And they finally came...

My parents have a unique feature...they plan, and plan and plan and it never happens. They have been enticing me with their idea to drive down to Bangalore from our native (Trichur) by car from the time I had shifted base to this IT city. That was nearly 6 years ago. A lot of things happened of more improbable nature: I shifted my house a couple of times, I changed jobs, I got married, my brother moved to Bangalore, Shermin got pregnant and life changed as the wind blew. They kept planning, but never managed to drive down. They did come by train a few times, but the significance of coming down by car was far more, not of particular necessity to mention in this post.
They finally made it a couple of weeks back accompanied by Anil, the manager who supervises our family business and Jasmine, mom's younger sister. They had a fun ride into the city taking the Mysore route coming through the erstwhile Veerappan (a late forest brigand feared by police and people alike) territory resplendent in scenic beauty captured in many a south-indian film. They made a few stops - made tea in a poor woman's cottage, lit a fire to cook food by the road-side and came through a large sun-flower field - equivalent to wading through the Amazon for the most seasoned of adventure seekers.
The next day happened to be their 33rd wedding anniversary. Some delicious coffee mousse was cut. It filled our stomachs as well as made for some war-paint on their faces! We had gone back to some of our good old days by blowing balloons in tandem. Sounds of balloons bursting had us reminisce old memories from Muscat...
The 2 days they stayed here ran like the gazelle. Wish they had planned it better...well...I guess the planning couldnt have got better than 6 years...

Sometimes it's best to not plan and go by your insticts!

(Gas)tronomy

Its one thing to cook by yourself (I shudder to think what would happen in my case) and its another to watch your wife cook for you. Last week, I managed to click a snap while my better half whipped up the family's (atleast my dad's) answer to the 'quicky' before catching the next movie in town and South India's pride on the menu - Dosa! She prepared some crispy brown masala dosa's (the ones with cooked potato stuffed and rolled into them). As one's olfactory system gets a high as the drops of desi-ghee simmers into oblivion on the smeared batter, its satisfaction guaranteed for the cook when the perfectly shaped crisply fried rolled dosa's are carefully placed into the hot-pot.

Its pure love (that of my wife's rolled into each dosa, as well as that of a south-India foodie for his well made fav dig) that went in that morning...

Royalty regained

I have often wondered what it would have been to live like royalty, especially like the sultans of the past. We got a glimpse into a few of the aspects - what it would have been like to sink our teeth into their food and how we would have looked under some of their head-gear. The fact that I got my in-laws to relish the same in the bargain added to the fun.

A night out at Jalsa, a restaurant shaped and based on the Moghul royalty theme on a deserted stretch of the outer ring road gave us the ideal opportunity...

It was a night to remember...

Freedom fighter

I went to buy chicken along with my dad-in-law. Apparently he is a stud at buying groceries & meat...seemed pretty decent for his experience. No stud though! Maybe my wife and I have different standards of a 'stud', especially one at buying groceries & meat. Though buying vegetables went about without much of a hitch, the chicken shop was flooded with customers. He tried his frantic best to get the attention of the guy who was picking up live stock from the cages and churning out pieces of cut-meat. Then he tried his best to get the attention of the other couple of guys helping the main guy out.

While he kept trying to get attention, what got my attention was that of a small kid who was apparently amused by the live chicken in cages who either buried their heads within their white feathers or sat flocked together with their eyes tight shut, scared to their pink bones, probably counting their seconds till they were picked up by the butcher. The kid kept sticking his fingers into the cages trying to pacify the worried lot. He also tried his mighty best to free them out of the cages, having seen the blood spill all over. The butchers, in giving the customers 'halal' meat, spilt a lot of blood on the ground (the halal method of killing live stock ensured that maximum blood oozed out and prevented blood from clotting within the body, apparently resulting in more hygiene), which spurred the kid to release the caged beings from their murderous captors.
Oblivious of my attempts to capture his courage on my mobile phone camera, the little guy braved possible pecks at his tiny fingers to keep trying for the 'right' thing. This struggle to deliver freedom went on till his dad, who till then had been doing the same thing which my dad-in-law had been trying, noticed what his little Napoleon was upto and picked him up. The little fellow might have been surprised at his dad's apathy (or mabe not), but had to give-in to the temptation of a piece of chocolate he got.

I turned back to see the sorry state of affairs with my in-law and called out to the butcher, who I knew from my many past visits. He quickly acknowledged my call and the next bag of cut chicken pieces was ours.

Testimony to growth

G R Masilamani once said - "One cannot just soak the spirit of something by just seeing it, one should feel it". Neither is Masilimani someone famous, nor is his ability to translate regional proverbs into english anywhere next to comprehendable, but its the only saying I can think of as I write about the subject of discussion. The structure of the quote above is my translation of what his 'Tamlish' (a Masilimani concoction of tamil & english) would have meant.

The spirit of being an Indian in a city which prides itself as the wheels on which India has traversed the rankings of technology charts does provide a lot of scope for getting soaked into, but definitely not where the wheels of our trains traverse on! Adorned by empty plastic bottles (waiting for some good samaritan to take them to be recycled into new avatars), delectable assortments of human life's remnants (so carefully and kindly provided by the railways, to allow some of the members of our precious fauna to remain in the ecological system), a pot-pourri of materialistic remnants and the inevitable oily filth, which either has been untouched to preserve the 'railway couture' or has not been cleaned by them in fear of being run over by the next train.

All this carefully set environs of our railway system, especially the Bangalore railway station would throw to the lions Masilamani's statement. If seeing is ever believing, then this sight would be its best advocate! It doesnt leave much scope for 'soaking in', does it? The music of the local crows, pitter-patter of the cute-'little' rats, chirp of the myriad lizards, flutter of the camouflaged cockroaches and the sounds from the other members of an ecology which has somehow till date escaped the lens of National Geography (hope this blog helps!) just blends into the symphony orchestrated by the very vocal trains that we are proud of. The music from these long marvels which have been bequeathed by our white rulers and are still running strong, just get better with age.

Somehow, this spirit of our city can never be fathomed by the many columnists, NGO's, so-called critics and the creme-de-la-creme of its junta. This is definitely to be preserved and nurtured. A situation to take strength from. This is testimony of our growth. The more we grow, the more this special ecology grows.

A toast to our pride! Lets soak in it...