Every summer, an ancient voice in me awakens, asking me to Do Things. This usually leads to dubious versifying about flowers and birds on Instagram; an annual search for white Lucknowi kurtas; and a weekend escape. Mumbai has my heart and soul, battered by rent, grime and other demons, but Bengaluru was for many years “the other city” in my life. It’s where I naively dreamt of relocating to, engineering a life rather than inheriting it. I’m now wise enough to realise that not all inheritances are obligations to be suspicious of. And so, “the other city” is now just another city, one that makes for fantastic fleeting visits.
A blossoming of books
My first response to Bengaluru is in the form of prolific sneezing. Pollen is an offshoot of the fabled green cover of the city, making every reunion a teary one for the allergy-prone. But merely one kind of teary reunion isn’t enough to satisfy my appetite. What a pleasure it is to walk along the narrow aisles of Blossom Book House on Church Street, where piles of second-hand books threaten to cave under the collective weight of well-catalogued human thought. If you’re there at the right time, you’ll be served a thimble of coffee by a staffer with jasmine in her hair, while a young man falteringly asks for help with a book for a lady friend who’s “into physics”.
There is, of course, the colonial-era café on St. Mark’s Road, Koshy’s, so evocatively captured in Ghachar Ghochar, the tiny yet terrifying Kannada novel by Vivek Shanbhag, translated by Srinath Perur. And the lovely old post office on Museum Road, whose illustration by Paul Fernandes — Bengaluru’s Mario Miranda — adorns a sling bag I carry. Then onwards to Residency Road’s Nagarjuna, where Andhra specialties like biryani and mutton fry make me temporarily reconsider my allegiance to my hometown.
{{/usCountry}}There is, of course, the colonial-era café on St. Mark’s Road, Koshy’s, so evocatively captured in Ghachar Ghochar, the tiny yet terrifying Kannada novel by Vivek Shanbhag, translated by Srinath Perur. And the lovely old post office on Museum Road, whose illustration by Paul Fernandes — Bengaluru’s Mario Miranda — adorns a sling bag I carry. Then onwards to Residency Road’s Nagarjuna, where Andhra specialties like biryani and mutton fry make me temporarily reconsider my allegiance to my hometown.
{{/usCountry}}Your charioteer swiped left
The famously sleep-inducing Bengaluru weather conspires with the richness of lunch to leave you in desperate need of bed, but the auto/cab driver who holds your immediate future in his hands swipes left. As does the next, and the next. Whether you’re looking for an auto or a cab, cancelled rides are a fact of life, as are lusty disagreements if you decide to be an anarchist and just hop into an auto off the street. Your charioteer will, invariably, conduct a Mahabharata-scale phone conversation for the length of your ride. Note to self: crack the metro.
Evenings in Bengaluru are bacchanalian, as anyone who’s ever walked around Indiranagar’s 100 Feet Road and 12th Main on a Saturday night doth know. I tried to get into Bob’s Bar on this visit, but it looked like there were generations of locals who had settled into the space with beers, cigarettes and conversations that could not be interrupted. The next morning, I was led to the MTR at Lalbagh where I jostled masses of coffee- and Pongal-lovers as I waited for my ghee-soaked dosa to arrive. It helped that the charming old eatery flaunted ‘50s-era photographs, art deco chandeliers and a rate card peppered with absurd decimals like .10 and .82.
My fudge is better than yours
If Indiranagar is a symbol of hyperactive, global-hubbing, future-facing Bengaluru, the Lalbagh Botanical Garden, just across from MTR, preserves its organic essence. From trees that originated in Mexico, powerful as Aztec goddesses, to petrified coniferous tree fossil from Tamil Nadu, said to be 20 million years ago, I spent a couple of hours away from the ghouls of war, Covid and GST in its springtime abundance. Humanmade horrors are, of course, inescapable, no matter how far you run. Part of the botanical garden houses works of art crafted out of old trees. I was horrified by one such installation, ominously titled ‘Mother Nature’s Womb’. Sculpted out of a 200-year-old mango tree, it features a tall, reclining female figure from whose navel emerges a full-grown head, with Medusa-like hair. Spooky.
Nothing like the hot chocolate fudge from Corner House to round off a trip to Bengaluru. Dilliwallas will judge me, smug in their Nirula’s nostalgia, but I think I’m on the southern side of things in many respects. Just as long as I’m back to the smelly bay before the new week begins.
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From HT Brunch, March 20, 2022
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