I met Emma while on a skiing trip to Auli, Uttaranchal in February 2005. It didn’t take long for us to connect!

After a tough day on the slopes we’d compare bruises, and try and keep out the cold playing poker, drinking hot chocolate and exchanging notes by the most favourite part of our dwellings - the bukharas. Besides, dancing, Emma also sings beautifully, we discovered. By the end of the week, we had invited each other to visit and since I was planning a UK trip, I told her I’d definitely get in touch. As it so happened, she was going to be in Barcelona during my visit and invited me to come there instead.

She’s one of the sweetest souls I’ve met - warm, giving and an absolutely beautiful human being!

This photograph was taken early morning with the sun rays streaking in. Emma had just put out her new Indian bedspread and it considerably brightened up the room, along with her smile!

Photographing children can be quite a delight – they usually have such mischievous, friendly, cute, unaffected and charming expressions – that capturing them on camera is a joy well worth the effort.

I was pleasantly surprised when this particular one was adjudged Photo Of the Week over at Bangalore Shutterbugs Flickr Group. I took this at the City Market where I had gone one Sunday morning on a photo shoot with a few others.

These three girls were standing beside the road, drinking water and I (thought I) managed not to attract their attention when I took it. Except the girl in the centre who looked up just as she was drinking. Which turned out to be a blessing after all, since she had quite a sweet expression on her face, just as she saw me clicking the picture!

This is inspired by the responses I got to the post about roads, which somehow got into a discussion about insiders and outsiders.

First let me say that I really think that I reserve the right to ‘crib’ on my own space. I think that as far as Bangalore goes, I have been a great champion of the city and have taken to it like a fish takes to water.

My friends in Mumbai are amazed that I turned ‘Bangalorean’ faster than I ever turned a Mumbaiite (even after 5 years there, I didn’t really feel like one). So when Shub writes about “her city” and how she cannot take a word against it, I must say that I gave this some thought.

Why can’t we take the facts? Just because it is ‘our’ city, should we be oblivious to the realities that exist? Should we as concerned citizens remain mute bystanders and just take anything that comes our way? I think without people who protest, raise dharnas, fight for their rights as a citizen, we would be still in the dark ages.

I think if you’ve been following my blog, I’ve been a champion of living in the city and the opportunities that exist here and harped quite a lot on the positive side. But I have to call a spade a spade once in a while. It is a known fact that infrastructure is crumbling and that the city is no longer able to cope with it. I am sure solutions will emerge in a few years. But are we to keep totally silent till then? And the sad part is that the government saw this development coming and still has not been able to do much about it. An editorial in The Hindu said that it’s not a problem of money, but of poor governance.

Maybe, things will improve over the years, but we all have our limits of patience and I think Bangaloreans are being tested to their limits already.

I object even more about being called an ‘outsider’. Not only have I settled into my life in this city, I am proud of it and what it offers.

And what is “my city” anyway? I have never lived in one for more than 5 years in my adult life. If I decide that this is the city I want to live in, earn a living and settle down, why should I be called an outsider and asked to leave? It is but a city in my own country, isn’t it? Why should I then be discriminated against? Just because I was not born here?

I live here, pay my taxes to this government, what else should I do to qualify as an insider? I strongly object to this and I think that only narrow minded people can still stick to the ideology that their state is for them alone. What happens to Mumbai, Delhi, Calcutta if they decide to throw out all the so called “outsiders”?

Some truly narrow minds still exist as displayed through anonymous comments and it’s rather shameful that they exist in today’s times, when what we should be thinking about is how to progress as a nation and not as individuals stuck in some pre-historic time zone clinging to concept of “my state, and my city” where everyone else qualifies as “outsiders”.

And what if all the countries filled with Indian immigrants like the UK and the United States decides to do this one day? We will cry out loud saying it’s racism and discrimination and yet it is as insidious in our own country, as is apparent by this particularly offensive comment, “The kannadiga anger is near the brim and one day when it would explode all of you would know.” What a crying shame.

