I didn’t believe friends in Bangalore who told us over the phone: don’t come now; it is hotter than Kolkata. They were too spoilt, I thought, by the city’s year-round good weather. But, in fact, the little patch of roadside green before our house was gone; the green in the park where I walk every morning had turned light brown.
Yes, Bangalore is in the grip of a drought of sorts. The north-east monsoon, brief but potent, which visits Tamil Nadu in winter and whose leftovers southern Karnataka is happy to enjoy, failed to show up this season. Even the occasional unscheduled showers, courtesy some depression in the Bay, have been almost totally missing. The result is that a harsh parched brown has taken over, turning moods the same colour.
If high and dry summer heat was all one had to bear, that would have been bearable. But to that has been added water scarcity of a degree I have not known in 10 years. To make matters even worse, there is continuous bad news in the papers. In between pictures of reservoir beds that look like ill-maintained football fields, neighbouring states have restarted the old acrimonious exchanges over reservoir water releases, which had been forgotten in the last two years thanks to copious rains.
So I thought: why am I here, and why does it feel so good to be back despite the weather? I have long discounted the conventional wisdom that Bangalore’s greatest attraction is its climate. A survey we did for the paper among corporate leaders showed that the biggest attraction was the cosmopolitan spirit of the city, then the talent pool — and after that came the climate.
That explains the presence of working folks holding down regular jobs. If the weather that had also made Bangalore a retiree’s paradise is gone, then how come I am happy to be back here, I wondered, trying to get closer to the subjective self of a city that is its basic attraction. It began with the railway porter who haggled a bit and settled for less. It continued with the taxi driver filling you in on the state of traffic jams and absence of rain, good-naturedly garrulous in his terrible Hindi. And, finally, the face of our elderly maid, wreathed in smiles.
Then Bibhu called to say “welcome back” and casually mentioned that he was on his way to meet Subroto, possibly the first journalist to get a one-on-one after the latter had taken over at the top of the firm. I congratulated him and realised that the old adrenaline, triggered in journalists and hunters alike once on a chase, be it for a story or a game, had begun to flow in me even if by proxy.
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I found that even if the mood in the rest of the country was down, courtesy Sensex watchers in Mumbai and fisc watchers in Delhi, Bangalore was autonomous. It hummed and moved to the soft tune of India’s soft power. The more the world was in trouble, the more important it became to call in the software doctor. And the corollary to that was yet another boutique hotel, which came up while we were away, just round the corner where 100 Foot Road intersects with Twelfth Main in Indiranagar. There is no let-up in the inflow of visitors’ dollars!
All went well until the wife reminded me that we had not found time to bring Bengali sweets for our friends and neighbours — which was mandatory. Not to worry, I declared airily, Banchharam, the great Kolkata name in sweets, is here too, having opened shop recently just round the corner in Cambridge Layout. With identical quality and packaging, nobody would know that the mithai was bought right here and didn’t come with the baggage.
It is then that the downside of Bangalore hit me. The good-sized sandesh was priced at Rs 30 per piece! This was outrageous. In Kolkata I had not come across anything more than Rs 20-25. And just when Banchharam was getting too big for its boots, justice had come to us in east Kolkata with the arrival of Balaram Mullick a few shops away. In terms of Bengali-sweet pedigree, the latter is difficult to beat.
There is too much money among Bengali expats here, I told the wife, slumping into the sofa. Banchharam is charging Rs 30 for a notun gurer sandesh! I know what I am going to do: get in touch with Balaram Mullick and get them to do a repeat of east Kolkata in Bangalore.
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