Rated AAA
Bengaluru nee’ Bangalore is a triple-A rated city in my books.
Now before you "Kannadigas" & IT geeks start patting yourselves silly, that stands for Arthritis, Allergies & Asthma.
And if you folks who have just landed there from Jharkhand, gaping at the malls and all those restaurants with fancy-schmantzy names from “Amrika” like Ruby Tuesdays, Cafe’ Perk, Barista, Stars and Stripes (Sic!) , Manhattans, Olive Beach (huh?) , The Granite Pit Stop ( I swear this is true!), Tiffanys, Caesar’s, Paparazzi, Copacabana, Indi Joes’, Filling Station, American Corner (Yeesh!), The Village,and even the KFC’s the TGIF's and Mc Donalds. ....now where was I ? ... ahh yes if you folks have not caught any one of the triple- A’s yet – trust me you will.
Visiting Milind and Vidulas lovely home in Bangalore (I refuse to call it by its’ new name) those 5 days prompt the question: Can a city drive you insane?
I wake up next morning hoping there’s nothing to do, because I don’t want to get out of bed.
My ears itch, my throat hurts and my nose drips. I didn’t sleep last night because my room is next to the street.
My ears itch, my throat hurts and my nose drips. I didn’t sleep last night because my room is next to the street.
3:00 a.m.: I heard several men screaming at each other.
In the vernacular it sounded like they were arguing about drugs and were going to cut each other. Then they started to smash something, beer bottles or car windows, Crash. Crash. Tinkle. I never ventured to find out. I curled into a foetal position and shut my eyes, humiliated at my cowardice.
In the vernacular it sounded like they were arguing about drugs and were going to cut each other. Then they started to smash something, beer bottles or car windows, Crash. Crash. Tinkle. I never ventured to find out. I curled into a foetal position and shut my eyes, humiliated at my cowardice.
4:00 a.m. : It was the turn of a pack of stray dogs the kind of snarling, barking, yapping and fighting that says there’s just the one female in heat among eight males.
9:00 a.m. : My head is pounding. Also there’s a giant bulldozer digging up the earth next door. Someone outside is using a buzzsaw, then a hammer, then a drill. The apartments are being constructed in the vain hope that someone will buy them. Nobody wants to buy apartments anymore. Gates and doors to apartment buildings have been wedged wide open. So far, only one family has been robbed.
I look at the Weather Channel on TV: Air quality bad; Humidity very high. Old People shouldn’t leave the house; Thus the headache. I take an antihistamine Avil25. I feel trapped like a rat.
The Bangalore Times says:-
......... murder in the city has soared to epidemic proportions. We are now to treat murderers as “diseased.” Will they have a new 12-step programme for Murderers Anonymous? “Hello, I’m Billa, and I’m a compulsive serial killer.”
........someone was mugged in Lal Bagh, another girl had a latte poured over her in Cubbon Park and her laptop & wallet stolen.
.......oil prices have skyrocketed so we may be going to have a terrible recession. “We are in a terrible recession already”, I say, “Only nobody’s talking about it.” (All my IT friends are losing their jobs. I find gloomy irony in the fact that those intensely market-researched companies, the ones geared toward certain age groups with certain lifestyles and disposable incomes, are like lemmings going over cliffs, whereas strange old raggedy dinosaurs like Hindustan Lever swell and prosper.)
The neighbourhood is going upscale, shopwise- no more shoemaker, no more butcher,- go to the mall. The corner of the street used to smell strongly of piss, right at the base of the electric power transformer. But the intense ammonia odour is creeping up the street.
Homeless men are congregating and sleeping with their heads in trash cans. Drug-dealers (I think) place old books, and pirated dvd’s for sale on the sidewalks. The pedestrians shift to the roads. Yesterday a beggar jumped out of a doorway and attacked me. There was this big brawny man in National Market clad only in a pink nightdress. Children and cows, innocence embodied, are brutalised everyday.
When I left Goa it was 30 degrees and sunny with some showers, Bangalore is 22 degrees. But I can’t breathe. My sinuses are throbbing to the mesmerising beat of one million exhaust pipes belching hideous bile-coloured faux-air.
I don’t drive in Bangalore, there are grizzly locals youth with gelled hair and ear rings whose eyes rake everyone driving on Bangalore roads. They look smug and cruel and like compulsive serial killers in training.
Someone phones Vidula “Come to this very important interview in Brigade Road and you’ll soon be sitting in Amrika and you’ll make more money than you ever dreamed possible in your wildest dreams.” She was sitting smug in front of her stove making Bisi Bela Bhath. She says, “Okay I’ll come," and drives through the noxious fumes for it seems weeks and gets to Brigade Road and they say “Well it’s so nice to meet you, what do you think about starting out for Milwaukee this Sunday?” And because she can’t breathe anyway she says,"That sounds great” and they say “Fabulous, well, we know someone who knows someone who we think has a project with Madhukar, and as soon as we firm this up we’ll get you over there and soon after you’ll make truckloads of money, and buy a BMW, and your grandchildren will be able to become full-time heroin addicts – love the salwar you’re wearing , goodbye.”
It’s 7:00 p.m. I’m staying in bed till my bus leaves for Goa.
