The Real Bangalore

I just finished reading White Tiger a few days back and even though the book was nice, the one thing that really annoyed me was how people who are not from Bangalore look at this city. For the rest of India and the world Bangalore is this big cosmopolitan IT city. For the people who moved here in the last ten years after the IT boom, Bangalore is the city of opportunity, growth and traffic.
But for us? The kids who grew up here, we love this city for entirely different reasons.
Somethings only we will understand about this city. Unfortunately though, everything here except the weather has changed.

1) Airlines Hotel wasn't a smoking zone for aimless college kids, it was a place where families would come for breakfast every Sunday, and that one waiter would recognize your car and come running to serve you.
The swings were next to the kitchen and the hotel had a saloon called Cauvery and a super market.
2) Megabowl, next to the HAL airport was the place we loved. For the bowling and the fake Ice skating.
Also Aamir Khan had come there twice!
3) Golconda Chimney was the only decent place in Marathalli. And eating there, in the open terrace are was the best thing ever a kid because we could see all the planes from HAL fly over us. (they were so close!!)
4) Eden park off Cunningham road was famous for its mini bowling and food.
5) The Ice Cream Shop war was between Richie Rich and Lakeview.
6) Vidhana Soudha was open to public and all kinds of people would come there to sit on the grass with their families and eat roasted corn and hot kalepuri with nuts. And laugh at tourists who would get scammed by Polaroid photographers.
7) Fun World was our actually awesome! No other city had such a good amusement park within city boundaries. Every kid who went there would walk out with that soap bubble thing they sold outside.
8) Plaza theater showed 3D movies, like chotta jadugar and chotta chetan!  Now its a metro station.
9) Mr. Gullu and Mr.Chetty made chat and snacks themselves in Gullu's Chat and in Chetty's Corner.
10)Nothing could beat Bowring Stall's (when it was actually next to Bowring Club) kulfi and mango milkshake. 
11) Kempfort was every kid's paradise. I'm not sure if they actually sold any sarees in the ground floor. 
12) Sapphire's was like mini paradise. 
13) Most exciting periods of visiting KempFort and Kid'sKemp was meeting the cartoon characters outside.
14) The only KFC outlet in India was on brigade road. They were Blue themed that time. A zinger was less than 50 bucks. They served something better than the zinger for vegetarians called the paneer burger. They gave free kitchen tours to children. And hosted a Christmas party with Chicky and Santa every year. The Chicky dance!!!
15) Gangarams Book Store.
16) You or your friends would've definitely had at least one birthday party in the only Pizza Hut that time on Cunningham road.
17) Famous places on Brigade road- Wimpy's, Quality, KFC, Pizza Corner, Rex, 5th avenue  Victory Dry Cleaners, Sapphire's, Mota Arcade (and that simulator place inside)
18) You could count the number of international schools on one hand.
19) Your Cottonian friends would tell you stories about Ebeneezer.
20) Imperial had better kebabs than Empire
21) Kids would go to Bangalore's only proper mall, Shopper's stop only cause it had an escalator.
22) Rex and Symphony Theaters were related!
23) NASA and Purple Haze were the places we always wanted to visit as adults!
24) Single Screen Theaters- Naga, Ajanta, Cauvery, Lido, Rex, Galaxy, Symphony etc
25) St. Marks Road was a one way in the opposite direction


These are few things I remember as a child who grew up in this city.
And we love this city because we have memories attached to each of these places.

Kya Pehenti Tu?

In the afternoon today I was looking through a few old school trip pictures of 5th and 6th grade and I happen to come across a picture with me in a weird dance pose wearing florescent green shorts and a white T shirt. In 'hera pheri' style I could hear my friends laughing in the background just as they did on the day that photo was taken, at my green shorts. I remember going so red that I looked like a human Italian flag, Red face-White T shirt-Green shorts, hippie version.

