A Walking Tour

Bangalore (circa 20th century)

 From Sadashiv Nagar to – [Shivaji Nagar or Majestic?] – (Bus number 100 or 104?) – does not really matter but good to get it right.

From Shivaji Nagar bus depot, it is a short walk to St. Mark’s Rd. At the first cross-road, near the street with cheap furniture stores, a man is beating his wife to the ground. He does not kick but his slaps are loud. She is crying loud but she refuses to cower before him, getting up like a nearly KO-ed boxer, giving back with a guttural hoarse tongue. He kept on slapping, not her face but her arms and back. A young man in the gathering crowd, Iyengar says the stamp on his forehead, approaches the couple; to help, to break the fight. The wife turns on him; the husband ignores him; it is not his fight; the crowd laughs, agrees and cheers for the fighters.

On St. Mark’s Rd, there is Koshy’s coffee-shop and there used to be the British Council Library on top. Further down the road, past the oil pump, there is a liquor shop that veterans trust. It is too quiet to listen to other’s stories in the Lib, but it is there at each table and the characters and tales are kept for later reference. Sit for a while at Koshy’s, in the middle or in a far corner never elsewhere, feel the old colonial railway waiting room. Listen to regulars and try to look like them. Hear about the drama guy’s cake-shop and his dogs and his friends; the new steak joint with rare meat and the way to cut and taste the blood; the latest writer, poet or painter, groovy stuff man; and, some look so damn earnest about the damn dams and the bloody poor. Even the regular irregulars there think of trying that lifestyle. Note it all down for reference.

Across the road, at the Bengali sweet shop, a lady of fifty tries to be fifteen. A young couple outside argues, before the impassive magazine vendor. She says I want rosogolla. He says no, I hate Bengali women, they make me fall in love with them, I hate Bengali men they try to be men. She laughs, come on, she says, my Bengali man.

A few steps from there, there’s Premier bookstore with the nice man who will let the poor reader browse for long hours, even whole books on multiple trips, and gives discount irrespective of the buyer’s English accent. On the left, there’s fiction. A girl and a boy definitely not size zero, share the narrow space with one foot on the floor, the other entwined while she looks for du Maurier from M and he searches for Neruda from a misplaced Steinbeck. He reads to her, from Neruda’s Lone Gentleman,

   Young homosexuals and girls in love,
   and widows gone to seed, sleepless, delirious,
   and novice housewives pregnant some thirty hours,
   the hoarse cats cruising across my garden’s shadows
   like a necklace of throbbing, sexual oysters
   surround my solitary home
   like enemies entrenched against my soul,
   like conspirators in pyjamas
   exchanging long, thick kisses on the sly.

She nods with thoughts elsewhere, replies with a glassy stare, from Daphne’s Rebecca,
   Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderly again
They talk, giggle, disentangle and silently promise never to meet again.

Further ahead on Church St., there’s the place which serves light phulka and heavy mutton curry. Before that, a famous video-turned-DVD-no-CD store (Habitat, is it?). Three young men and a lady browse together among those shelves. One man and that lady were desperate to get away, for sex, excuse the French, make love, it is called (right?). Meet them later many years later. They live happily ever after, with cute young kids, married to a rich another from their own different hometowns and religions. There are two kinds of men, the one who thinks about the morning after and the other who does not think. The second man belongs to the first kind. The other three laughs at his story that is yet to begin. Decent man, married, nasty divorce, lost half his pension, fell in love, married again, divorced, lost half of the remaining half of his pension. Well, he is still got a quarter to slice again, they console gleefully. The third man is a hybrid. He picks out three DVDs (Unbearable Lightness of Being, One Fine Day, Private Lessons) for an all-night session holding himself tight.

