in its cultural hotspot-ness.
apartment. This took a sizable chunk out of my paltry Rs.2500 monthly salary. The rent was cheap because the landlady was from BHEL, Tiruchirapalli and liked the fact that a Brahmin (that would be me) was a tenant. I should have told her that I did not wear the crossbelt and definitely did not know any shlokas. But I didn’t, which served me well. So I ended up living in my own one-room paradise, 2 floors above Ganesh pickle factory which she (Lakshmi amma) owned also. In the evenings, I returned to the entire street smelling of curry and pickles which emanated from the ground floor of this house. The work went on on weekends even. There were these 3 women whose main work was to slice and dice mangoes and lemons in the back of the house, and dry them in the terrace (which my room adjoined); mix with the oil and pungent curry powder in large stone mortars in the back of the house. The women were large and well-muscled and looked like they could easily take on Ayesha Ali (Boxer Muhammed Ali’s daughter who is also an emerging boxer) and beat her to a pulp. Hell, I was scared of them. Sometimes, the curry spatter would get onto my shirts that were drying in the clothesline by where they worked. I just washed them again. It was definitely not worth the trouble. The result of all this was that I must have smelt like one thin mango pickle myself when going to work. Of course the grime of lead peroxide and vulcanized rubber at work must have drowned it in a hurry.
Malleswarom in 2005 is in a state of metamorphosis. There are still 18 crosses and 17 mains (its like our US system, horizontal streets are Crosses, and vertical streets are Mains) as there were 10 years ago. What used to be independent bungalows with beautiful banyan and jackfruit trees in their gargantuan front yards have been transformed into 7-10 storey apartment buildings with a strip of dirty shrubs in the front to pass for foliage. However, there are still free-willed house-owners who are still holding out to these space-hungry builders. One such houseowner is Kala’s uncle (Mom’s sister’s husband) “Ramesh Chitthappa”. It is to his house that we were heading out to from Majestic Circle (Bangalore Railway station). A bit of wrong turns here and there later, we found it. It is called “Burma House”. I checked with him on the odd house name. He said that the house belonged to his ancestors from whom he inherited it. They had migrated from Burma in the 1930s and named it so to retain their memories.
These refugees or returnees from Burma have not been talked about very much in our contemporary literature. Apparently there were an estimated 200-500,000 people who had been in Burma before the army took over in the guise of a revolution. Most of them were forced to go back to India with whatever they could save and muster up in a very short time. A choice few, like the ancestors I mentioned above, had the time and the muster to accumulate substantial wealth before leaving for good. I knew one of the first unfortunate kind. Growing up in OFT, one such lady was “Ayah”. As far as I recall, she had worked in our house at least for 10 years. I don’t recall asking her what her name was. For us, it was just “Ayah”. She had a weird tattoo on her forearm. With the wrinkles on her forearm, the tattoo looked like tamil writing. I never bothered to ask what it was. I was just fascinated by the fact that one could write on one’s skin indelibly. She used to tell us how she used to work in Burma (“Varma”) in the sugarcane fields there, and how they had to leave their house and cattle behind to come to India. She used to live in a tenement by the highway with her unwed daughter and earned enough to make ends meet. But I digress.
A word on this house in Malleswarom: It was built in the 1930s and many additions have been made over the years. There were so many rooms I got lost trying to go to the bathroom. It had the look of an ancient house. He has 3 daughters and 1 son. He also has his 2 older sisters (aged 80 and 82) living in the house. These two sisters were a riot to talk to. They used to teach music to kids “in those days” for “Tonty fye rupees”. They complained that music teachers nowadays cheat by charging for each keerthana they impart. Krishna, the last of the kids, is evidently the apple of their eyes. They are terribly protective of their brother’s kids. When I entered the house at 7am, they were already up and watching TV. They had their daily quota of religious discourse by watching Ramanandsagar’s Ramayana. Instead of reading Ramayana and Mahabharata, they were doing the abridged version on TV. The kids also told me that after the morning ritual, they usually switch to watching cricket, wherever in the world it was being played and was on cable TV. If any of you have seen “Triplets of Belleville”, you might find the title “Sisters of Malleswarom” apropos.