I am a huge supporter of being a global citizen. People should be able to live and work anywhere in their country and the world, without being called outsiders and being told to “go back”. And go back where, I ask? I for one wouldn’t know where. I have lived all over the country - in Shillong, Guwahati, Pune, Sydney, Mumbai and now in Bangalore. So where do I really belong and where do I go “back” to?

Usha writes in this post, about how hurt she was after being called an outsider after 26 years of living in the city. “Happened to me when someone asked me if I was a kannadiga or an “outsider”in Bangalore. The categorisation seemed very clear. It did not matter that I had lived in this city for 26 years, considered it my home, spoke kannada better than some for whom it was the mother tongue and above all, loved the city. I own property and I have voting rights here. And yet, to be called an outsider in your home?! Now, that hurt, very very deeply. I did not know where I belonged anymore.”

And I totally understand how she would feel. Why are some people still stuck in these parochial worlds?

(Comments now closed on this post).

I have to write about two performances that I enjoyed in the last week.

One was last Sunday evening at the Palace Grounds - Octoberfest, the festival organized by Kingfisher. Since, beer is not something that tickles my fancy (or my tastebuds), I was hoping the music would be worth going for. On that note, I must also add, that I was pleasantly surprised by the way the whole set-up was organized. They had nice seating arrangements all around the front area of the stage, so you could chill out and eat your food and drink your beer and enjoy the music from wherever you were.

TAAQ ROCKS! : Sunday night was slated for Thermal & A Quarter’s (TAAQ) performance as Bijoy - who’s closely associated with the group - informed us as we were lunching together a few days prior. So, on a lazy Sunday evening, along with an even lazier Venx (it was only the promise of all my beer coupons that he agreed to accompany me) we made our way to the festival.

Bangalore, I must say, is pretty chilled out that way. Every weekend I decide that I will be a homebody and do something constructive like paint (or study for that matter). And then something more exciting invariably pops up – a concert, a food fest, exhibitions, plays etc. You won’t have a problem keeping busy here, that’s for sure.

Anyway, coming back to my initial point, TAAQ proved to be much better than I had initially expected. Though I had listened to a couple of their songs online, watching them live, was a different experience altogether. Lead vocalist, Bruce Lee Mani, and his team members – Rajeev, Rhzude, and Sunil - were delightfully good and had an appreciative audience to boot (amongst them a few drunk!), hitting the right note with Shine on you Crazy Diamond. Other than that, they mostly performed their songs and a couple of other covers.

I must say I spent most of the evening happily watching Mani and his rather awesome head of hair (and listening to him, of course :) Smita, the drummer Rajeev’s wife came up and said hello and said she reads my blog, which was really sweet. And I am now an official TAAQ fan. Please check them out if you haven’t already and their website. Their latest album is there available for download so grab the songs. Such incredible talent, right here from namma Bangaloru!

In another part of the ground, DJ Ivan was rocking the crowd in a dome – a makeshift dance floor (a huge one at that) they had created for the occasion. Lots of psychedelic lights and enthusiastic people (you have to grab every opportunity to dance here in Bangalore!).

Venx, Apra and Anshu (who were also there) had a beer fight (well, a near beer fight) over the last remaining can of Kingfisher. Ultimately, it didn’t land up in anyone’s belly, but all over the floor instead. Quite a sad end for that last can. Thankfully, a beer brawl was averted as they were too happy after the many litres they had already consumed earlier in the evening. Beearp!