Retrace your steps, walk up to MG Rd, past McDonald's, now boarded and closed, where a couple discuss their divorce plans and how they should get together. The Spencer’s gave way to another chain. There’s a phone-booth in between where a man screams at his wife on an outdated phone, choose me or your job. Then, there’s that tall building with a pub on the 13th floor. Or, walk arm in arm, like the Wild West, to the cool shade within to steal a kiss or whisper sweet nothings. On Saturday nights, young drunk men shout from a balcony on the top floor, “Why am I with him and not her?” Hear the echoes down below.

Further ahead, near the old Plaza theatre, a married couple stops. She wants to check out new saris at Deepam, she demands her due. He sweats, distracts her and quickly signals to the man in the alley, not now says the furtive signal. The man in the alley hides his package of pornography beneath the second-hand books. Two young men leaning against the railing stare at her sari-clad figure. She notices their stare, she glares, they continue to look from head to toe, lechers, she smiles; her innocent husband oblivious of this whole episode.

At the junction, turn right and go along Brigade Rd. There are pubs on each side-street; each with its pseudo-theme – space-shuttle or hard rock or wannabe cool – with the same draught beer in same pitchers. It’s the same groups – small-town guys wide-eyed losing virginity, B-school guys with their college chums some a miserable reminder of fancy ideals or long hair-n-beard or borrowed philosophy, et al.

Still on Brigade Rd, there are old kids with new jobs showing parents and relatives their brave new world. Some still try out the old small malls, the cake at Nilgiris, window-shopping at the expensive fruit stall, cheap shops with pirated stuff to get something for those who could not make the trip.

On the left, there used to be dancing halls with women with vacant eyes and clothes considered scant in the old days; below, you might meet homely women in traditional Kerala saris and sandalwood paste on the forehead. Do not smile at them, it might cost you. Go past all that and to the left, there are more famous pubs, Karavalli restaurant for a fishy meal with expensive appam for that rare occasion and an ice-cream parlour. And, to the right, there is the old cheap Hotel Empire for late-night food, just do not be a vegan and just stick to the usual.

Back on MG Rd, past Cauvery crafts shop and past the pub where guys dance with each other, it is a long straight road to Kids Kemp at the end or Strand bookshop somewhere on the right (it is after Oberoi, right?). That is past Standard Chartered Bank and the other offices. There is a way to go to Shoppers Stop from there. And, on that road, there is an Indian restaurant famous for chicken legs wrapped in silver. Listen to young working women there for lunch complain about bosses with drifting fingers and promotions in suspended animation.

Before that and the tall building with a theatre and a rotating restaurant, there is a small lane with restaurants that promise to be affordable. Near the bottom of that lane, there is a place that serves Andhra thali; another more exclusive lot, with a common kitchen probably, for Andhra (fish curry and plain rice for INR 120), North Indian (try Sikander Raan), Chinese (lovers croon, “Oh, so shady, so nice”). The scene is not really different – suburbia, young loving couples, whole families, it might appear boring for the undiscerning but there’s a peculiar tale at each table.

The Chinese joint in the middle of that lane serves good Chinese tea. At table one, one young man tells another about unrequited love and the pain that will last till the next day. Far from them, a couple; the man confesses his love, the woman says we were kids then, the man agrees. The woman cries, says she is in love, she does not know what to do, she begs. I love a man of another religion, she admits; I do not know what to do, she asks. The young man seeks revenge and advises her to stick to her love, to go against the odds. She listens to him, cries more. They leave together, like good friends. He is heart-broken and he does not know that there is one on table one, too. She is happy, she calls home, she cries and protests, tells her parents about her affair but for her parents who did everything for her, she will do whatever they have arranged for her.

Now, with a full tummy, catch an autorickshaw and say ‘Sankey Tank’. It will cost twenty five rupees. But save for that luxury return journey. As you fly past the traffic policeman with a kindly face and a big moustache (killed in action, you heard) and the Golf course, you are ready to doze or think about your day spent scavenging for stories.

Author's Note: This is not about Bangalore. It was the same story in Berlin or London or Mumbai or Delhi or Corsica or Trieste or any goddamn place. There's only one comment worth hearing: whose story is it?