yesterday

Jayanagar was a distant far flung alien place for a true blue malleswaram kid like me, it was a place which cropped up in conversations with relatives when they spoke about how somebody’s uncle lived there, Appa also told me it was the first locality which was planned by BDA, hence its sculpted features. Now that I study in a college which is one of the landmarks of south Bangalore (no not BMS) though its in the fringes of the city, with a friend who is very jayanagar, my foray into this alien land has become more frequent. It’s a place out of books , with its perfect wide roads, innumerable parks with kids playing ( they have dasara vacations-dammit) and sheltered bus stops. All this is extremely romantic, but not if you are lost in 6th block like we were yesterday, with poor S in her home ground directing us in a maze of parks. Also there are lots of ganesha temples probably one in each alternate road, so it just adds to the confusion. Once we safely reached corner house , we gorged on our DBC’s and then moved onto a salad place which to my utter surprise seemed to worship ganesh, playing gaalipata songs through the afternoon. S was really proud and I was dumbstruck when the waiter there helped us out with our order in achh kannda. Proof that mass-influx from the cow belt has not affected this place, like how it has affected malleswaram and its people( extreme anguish and pain). The houses are beautiful, some probably built in the eighties when BDA first allotted the sites, the archetypal single storey with cobwebs with a faint trace of austerity, others a little more fancy. As NI and I walked back to the stop, we saw two ajjis in a quiet street talking in a hurried manner, something very clichéd which we talk about everyday, but hardly get to see. I really hope brigade and renaissance stays away from here, though I spotted a brigade classic to my displeasure. The Vani Vilas hospital is so Victorian. Why is it called vani vilas? Did kempe gowda build the Bangalore fort or was it tippu?