After the taking a shower and having a delicious breakfast of idlis, freshly ground coconut chutney and a distinctly Bangalorean sweet called “Kajjikkai, we head out toward Shivajinagar close to where was where my aunt (the one I wrote about earlier) used to live. Her name is Gayatri, and our mission was to find out how she was doing. First, we had to find the house she lived in 10 years ago. I had mislaid her phone number and actual postal address during my moves from Tulsa to Rochester. I had to find the place from memory…
Surprising as it may seem, I had done the exact same thing 10 years ago. Then when I had joined AMCO, my mom had asked me to look Gayatri aunty up. It was like a scene from an old Pandaribai movie. I was getting ready for the bus then. My mom found a moment when my dad wasn’t around and gave me this old invitation for a house-warming ceremony. It was my aunt’s house-warming ceremony invitation. Mom told me that Gayatri aunty used to send her letters and invitations all the time throughout the years (there were 18 of them) she became persona non grata to the family. My family is a strange one you see (Details will be given later if need be.). Such correspondence was supposed to have been torn up and thrown away. But mom had kept this one. It was all the information I needed then: House name, address, bus numbers from Shivaji Nagar and Majestic bus-stations. It was a Saturday evening that I had kept free for this purpose alone. I boarded the corresponding bus, and asked the conductor to let me know when Lingarajapura stop came up. He was nice enough to give me a heads up and drop me off at this god-forsaken village of a suburb of B’lore. I thought to myself “Oh hell! How am I going to find this place with a knowledge of kannada that would make Vadivelu look like he is a kannadiga. There were a couple of bakeries still open. I needed to get my bearings straight anyway, so I got some cakes and some fruits and chocolates there alongwith with a general outlook of the place. It was 6pm, and clouds were gathering fast when I finally set out on my quest. I thought if I was lucky, I’d get to their house before it started pouring. Little did I know that it is important to know where she worked and who her husband was. All I knew was she was Gayatri aunty. So I started knocking on people’s houses and asking them if they knew a certain Mrs.Gayatri from either HAL or BEL. It was pouring down, when I finally knocked on this lady’s house who, as it turns out, worked with my aunt. As she was telling me the directions to her house, her dog (a poodle) the little rascal starting getting all worked up and was getting ready to tear my toe apart. I finally did get to her house, a full 3 hours after I had started. I was rain-soaked for exactly 2.5 hours. The cake was soaked, and so were the chocolates. I rang the bell, and was praying that it was the right house and that there would not be a dog. This little 12-year old girl opened the house and looked at me like I was another used vacuum salesman. I asked in stammering kannada if this was Gayatri aunty’s house. She screamed “Baaaa! Yaaro bandhidhaarei!” (Mom! Somebody at the door for you!). She had a nasty cold then, so “Maa” came out as “Baa”. She was Rashmi, my niece. My aunt came out from the kitchen, and I was dumbstruck. She was a slimmer, younger version of my mom. I remembered her face from when I was 5 or so. Her husband, Mr.Kumaraswamy was also there. Then I saw a movement closer to the floor, and saw it was a 5 year old boy trying to get some attention in all this commotion. It was Bharat, my nephew. They were settling on for a warm meal, that to me then looked like it was a feast at the Taj. I got a warm welcome then that still warms my heart up. My grandfather who babysat these kids had told the kids about Bharathi and me. I spent the whole night talking to them about the years that had passed between us, about how my granddad had been killed in a hit and run accident, about growing years with my mom and uncle. I never had so much fun at a relatives EVER. I kept going back there at least once a month, as long as I worked in Bangalore. That was then. This was now. 2005, and a lot of alcohol had muddied my memory cells.
