, we found a group of Buddhist monks from China performing puja in a hall with carved Buddhas. I wonder what made Buddhism end in this country. We even managed a video.

 

Monks perform puja in a centuries old temple

Daulatabad

And while you are visiting Ellora, don’t miss Daulatabad Fort. The fort itself is a marvel, since it was the unconquerable fort and named Daulatabad after the hoard of treasure it had lying somewhere inside. I feel the fort was made by someone who was on the brink (or maybe beyond) of paranoia of an attack from an enemy. Three levels of walls, big iron gates, two walls with dry and water moats – dug about 50 feet below! And if you get past all of that, you get into the Bhool Bhulaiyan, a thin passage which leads inside the fort, made of lightless corridors, meant to confuse the enemy and kill one another. We entered the darkness of the bhool bhulaiyan with a guide (and his reassuring mashaal). I had my hat firmly on my head as I could hear the bats chirping right above me, irritated at the glow of light inside their lair. That’s all that I might have been in danger of. As for the enemies in Medieval times, if they managed to save yourself from seeming exits which go straight into the water moat (with poisonous snakes and hungry crocodiles) you will be attacked by hidden soldiers, get boiling oil poured over you, or even die in the darkness suffocated by poisonous smoke. Sheesh! These guys were ruthless!

A long winding climb of 450 stairs takes you to a scenic view of the whole fort outer walls which cover the small town around the fort.

 

Our next stop was Bijapur. The roads we took, NH 211, NH 13, were both bad. Averaged 70kmph, saved ourselves from the potholes and dreamt of NH4. Nothing much to see in the dry, dusty city. The weather was oppressing and already had started to miss Bangalore’s soothing winds and filter coffee. Gol Gumbaz, the largest dome in the world without any supports looked more like an ego construction for a man who was living. It took 30 years to complete and was made by the king himself to be buried in it. It reminded me of the saying: the bigger the tomb, the smaller the XX. Later on got to know that the dome was built by the money he got after he pillaged and destroyed the kingdom of Vijaywara and its amazing cultural heritage. Yup, that’s a king all right. Ibrahim Roza, the symmetrical tomb of another king from the same dynasty atleast looked inspired. It’s symmetry is quite a site.

Bad roads all the way till here. Max average was 60. Potholes in the last 20kms. Walked for three hours around Badami. After the marvels in Ellora, the four cave temples (which are the first Vedic cave temples, as per the ASI board) were a bit of a let down. The sandstone caves are a different effect though. The swirling hypnotic lines of ochre, red, yellow, while and black, which make you slightly blurry but also bring the sculptures alive. Loved the walk from the lake upwards to the Shiva temples. Beware of the monkeys there though, they pounce at anything in your hand, thinking of a camera as biscuits. It was 26th January so saw the tiranga displayed everywhere—at Bijapur Gol Gumbaz as well as the Badami fort bastion.

 

Last leg of our trip were these two sites around Badami. Aihole is an experiment in temple making where you can find anythnig from symmetry to asymmetrical temples, square, round, pentagon, you imagine it and chances are the architectures there have build it. It was fun to see how someone is given an empty canvas (empty space and lots of rocks in this case) to get creative and figure out the best way to make temples. Which someone did do with Paddatakal which is a world heritage site and beautifully maintained by ASI. Kudos to them, it was a pleasure walk all though. Don’t miss Ravanaphadi @ Aihole though. This excavated cave surprised us with the most beautiful sculpture of Shiva I have ever set my eyes on. It’s the mast of my blog, by the way.

From Badami it was with a sigh of relief that we came back to NH4’s butter smoothness. A beautiful trip and an uneventful travel back home. Sleep and lots of new memories as keeps. Oh and one record? The two of us travelled 2800 kms and didn’t put on music even ones in the car. Opinionated or argumentative, you decide.

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Bowled over by Bangalore

It was while showing another friend this city that I found out how deep I had fallen for it. I never knew it existed. I should have, but like any other relationship, it’s always the family and closer friends who get to know that you are hooked. You never do.

Self-realisation is like myopia. Closer you are to a feeling, the lesser you see.

Slowly but surely, I have formed a steady relationship with Bangalore. It all started with little references to the weather, the innocent expressions and the drunken walk of people in casual conversations. Then it was little things I would smile about when I was about to sleep.

Thoughts of a perfect day gone by. When I took a walk on Sankey Tank as the sun melted into floating clouds. Animated, passionate conversations with people over a cup of filter coffee and how to brew a perfect cup. The personality of people based on the style in which they had a dosa. How we would laugh while taking a U-turn to go straight on a road. How a lazy conversation with a cop and a shrug accompanied by a smile can get you out of a possible ticket. A small chat corner that manages to make people in a 50m radius salivate. The red flowers which fall as the yellow flowers spread across shady trees on the streets. A hearty conversation with a woman who I just met on the road. Turtles and petals floating lazily in a dirty pond of an ancient temple. The cool feel of stone. The heady smell of agarbati, colourful pooja flowers and yellow lights that physically bind you in a magical spell. A rare bout of writing when my hands would glide madly looking for the right keys to be pressed while I looked out of a balcony.

Maybe it was the people I met. Maybe it was the weather. Maybe it was the work I did when I came here. Does it matter? I fell for this city. Isn’t that what love is? Little by little it gets under your skin, everyday, every moment.