SHAKESPEARE REVISITED
Which brings me to the second performance. A Shakespearean play called Measure for Measure, performed by the group Complicite at the Rangashankara last evening. You can imagine me quaking in my boots (chappals, actually, but you get the point) when the play started with this dialogue:

Of government the properties to unfold,
Would seem in me to affect speech and discourse;
Since I am put to know that your own science
Exceeds, in that, the lists of all advice
My strength can give you: then no more remains,
But that to your sufficiency as your Worth is able,
And let them work. The nature of our people,
Our city’s institutions, and the terms
For common justice, you’re as pregnant in
As art and practise hath enriched any
That we remember. There is our commission,
From which we would not have you warp. Call hither,
I say, bid come before us Angelo.

(On an aside, having a friend like Ree, who talks like this: “Can I ask you a ‘koshen’?” or “What it is that you are doing?” has brought down our vocabulary to deplorable levels already.)

But a few minutes into the play, we started getting warmed up to the language and actually even began to comprehend parts of it.

The play was brilliant in a lot of ways. The production was superb; the lighting, the timing of the actors, the way they morphed one scene into another – all faultless. It’s worth watching just for all these factors. And not in the least, the performances of the actors, seemed effortless as they matched each other in their acting prowess.

In particular, I thought Angelo, the Duke and Isabelle did a fantastic job in their roles (not sure what the actors name were). The group, according to their website, are going to perform next in Milan and Grenoble, so not much hope of catching them if you haven’t already.

Rangashankara must be applauded for the great work it’s doing bringing these plays to audiences here in Bangalore.

My only prior experience with Shakespearean English was a college theatre group aptly named and sometimes purposely mispronounced ‘Shakespeare Society’. For two years, I did less studying and more of practicing, and trying to act. We had decided to perform the Merchant of Venice and I was playing the part of Jessica.

I am not completely sure what I did now and how I pulled off the part, but my short stint with stage did 2 things – made me realize that acting was not my calling and more importantly made me appreciate actors who can spout such language, and act at the same time!

I was looking through my trip photographs and decided to pick one or two from every place I visited and do a quick photo essay – a memory recap through all the places and sights I saw and the people I met. Just little memories that keep popping up… Here they are, countrywise, but in no particular order.

(Warning: longish post with quite a few pictures)
(more…)

I know you’re probably really tired of traffic woes, but can I really help it?

Bangalore’s roads now resemble the moon’s surface - craters and all. Especially with the recent rain episode, whatever little we had in terms of roads has now become a figment of our imaginations. We will soon need moon buggies to get from one place to another. And we might even have to start from home the prior day to get to office on time, is what I am thinking.

My dad who was in town (and who I have earlier extolled Bangalore’s virtues to very profusely, I might add) pointed out to me the lack of pavements.

(Have you noticed that in many parts the pavements are so bad that you are forced to walk on the road, and that is really not a choice at all, because, you’d get the Nobel Prize for new discoveries if you actually find anything that resembles a road).

Getting back to my dad, he was talking about pavements and I said, “How can there be a pavement when there is hardly a road?!”

So here we are, threatening to become a world superpower, but we haven’t figured out how to make a road that can survive the rains.

Amazing. I would think that all the engineering brains in India (and the world) hasn’t been able to work out that equation. So anyway, here we are going over about 50 million pot holed roads. It is of course, a wonderful state to arrive in office. Shaken and stirred. They should soon have doctors at all destinations making sure all our bones are intact, when (and if) we ever arrive.

Case to point. There are 2 approaches to my house. One of these has been under construction for the last one year, I kid you not! One year. How it can take one year to dig up a road, put cables under it and patch it up again is beyond every stretch of my imagination.

The other approach was also dug up and hastily reopened. At one point of time, I thought we’d have to actually get swings or large catapults to get across the large drain if they had closed both the roads at the same time.

Once they were done with the extensive digging and whatever it is they do when they have nothing to do, they decided to be kind to us and put in some form of a road. In the process, they put some rough stones (with really sharp edges too) and patched it up with mud.

So what do we have now? A joke for a road and craters the size of the Sahara desert and many sharp edges to navigate through each time we drive through. It’s surprising they haven’t opened a puncture shop there yet.

