July 10, 2011
"In a single file now," says Keith as he starts to walk behind me. Lingrajpuram can be very crowded in the evenings and not very comfortable to walk but when you want to combine your walk with buying your vegetables then this situation is rather inevitable. Keith and I have recently discovered the joys of walking and we seem to be walking with a vengeance. The unfortunate fact is that Keith has lost a considerable greater amount of weight than me and that leaves me feeling cheated! We did occupy the entire sidewalk once but now perhaps a single person can indeed pass by us.
Suddenly we have started noticing things we have never noticed before. We marvel at the types of homes we see, the kinds of businesses there are. We have discovered a shop that sells old furniture and parts of old buildings, like quaint doors, pillars, etc. They look like old British time homes broken down to give way to the new. There is a tiny shop that has a furnace and is meant only to char off the hair of heads and legs of sheep! There are innumerable unisex parlours that we have just noticed and we feel "Duh! Where have we been?"
The eateries are the ones that can make your firm resolutions get tossed to the winds. The names of the chicken places begin with chicken alpha to chicken omega! All sorts of names and mouth-watering offerings, the chicken rolls make walking past quite difficult. Pristine is Persian, Piri piri is Italian, Anna Mandira is Karnataka based, there are state wise restaurants offering you the ‘real taste’ of the state, and in Kammanhalli, KFC means Korean fried chicken! The pav bhaji and hot jalebis on the roadside carts at Kullappa circle are simply unavoidable for incurable foodies like us. Not to mention the Pizza places and 'starbucks'- type coffee locales. We console ourselves with, "Lets' eat here when Daniel comes home next."
Often we find something to buy. Suddenly there is a vendor with a truck parked by the side of the road, selling cabbages for just Rs five. Then there are coriander leaves, Sniffle’s bones, etc. that need to be bought. So a small backpack comes with us on our walks. There are also the apparel shops with mannequins dressed to kill.
There is this gentleman who comes out of his house loaded with small plastic bowls of cooked rice for the street dogs to eat. It is a delight to see how well behaved the street dogs are around him. Each one gets a bowl of his own. At times we get followed by these dogs at a distance, maybe because they smell our Sniffle on us. Meanwhile, Sniffle is busy enjoying his chewy bone at home - to keep him from sniveling! The variety of dogs that we can see is unbelievable, all kinds of dogs, in different homes, on walks, sometimes. A pet shop was selling some mastiffs, the colours of the dogs were so varied almost as if they were not real.
The pani puri fellow near the Institute of Speech and Hearing looks hopeful as we pass. We have had gol guppas there once and perhaps that’s why the doleful looks. He is mostly overcrowded anyway. Sometimes, a by-two coffee beckons us at a nearby darshini when we are too tired.
The other day there was a meeting that was being conducted in a school, an interaction between the Police from the Local Police Station and the general public. It was a great eye opener as to what the Police expect from us. One of cops said that the public and the Police were like “anna-saaru” (rice with sambar), tastes good only when mixed!
Holy Ghost Church has an evening Mass on Saturdays, along with the Perpetual Succour Novena. It is an evening to relax, of meeting friends, making new friends after Mass. Sometimes, Mosque road beckons with its shopping and diners, Arabic, Chinese and Indian. Bangalore is also filled with places of worship, of all religions, a revelation in itself.
Comfortable shoes to wear I guess are very important. Thankfully Bangalore roads and sidewalks do not have too many ups and downs. Yet walking shoes are necessary to keep the tempo going. The Kammanhalli Main road offers many delightful shopping places of all varieties of goods suited for all budgets. By itself, it's definitely a complete township!
Another place which is self-sufficient and yet feels like a village atmosphere is the milieu under the railway overhead bridge at Lingarajpuram. Most of the shopping can be done in these places, though we wish Commercial Street had been close enough to walk there and back. Anyway walking seems to have opened a whole new world of simple delights to both of us. So lets’ put on our walking shoes and get going. Cheerio!
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