Fast forward a few hours, while browsing Facebook I see on my news feed, pictures of few drunk school juniors posing together. Then I notice (it actually catches my eye!) a guy wearing similar colored green pants and a white shirt and it really didn't look like he was being made fun of for that ( You can tell because he wasn't hiding behind the rest of them, he was flashing the colours!). Now I arrive at two possible conclusions, either I was too fast for fashion, or fashion was too slow. Both ways, if someone saw that picture they would still wear shades and laugh, if you know what I mean.

So here is my question (and no this is not news hour on Times Now, India doesn't need answers to this, so don't yell at me please!), how subjective is fashion? What do you wear when?
Lets not talk about Paris and Milan fashion shows, everyone does that. Lets not even talk about dressing up for occasions, cause lets face it, I cant wear a Lungi to a church wedding, Jodhpuris to play chess or a grand sherwani to a funeral, few things we cant change.
Lets talk about daily, normal, no-workshop-uniform, college dressing.
 Really, Kya Pehenti Tu?

My mom tells me I have a very old man style of dressing cause I like going safe. She tells me I should experiment more with colours, like purples and pinks and yellows. As much as I don't mind dressing to match an endangered Pokemon species inside my room, I know if I wore purple and pink to college (especially in a mechanical all boys classroom) they'll make me dance like a Japanese school girl or some weird Korean singer on a horse.

My point is, if I may put it in scientific terms, that the your capacity to grow a pair and wear purple and pink to college is directly proportional to the capacity of your friends to control their urge to say ''BRO!!'' with watery eyes and not reach for their shades. Now if I were to make fun of the green pants junior like my classmates did to me years ago, they would call me uncle and walk away. Under dressing, Over dressing, Colourful dressing, monochrome dressing, any kind of dressing, doesn't depend on you, depends on who you're dressing for!
Like Homer Simpson would say to Marge "I'm not popular enough to make a fashion statement"

So what is acceptable as safe, average college dressing? The girls would pick up anything from Commercial street to Chemistry, somewhat mix and match and look presentable (except on bad hair days of course). The guys, would have to, and when I say have to I mean 'wash-hands-after-everything' have to, somehow show off a brand somewhere. Whether you buy it at the showroom, factory outlet, some city bazaar export surplus shop or from Bangladesh (a certain panda senior would agree), it has to have a some brand written somewhere!

Here is the twist, no matter who says, '' Bro,I'm dressing for myself, In what I'm comfortable wearing.'' He or she is always dressing for someone else to notice them. Usually its the member of the opposite sex, exceptional cases however, do exist, in classrooms like ours. So, like our taste in music, TV shows and actors, our dressing to is a consequence of what other people think, at least to an extent (how high the percentage of influence is depends on how well you can defend your flashiness and wear something even better the next day, conditions apply* obviously.)

Just a closing thought, I wonder why women who drool over men-in-uniform never have their eye balls pop out on seeing  traffic hawaldars or mech boys in workshop uniforms!



Disclaimer: The above stated viewpoint is a consequence of a combination of the author's experience, social akwardness levels and how well he knows his friends. If you agree with the stated opinion then nod and enjoy if you don't then the next time you meet the author please dress up in pink and purple and your point shall be proven. Thank you.

Dominos 'Life' Burst

People keep telling you that life has its ups and downs and we must face the downs bravely ...blah blah blah. But one thing no one will tell you but you will realize when I tell you that life has its own domino effects. (Just like the gorkhas asking for a separate state after the T's got their's). What exactly do I mean by this? Im not entirely sure myself, but, I can tell you this, that the gorkhas wont get a separate state!

Coming to the point, life's domino effects. When you're overjoyed and extremely happy, every small thing reflects that joy. The bright coloured clothes, the unusual no-road-rage-in-bangalore-traffic style driving, the loud and confident talking style, the red riding hood walking style, the ''I'm very happieeee with life'' extra lettered status updates, the big smile Facebook profile picture, the sudden love for friends and family, the politeness to canteen staff and last the dire need to spread this joy to the world. Everything signifies how happy you are. This is life's domino effect. However this is only one side of the coin, and because this isn't Harvey Dent's coin, there is an opposing side.