My kannada was far worse this time around. A few thousand buildings had sprung up, street names were new. Before starting, we had looked at the yellow pages and found a couple of prospective address, which now turned out to be duds. The zipcodes didn’t match, and the phone numbers were not the right ones. We ended up at a STD PCO and were perusing the yellow pages again, when the operator overheard us arguing about where the house could be. We had been searching for over an hour by that point. The man then asked “Endha layout saar venum?”. I looked at him as though a horse had kicked me backside. HE SPOKE TAMIL, AND OF COURSE THE LAYOUT NAME!! Bangalore city’s new developments were usually made by splitting the land into layouts. These layouts are fully-approved land plots which have approved water and electricity connections. This place, Lingarajapura, had these layouts also and the one my aunt lived in had a funky name too. So I asked “Ennenna layouts irukko konjam sollunga please” So he started reciting “Venkatappa layout. Krishna layout. Aravinda layout. Shamanna layout…”. I stopped him with “Shamanna layout. Engirukku saar?”. I knew we were close. Shamanna layout sounded terribly familiar. Now, all I had to do was remember their house number. This same man said that there are usually a 100 houses in each layout. So we had narrowed our search to 1 in 100. The good Samaritan that he was, he also pointed us toward this layout. I, a duffer that I am, in the excitement of everything forgot the directions. A few missteps later, we found the layout. Then, out of the blue, I heard the number 96 in my head. So I asked how to get to 96. We were counting upward to 96, when I saw them. Not the house, I actually spotted my uncle, and my cousins. Man were they grown up! Rashmi looked just as I had imagined she would. Bharat had grown tall, as tall as me. I got nervous at the last moment. I had not bothered to keep in touch for 10 years. What if they did the whole Visu movie stunts: “You never bothered to keep in touch in 10 years. Why do you bother now?” Spit, close door and walk off…
I told Kala that we need to get them something. We had gone there empty handed. She agreed and we were walking away. They had not noticed us. Why would they? I was balding, had longish hair and a beard. As far as they were concerned, I was just another misfit there. Kala stopped me after a few steps and said ”You know, the fact that you took time off to come see them, before seeing anyone else speaks volumes. Lets just go and see what they say”. I reluctantly agreed and we turned back.
We turned back and stood in front of the gate. My uncle noticed me now, and we stared at each other for a few minutes. Then I actually saw a gear click in his head and he recognized me. He gave a long “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!” And said “Baappaa bababababababababa”. I knew I was ok at that point. Rashmi and Bharath turned and looked at who this fellow was who got their dad so excited. I learnt later that they hardly get any visitors. They keep to themselves. The kids, needless to say, were terribly excited. Rashmi ran in to get her mom. The house had expanded. They now live in the top portion now. My aunt came from the kitchen just the last time I dropped in on them unannounced. I had not warned Kala how similar she and my mom look, and how different their behaviors are. I have not seen Kala take so very well to ANY of my relatives. She curled up on a sofa next to my aunt and started shooting the breeze. My aunt speaks good tamil. The kids were asking me questions. Information needed. It was as though I never left. Rashmi, now in architecture school, has her own room and a computer. Bharath wants to join the army, which the rest of the family won’t agree to. He somehow seemed convinced he would. The kids had saved every scrap of gift I had given them. I was so touched by their kindness. After all, what is love if you don’t reciprocate. These are not my relatives, they have become friends. Friends who never judged me (except noting out aloud that I had lost a lot of hair!) and who were always glad when we met. 3 hours later, when we barely had scratched the surface with sharing 10 years worth of information, it was time to leave. I could tell they were heartbroken just as I was. They loved Kala, and she loved them. It was evident from the way she spoke nonstop about them on the way back in the autorickshaw. I was glad I saw them finally, after years of wanting to but not having a way to since I kept going to Jabalpur. We exchanged numbers and emailids. I told them I won’t lose it this time, since Kala has them. I am sure we will keep in touch from now on. Gayatri aunty was teary-eyed, just like the last time I left them. Rashmi put up a stoic front just like before. Bharath was playful and the big man of the house, unlike the last time. My uncle was glad I had come to see them. In all, I got everything I needed to get from this trip to Bangalore. I didn’t care what happened thereafter.
We then went to Jayanagar to see my aunt and uncle. Nothing spectacular. Just evidence of the massive expansion Bangalore is undergoing these days. I could imagine the chomping of the steel and machinery as they ate up the countryside and the hillsides and the forestland and kept expanding. Its literally like what Agent Smith says in Matrix-I: Human beings are like a virus. They go to a place, pillage and plunder. Consume all the natural resources, kill everything around and then move on to greener pastures. Bangalore is like that now. No longer a sleepy hamlet or the “Green City” it once was. I heaved a heavy sigh, and boarded the train back to Trichy. Kala took a detour and visited her college mate from Bombay (Priya) who was married and is settled now in Bangalore. She then boarded a train to Madras that night. One really long day. Getting caught up with friends and family. Complaints of not having enough time. We had to do it partly so there are no complaints of “Americans now! Don’t have time for relatives”. Mostly to see the people we really cared about. I got to see what the relatives we don’t talk about were doing. Someday they will be able to come join us for family functions. Someday, everything will be okay. It is ridiculous how cruel humans can be and carry lifelong grudges. I think some of it comes from these stupid soap operas contaminating TV now. I don’t how to prove it, but I think these half-assed joke of a sitcoms are now defining human relations in middle class south India.
That’s that for now. Sigh…
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