Hey, I know that we need some excitement in our life, but getting jolted and shaken up everytime I cross that path, is something I had not bargained for. After all, I get enough excitement during the one hour journey to work on Hosur Road, one of Bangalore’s most notorious stretches now in terms of traffic now I would say.

If you’ve been on this stretch recently, I think you’d tend to agree that excitement is something you will not lack. Cars, four wheelers, huge (and I mean huge) trucks, cement mixers, two wheelers, tempos, autos, call centre vans (and I think you’d know why they deserve their own category) and the nightmare of all drivers – cyclists and cows. If there’s something you can’t find on this stretch, please inform us immediately.

Last week I read an encouraging news report of a group touring Bangalore to find out which roads have been affected. Isn’t that amazing news? So by next month, they should have a committee ready to discuss these roads. By early next year, they will have their plan in place. By April/May, they will set up a committee to discuss and review it again. Then they will reconvene in about 2-3 months time. By this time, there would be additional bad roads to be considered, so the process will have to be repeated.

Anyway, by this calculation I would estimate that at least by 2050 they will have decided whether they are going to be kind enough to us citizens and give us roads.

After all we only pay 30+ plus percent of what we earn to the government to give us a semblance of a road.

I’m not sure all our money is going (and I have a suspicion that I won’t like where it’s going either) but it obviously doesn’t seem to be enough to give us decent roads.

On the subject of potholes, you have to check out this link:
Bangalore Potholes

So it was my last evening in London. My cab driver arrived on the dot. As expected he was Asian. It didn’t take very long for him to get chatting. They’re usually very friendly and dying to find out key information about you - your name, your country and your marital status.

So, Mr TDFK (taxi driver from Kashmir) got talking almost immediately and started with the obvious ice breaker - the current Indian cricket team.

“I do not like Saurav Ganguly,” he declared with an air of disdain. Like admitting to like Saurav is a disease these days.

“My favourite is Sachin Tendulkar.”

No surprises there I guess!

“Love, do you mind if I stop and pick something up to eat,” he asked suddenly.

They have a habit of calling you ‘love’ even if you are a perfect stranger they’ve just met. (It’s rather sweet - I mean, we rarely call the ones we love ‘love’!)

It was the last day of Ramzan and apparently TDFK (taxi driver from Kashmir) had not eaten the whole day. He made a stop at a gas station and did his quick pick-up.

Loudly munching on chips, bars of Kit Kat and other tidbits, he launched into a long monologue about why India and Pakistan should continue to play cricket.

Then he wanted to know everything about me (even dark secrets my pals don’t know). So to divert his attention, I began to ask him questions. He came to England a year and a half ago. In search of the better life, presumably. And everyone (his whole family) was in the UK. He married his first cousin. He met a really rude English lady in the morning and she didn’t have the courtesy to make conversation, he complained

Not everyone is as friendly as us Indians, don’t take offence, I said to make him feel better. They are like that only.

He wasn’t too convinced, of course. She was rude, very rude, he kept muttering.

In between all this, of he continued to speak on his cellphone. Loud brisque conversations peppered our our exchange! He’d apologise and get back to me. “And you were saying, love?”

While doing all of this, he would also be smsing, and steering the wheel with one hand. This was when I started to worry a bit. After having safely conserved myself through all my adventures, the last thing I wanted was to perish in an anonymous cab heading to Heathrow!

In fact, as we were approaching the airport through a long narrow tunnel, when suddenly the car veered to the left, the car rear view mirror nearly grazing the side. TDFK was reading an sms and talking at the same time, you see.

I swear on all the cabs I have taken that I’ve not seen a more multi-tasked taxi driver in all my life.

Terminal 3. Finally! I jumped out of the cab and gave him the money. He jumped out, got my luggage out, jumped in and drove off like a maniac, obviously eager to pick up his next customer (or send his next sms). After having witnessed his amazing keypad skills, I’d be inclined to think it was the latter.