aditya kumar's weblog

The Indian coffee house at MG Road offers a glimpse of the mixture of cultures that Bangalore is.

The place has its own little world and it starts opening up as I find myself a vacant table. A college couple, oblivious to the crowd around them and maybe also to the fact that their coffees are done with, continue to chat. Another guy, in his late twenties maybe, having his french fries along with the coffee. The table, full of his treasures. A latest cellphone, an Mp3 player to mention a few. He chooses to keep his sunglasses on though. One can safely claim — in the coffee house, he has travelled back in time.

Then of course, there are the people I usually manage to strike up conversations with. The middle aged men who are absorbed in their newspapers and while not at it, quietly observing around them. Quite often, their solitude is short lived for they usually find someone of their kind soon enough. Friendships are renewed, greetings exchanged. Discussions take place, politics, cricket, trigonometry and even aviation. These relationships are formed here, in the coffee house and mostly end up within these walls.

Two Tibetan monks walk in and order coffee. With them they carry an air of peculiarity. They share the table with the sunglasses guy, the gadget-man. There is a contrast of sorts. The monks, in their red robes while the gadget-man, as if almost adamant on showing off his prized but earthly possessions, still decorating the old, odd wooden table. As evident, the common thing between these two cultures, the coffee, sharing the space of whatever is left.

The big glass paned window, the biggest witness of all to the change of times, gives a view of the multicultural sea of people on the outside. Like waves, groups of people pass by.

Look at it one way and it is just a place serving coffee. Look at it another way, in fact, any other way, and there is so much going on that I start to wonder, is this really just about the coffee?

This place is stuck in another time and it wants you to oblige as well. For some, it could even get addictive. Trust me, there are people like that.

Enough for the day, I say to myself and leave.

Do you know what happened on 9-11-2001?
Me:No

Two planes crashed on the Two towers, America

Me: I see

Do you know what a human bomb is?

(I am startled but I want to continue the conversation)

Me: No, what is it?

It’s when a man tries to touch the feet and then presses a button and blows himself up with a bomb. Thats a human bomb. They did that to Rajiv Gandhi…

Me: Who told you all this, beta?

My teacher.

…Conversation with my seven year old cousin, who happens to be studying in second standard (grade) in school. Is this what they ought to be learning in school, seven year old kids? Do they need to know how a human bomb works, what a human bomb is? Is it required, they know what happened on 9-11, in America? Forget 9-11, do they need to know America? Until they are not told about India, no, they do not need to know about America.

And which school is this? Frank Anthony, Bangalore. A wee bit too ‘frank’, dont you think?

…And Truman turns 25.

You could term this ‘silly’ but she is the most beautiful woman in this whole wide world :)

This blog, in its present form (this website and all) is one year old today. In the Indian Blogosphere, I have had the opportunity to read some very good writers, talk with some very interesting people and got to meet a few of them too. Most of them have inspired me in their own little ways, some of them have inspired in big ways.

On the other hand, a few friends quit blogging, but they had their own reasons (some quit without one, interestingly). But on the whole, I think, as bloggers, we are going in the right direction.

On second thought, there is not a ‘right direction’. There is only write direction! :)

I also managed a little audience on the way. People who comment, a lot of people who do not comment. I have said it before, I say it again, thanks a lot :)

Someone once told me, you can’t write until you need to write. The same person was the only one who had approved my choice for the name of this domain. If you still read me, thanks a lot. And that line you told me, it was the best piece of advice I have ever had on this subject.

Here are some pictures I took on a days trip to Goa, two weeks back. They are not great, but they should be enough to give you an idea of how Goa looks like in the monsoon!

Yachts from France, in Panjim



Shipyard off NH-17A



Sao Jacinto Island, off NH-17A



Another Shipyard off NH-17A



View from my home

I feel for Bombay. No, let me call it Bombay, for once. It is this same city that I have felt for, in the prose of Rushdie, Mistry and Suketu Mehta. It is this city, Pankaj kapoor called his mehbooba, so aptly, in the movie Maqbool.

I have sailed the rough waters of Bombay, I have travelled in the trains, those which were ripped apart yesterday.

And they have done this to it.

Via Uma’s blog, I came across a very simple but moving poem this morning. I wish to post it here. Along with that, my own poem, titled “Red”, I had written back in 2001 on one lonely night in Pune, after the 9/11 attacks.

In Goa, for a day.

During the bus journey, a KSRTC Volvo bus, they started a kannada movie starring Upendra. It should only be obvious to expect a Kannada movie being played in a Karnataka state transport bus. Sadly, one north-Indian didnt realise it. Came forward, talked to the driver and asked him to change the movie. Of course, the driver frowned and uttered a few words that bounced off me.

The “change-the-movie-because-I-dont-understand-kannada” man was wrong. A mistake most of us make. When you are in a different land, it is actually not the land or the people that are different. It is you, who is different. So the question of them changing for your convenience should not even arise. So what should you do? as they say, Adjust madi. Not much, but swalpa. And if it is that inconvenient, learn the language.

The man should have realised, a little waiting could have done him good. As it turned out, the Upendra movie turned out to be a true copy of the Shahrukh Khan starrer, Baazigar.

In one of the narrow main roads of Vasco, Goa, our car driver tries to unsuccessfully overtake a van. While doing so, the car is high on speed and on the wrong side of the road. The driver brakes hard and in the process gives a “Stop/Slow down” sign to the car fast approaching towards us. The other car slows down and in a few moments we are back on the correct side of the road. While crossing each other, the two drivers, in a seemingly rare gesture smile at each other and show a thumbs-up sign. Our driver, as if, thanking his counterpart on the other side, for his patience.

God, will I ever get to see something like this in Bangalore…or for that matter, anywhere else in India?

By the way, its a delight to be here at this time of the year. It’s green all over!