Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Walk People, Walk!!!


The mind’s ability to wander at a boring meeting is stupendous. Isn’t it? Between stealing a close-mouthed yawn and sipping weak coffee your mind has already traveled great distances. Your mind has seen last night’s episode of ‘Rakhi ka Sywamvar’ and thought about the cute, new girl in office whom you need to befriend before other vultures make their move. At one such enlightening voyage my mind decided to travel into the past….a past not very distant. It went scavenging into my college memories from Bangalore. What I remembered was something simple, something I took for granted while it was happening. It was the walk…the walk from home to college and back. It is true that when you look back at life it is the simple things that really matter.

The walk is a story of four college friends who also happened to be room-mates or ‘roomies’ as they are called these days. All four of us were intellectually very rich. And like most people blessed with intelligence we had very little to speak of as possessions otherwise. Least of which was money and we could blame it on our extreme spendthrift ways. The first few days of the month, we lived like rock stars - finding our way every evening to the one of the numerous pubs which hid in the dark alleys of Bangalore. Do you think the enormity of a bill is a concern when you are high on a heady mix of beer, music and company of best friends? NAAAAHHHH!!!!!

But ten days later, scrutinising our wallets for money was like digging for water in a desert where there was none. Invariably, all of us used to go broke at the same time, so broke that none of us would pay for the bus ticket to and back from college. We made a small prayer every time we got on to the bus and dodged the conductor through the entire route. On days when we were not so lucky the one caught first by the conductor had to pay for everybody else. That’s because others in the group used to point at him like small kids point towards their parents. This obviously could not go on for long, so we decided to give up the bus and started taking the cheapest transport to college and back.

OUR LEGS!!!

That’s how we started walking from our flat to college which was four kilometers away. All this, to save some money. But the irony was that we started this exercise to save money and ended up enjoying it so much that we walked even we had currency flying out of our pockets. It made us realize how beautiful and full of life Bangalore was.

I still remember the mornings like it was yesterday. We first used to cross the market where women flower sellers used to make garlands. The freshly plucked flowers transformed the boring road into a beautiful, surreal garden with its riot of colours and sweet fragrance. Then we would witness the morning mass at St Mary’s Cathedral which set the tone for the day ahead and settle down our nerves, if we had any. The morning breeze never failed to lift our spirits. We used to crack jokes at one another all the way to Brigade Road which is known as the shopping avenue of Bangalore. It used to be a stark contrast to its otherwise exciting character at that time of the day. Shops had their shutters down and night shift watchmen used to yawn waiting for their morning shifters to relieve them.

MG road the most popular road in Bangalore has a circle named Anil Kumble after he bagged ten wickets in a single innings against Pakistan. The most enduring memory of this road in the morning was the ‘Indian Coffee House’ which served good quality breakfast at reasonable rates. Idlis, Vadas, Scrambled Eggs, Omlettes and strong coffee- what better way to start a day especially if you are a bunch of gluttonous college kids? We used to get into the eatery on days we had money to buy breakfast and didn’t have to depend on our regular breakfast place where we had a long standing credit account. Cubbon Park used to be no less fun either- it was a regular sight with people exercising, laughing out loud, reading newspapers or just staring at the world from one of the park benches. This walk used to refresh us and prepare us for the long day at college full of boring lectures by self-obsessed professors.

The walk back home in the evening was a study in contrasts- at Cubbon Park the joggers were replaced by cootchie-cooing couples; activity at MG Road was centered around the theaters, pubs and restaurants. Eateries such as the Indian Coffee House which ruled the mornings looked pale in comparison to others at this time of the day. Later it seemed like all the good looking women with stupid boyfriends had disembarked upon Brigade Road to makes us jealous. Jealous that we were single and had to do something about it quickly!!! The cathedral used to be quiet unless there was a wedding and the beautiful flower market was replaced by the loud-mouthed vegetable vendors.


It was a perfect way to know Bangalore, its history, its people and its beauty. Faces grew familiar day after day and conversations begun with complete strangers who went on become friends. The walk also summed up Bangalore’s character in a perfect way. The city was a mixture of youth and experience, tradition and modernity, peace and chaos. Although our love for this activity continued, we quit walking together as we shifted into different flats as the academic year drew close to an end. But the memories of this simple yet enriching experience remains.

So, walk people walk!!!

(P.S: Images used in this post do not belong to me)

1 comment:

  1. The piece made me think that i was there visiting places my self . When i realised this i got goose flesh , honest

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