A lovely, memorable evening spent in the esteemed company of Dipti bhai and Kulamani Babu amidst book, booze and brotherhood. We disproved the old adage "2 is a company and 3 is a crowd". It was a great company of the triumvirate of us - as Dipti Bhai and I sipped couple of pitchers of the famous local draught beer with Fanta sipping, our moving encyclopedia Kulamani Babu shared anecdotes from tons of books already imprinted inside his mind.
One day an IT professional in Bangalore ate his breakfast inside his car at a traffic junction. At the next traffic junction a mile away it was already time to eat his lunch. This is of course a sarcasm ascribed to the vehicular traffic in Bangalore. Yet I won't be surprised if it comes true one day.
It was my first tryst with the famous (infamous) traffic of the metro city of Bsngalore. Travelling on a Friday evening especially after a shower can be nightmarish. A la the JHADI POKA (winged ants) who go helter-skelter after fresh summer rains, the vehicles of Bangalore seemed to have developed wings and went in a frenzy.
Experiencing bumper to bumper traffic, I took the opportunity to take a peek at the evening crowd. It was still drizzling. The roads were engulfed by green foliage on both sides with pedestrians running with folders covering their head to get protection from the light drizzle as the rain abated. In contrast to bald Bhubaneswar which lost whatever tree cover it had during the super Cyclone of 1999, Bangalore has lushy green hippie hair.
At a major intersection I saw the big picture of a political leader surrounded by smaller leaders around him atop a billboard. On closer look, I noticed the bigger picture - Not even one of them was clean shaven, all looking alike and sporting similar moustaches with hair smoothly brushed backwards. Couple of guys standing under the poster also looked as their cousins.
I could not read the Kannada script which looks very similar to Telugu. (I think the Tamil and Malayalam scripts are similar, the letters are more squarish compared to the round shaped script of Telugu and Kannada).
In spite of whatever the locals spite at Bangalore, the city has a equable, salubrious weather throughout the year. It feels so cool with no AC needed to keep cool. With ceiling fan on, covered with a light blanket with felt cosy enough for a good night sleep. More later..
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