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Time of India

2 days ago

Despite Those Oodles And Oodles Of Puddles, My Love For The City Keeps Growing By The Month
Standing on the balcony of our hotel room near Langford Gardens, the 'beat' emanating from those heavy-duty loudspeakers on St Joseph's College campus was unmistakable. Chart-busting Eurodance group Vengaboys was performing live, and my sister and I were thrilled that those Rotterdam guys were closer than we thought – 'right here, right now'!
For, until then, the closest bond we struck with such foot-stomping stuff as'Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom', or 'We're Going to Ibiza' was only through the medium of the ubiquitous audio CD.
And here they were – playing live.
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That was the winter of 2000, and I was on my first visit to Bengaluru, then Bangalore.
Coming from Calcutta, now Kolkata, a city better known for staging the venerated annual Indian classical music fest, The Dover Lane Music Conference, than playing host to western pop soirees, what struck me that January night was the large number of youngsters making a beeline for the concert venue at the college ground.
Their energy, verve, tenor were so steeped in an inescapable urgency to live life to the fullest that it reminded me of what one of my JNU classmates had once told me. Knowing full well that I'd invariably be booking my Rajdhani ticket to Calcutta to respond to the allure of that autumnal zest that Bengalis love to refer to as 'Pujo', Jeesha Menon, a true-blue Bangalorean and diehard fan of Mahesh Dattani's theatre, told me: 'Skip the 'Pujo' once, Das, and come to Bangalore.
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Jeesha's invitation was politely turned down because being in Delhi had already made me too homesick to look for greener pastures other than Calcutta, but standing on that Langford Gardens hotel balcony on a chilly night in Bengaluru and watching those youngsters turn up for the Vengaboys concert made me realise what she had probably meant many moons back.
Jump cut to the summer of 2023. I return to Bengaluru, this time with a new job at TOI.
Lo and behold. The conceptual construct of a quaint, chic, stylish city -- based on what I had seen, heard and felt almost a quarter of a century ago -- was jolted by a reality check marked by potholed roads, abrasive driving, rush-hour road rage, all-too-frequent power cuts, dry taps and never-ending infra work pushing Bengaluru's brand equity as a 'Garden City' to the backburner, with invisible 'work-in-progress' boards hung all over.
Worse still, on the very first weekend after I landed here, my run-in with an auto driver off Brigade Road, who roundly abused me with expletives in Hindi, made me wonder whether it's the same city that had so impressed me with its sobriety and sophistication back in 2000 or, for that matter, the metropolis that Jeesha would go ga-ga about over umpteen cups of tea at JNU's 'intellectual hotbed' called Ganga Dhaba.
Yet, beyond the hustle bustle and the rough and tumble of this many-splendoured and often-misunderstood city lies the wider canvas of a melting pot, an 'existential angst' that shocks and enamours in equal measures.
If you opt to be numbed by the 'shock', then you'd certainly miss out on the finer points of life that this city offers.
And, if you prefer to only gloss over the endearing factors and live in denial of the squalor, you'd probably be denying yourself the other half of a lived experience – an experience that rolls detachment and engagement, love and indifference, agony and ecstasy into one composite whole like a Roman Polanski film.
Remember 'Bitter Moon'? Quite like the 1992 Hugh Grant classic, present-day Bengaluru makes you feel that you are the victim and the torturer – all at once.
Retribution can only come through accepting the fact that given those millions who have descended upon this city from all over the country to call this place their second home, self included, Bengaluru has been stretched to its maximum to make us all feel welcome and wanted.
The collaterals are concomitants.
The 'existential angst' was all too palpable when those 11 RCB fans lost their lives, trying to accord a heroes' welcome to the 2025 IPL champions. Many would question: 'Is this Bangalore? Whither Bangalore?' Personally speaking, those deaths, unfortunate as they were, perhaps bore one of the surest signs of a city having far extended its reach and appeal beyond its immediate geo-cultural template and emerge a lodestone for a much wider, varied audience – an audience bent on soaking up life even in all its frailties and perils.
Having spent two years in this city now, I can say this without a modicum of doubt that the abusive auto driver off Brigade Road, for me, is an islet of aberrance, an air-pocket of turbulence, but certainly not an apocalyptic wind system that would knock the daylights out of me.
Better still, I'd root for that auto captain who agreed to drop me to Richmond Circle from Garuda Mall for Rs 90, but as I was about to scan the QR code upon reaching the destination, said out of his own volition, 'Sir, 80 de do' (give me just 80), realizing that the evening traffic down Richmond Road wasn't all that bad.
As I mentioned earlier, Bengaluru for me is a melting pot of cultures, of identities, of a shared sense of belonging – much like what I had experienced in Dubai during my nearly two decades of living and working there. Quite like that charming UAE emirate, the Karnataka capital continues to roll out the red carpet to all those who keep streaming into this 'IT hub' in search of a better way of life and, perhaps, for more love per square foot.
Add to that the city's culinary delights, its vast patches of green that are unparallelled anywhere in India, its vibrant, pulsating nightlife, and, most of all, a god-gifted weather that doesn't punctuate conjugal bliss with the threat of 'kinetic action' unleashed over whether the room AC should be set at 18 or 24 at bedtime! On a more personal note, did I tell you that I've rekindled my love for vinyl after moving to this city? That record store on MG Road is such a treasure trove that I ended up buying a vinyl player, breathing new life into a childhood fascination – quite like revisiting those yellow, worn-out pages of a long-forgotten Scrap Book.
Though I continue to be a Bong at heart who's not ready to trade his 'mishti doi' for a plate of 'obbattu' – not yet, that is – I must still confess I'm besotted by Mysore Pak and delectable, slicky masala dosas, washed down with fresh filter coffee at some of those iconic Bengaluru eateries.
For me, this city is as much about its pain pit-stops as it is about its pleasure points. So, I'll continue to fret and fume behind the wheel as I negotiate oodles and oodles of puddles on a rain-soaked, bumpy drive down Bannerghatta Road, but quietly assuaging the frustration with this hope that the next visit to my favourite lounge bar atop World Trade Center or the next play at Rangashankara is just a weekend away.
Quantum of solace. Life's good.