When the coin flips, the domino effect becomes worse. That is, when you're upset, it goes from hebbal lake to bay of bengal in no time. Quite often people our age suffer various setbacks, the degrees of which are subjective depending on each person. I might be really upset that my last chip fell on the floor and you might have a way better reason like herpes. 

 A more common problem you'll see all of us suffered from at one point or the other is loss of hope, and in extension to that self pity. Surprisingly this happens to the strongest of us, the ones who once had a domino effect of the previous kind. This, although, has major consequences. When one loses hope, they put themselves in a locked room (maybe literally), and get sucked into this black hole of depression. The profile picture is darkly edited, the status updates become one worded sprinklers of self pity and worst of all the once happy relationships with the people around start eroding in your viewpoint, like soil from our EVS textbooks.

From the Vaastu to the Vase, every small thing is blamed. When one loses oneself to self pity, they start disliking a lot of things, especially the people who are trying to get you out of it. Its like that feeling of extreme anger towards the one trying to get you out of bed early in the morning. The only way out of it, as I can see, is to get out of bed yourself. To reclaim lost territory. And to stop the domino effect then and there, find your old self again, your old friends, your old habits, your old profile pic and the bright coloured clothes again. 

Like they say, the only way to get out of quicksand is to stop struggling.

(And the only way to stop studying is write a philosophical blog post!)

The 21 Year Old Rat

The weather outside is amazing. Its that time of the year when young bangaloreans like us should be outside in one of the hundred open coffee shops the city is famous for.  However, some of us just aren't that lucky. We have to sit at home all day figure out what we want to do with life, and if you're the procrastinating type like I am, then sit and write a blog.

College comes to an end in one year. Everybody around you, your friends, parents, uncles, aunties, extended family, neighbor and even the apartment watchman expects you to know what you want to do next with life. 

And because I cant take more pressure than the atmosphere already exerts on my head, I've come up with a certain Plan A, Plan B and Plan C; and to an extent have started working towards Plan A lazily.

But, has anyone of the above mentioned people ever asked me, ''Machcha, is this what you really want to do?"  NO. No one cares what you really want to do, parents want you to have a good job, uncle and aunties don't want you to do better than their children and the watchman just wants you earn enough to tip him for his pan masala everyday.

Its not actually their fault also. Its mine. I don't have the balls to stand up to anyone and snatch the remote control that is controlling this electronic rat (me) beyond its battery capacity in this stupid rat race. I need a recharge, but we're Indians, we follow the dada-dadi commandments of life, ''Battery kyun change karna?! Paise waste mat karo! table par maro, jor se maro, chalege."

So while I prepare myself for yet another exam to satisfy my nine other heads, one bike ride in the rain and few slow songs later I have a hindi movie climax scene playing in my head:

The Villain part of my mind : What are you doing with life?

The Hero part of my mind : preparing for a safe, secure, boring, satisfy everyone life.

Villain: Are you having fun?

Hero : absolutely not

Villain: then why are you still doing it?

Hero: cause its what I've been doing since I could spell engineering, take the safest route possible.

Villain : thu!! *!@#$%%^

            live life freely man. what is this? yella OK, tension yaake?

Hero: But...

Villain: Aye man, listen to me, life is having 2 roads okay? one going to bus stop, where everyone climbing same bus, other going to cycle shop, where everyone take own cycle go own way. 

Hero: Saar, whatte thought. I'm inspired (without watching bhag milkha bhag)

After sitting and thinking for eternity I finally realize this is not what I'm going to do. So in a dramatic moment I enter my parent's room to snatch the remote control from their hands. They realize the rat has stopped working properly, so here comes the table banging question " If not this then what are you going to do beta?"

And dada- dadi were right. The rat started working again.