Once during a walk in MG Road, I saw old low-rise buildings co-existing with the new high-rise multiplex-multi-complex-multi-storied-glass-facaded buildings. Old lamp posts and old trees remnants of past. I just wondered that even if so many changes come the core beauty of MG Road would not change.. nobody, for example, would afford to play with the boulevard abutting Kariappa Park and the parade ground.
Within a few years after that evening Bangalore Metro came.. the boulevard was razed. Trees of the yore and lamp-posts of colonial past were bulldozed. We have to put up with the awkwardness of the under-construction-elevated platform of the metro, for don't-know-how-many-more-years.
Meanwhile, on the other side, the change has been continuing. More glass-facades are appearing. Some old shopping complexes have disappeared and some are on the way. Ever since I saw in the newspaper of the boulevard's disappearance I have been avoiding MG Road like I would helplessly avoid a cursed distant relative.
The other day, I somehow dared.. As usually I parked my bike some miles away from where I was headed. While walking, I saw that an old landmark - the GG Welling photo-studio and photography equipment shop is intact. Many other old establishments close to it had gone. As I walked further, I passed by new-age coffee bars filled with chit-chatting youngsters. On MG Road and Brigade Road and in all those malls one finds so many of these fancy and funky youngsters so many at a time. I walked further.
Earlier, as I read in newspaper that old establishments are disappearing - Plaza, for example - I feared that my favorite destination here would also have gone, and thats one reason I avoided MG Roard after Metro work started. But this day as I forced myself there and looked apprehensively.. I was quite happy to note that it was intact.
India Coffee House.
First time I visited it was on December 26, 1996. I was on a college tour and while friends went for lunch in a nearby restaurant, I discovered this and went in for a coffee. Since then, there was never a time that I went to MG Road but not stopped by in Coffee House for a cuppa. All these years, the coffee is same.. in color, taste, quantity.. the servers are the same.. and I guess the cups are also same. Of course, my association with coffee house is only 12 years. I remember reading about coffee-house customers doing their 50th year non-stop. And that there is some coffee-house-customer association in Kokata.
Except for the price of coffee (first time I tasted, it was less than Rs.5/- per cup) there is absolutely no change in the whole experience. You can find people of all ages.. individuals, pairs and small groups talking, discussing, bantering, quarrelling, settling businesses... a lot can happen over a cup of coffee. Some framed pictures lauding the taste and greatness of Indian coffee are mounted on the walls.. even they are the same. On the photograph of Mahatma Gandhi there is a vermillion mark on his forehead.. it always looked as if it was put freshly on that day. Sitting in the coffee house, sipping the loveliest coffee, looking at the people inside the restaurant and the curios ones (you were and will be one of them) outside is a refreshing experience one should not miss.
The price per cup of coffee is Rs. 8/- now.. and as usually when you hand a Rs. 10 note, the server never bothers you with the change. He keeps it with himself and thanks you for the 'tip.'
I hope, when the metro rail work is completed, and it keeps its promise of taking up most load of the roads and the boulevard (or something equally enchanting) is re-developed, one again relives the real Bangalore experience in the same Coffee House serving the same refreshing and invigorating cups of steaming filter coffee.
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Saturday, August 02, 2008
NTR, the superman
I just finished watching first half an hour of NTR's ace movie Kondaveeti Simham (on the TV), for the 100+th time. Of course, only once (when I was a kid) did I watch the movie in full.
NTR is a great actor.. In most movies that he acted, the characters' weight is magnified because he plays the role. And most of his action was not 'natural.' It was a highly amplified portrayal of emotions, drama, action and pathos.. it is believed that he (like his Tamil counterparts MGR and Sivaji Ganesan) over-acted to get the 'maximum effect.' And yes, the audience's hearts were won. Not only a great actor he was a great man in his own right.. an inimitable icon.
I was an 8 year old boy when I first saw him in person.. He was CM of AP then, and was at that time donning the Swami Vivekananda attire.
After he entered politics, he assumed various getups before settling with the last known. For some initial days he used to wear khaki trousers & shirt. Then he took up white safari suite. And then the more Telugu attire of panche+shirt+kanduva. Then the orange (sanyasi) robes. It was believed that he lived like a sanyasi, though many would say that he only acted like one and in his home he still gulped chicken fried in pure butter (quite unbecoming of a sanyasi). This dress changed to that of Swami Vivekananda, for which it seems he wrapped an 18 feet cloth around his head. It was a veda-sabha at Hyderabad and he came as the chief guest. The organizers got all the pandits honored by him and in that sabha I sat very close to him. He spoke on that occasion but I remember nothing of it.
When it came to honoring me, he handed over the gifts, and I didn't know how to react. He said, "teesuko babu.." ("take it, boy"). I took, saying "thank you." Probably I was the only one in that sabha to have said this. Everyone laughed including him and he tapped on my cheek and proceeded.
It was an open secret that he hated brahmins. One can see it even in some of his on-screen performances. Probably for this reason our elders were not for his political party. I didn't like this, and wanted to vote for him if I ever got the chance.. I never got it.
Another occasion I saw him was when he inaugurated the famous temple of Jubilee Hills. How was Jubilee Hills at that time! It was a vast 'layout' with mostly empty plots and newly laid tar-roads. Here a movie mogul's house, there a minister's house.. rocks in between. One could see the Hyderabad Airport from there . The runway, aircraft landing and taking off ... Now, not even a house in the next street is visible, or even the next street itself is out of visible range.
Many years later, in fact within the same year that NTR passed away, a friend of mine visited NTR on behalf of his college. He spoke of NTR's warm reception and the attention he paid to what to him was a small thing - a representation from an engineering college. My friend was most impressed by the powerful personality of the giant. The personality reflected in the sharpness and sheer power/magnetism/glow/energy in NTR's eyes.
Wasn't he already too popular when he entered politics? Why did he still don so many attires to attract public attention and awe? All his various attires, the 'gimmicks' as detractors who could not even trace his glorious path let alone catching up would term, were one expression of the great man's energy. In fact, in popularity, I strongly believe that NTR far surpassed MGR and it is hard to believe that any other person can come close to him in the foreseeable time frame.
Long live the NTR, the pride of Telugu people.
NTR is a great actor.. In most movies that he acted, the characters' weight is magnified because he plays the role. And most of his action was not 'natural.' It was a highly amplified portrayal of emotions, drama, action and pathos.. it is believed that he (like his Tamil counterparts MGR and Sivaji Ganesan) over-acted to get the 'maximum effect.' And yes, the audience's hearts were won. Not only a great actor he was a great man in his own right.. an inimitable icon.
I was an 8 year old boy when I first saw him in person.. He was CM of AP then, and was at that time donning the Swami Vivekananda attire.
After he entered politics, he assumed various getups before settling with the last known. For some initial days he used to wear khaki trousers & shirt. Then he took up white safari suite. And then the more Telugu attire of panche+shirt+kanduva. Then the orange (sanyasi) robes. It was believed that he lived like a sanyasi, though many would say that he only acted like one and in his home he still gulped chicken fried in pure butter (quite unbecoming of a sanyasi). This dress changed to that of Swami Vivekananda, for which it seems he wrapped an 18 feet cloth around his head. It was a veda-sabha at Hyderabad and he came as the chief guest. The organizers got all the pandits honored by him and in that sabha I sat very close to him. He spoke on that occasion but I remember nothing of it.
When it came to honoring me, he handed over the gifts, and I didn't know how to react. He said, "teesuko babu.." ("take it, boy"). I took, saying "thank you." Probably I was the only one in that sabha to have said this. Everyone laughed including him and he tapped on my cheek and proceeded.
It was an open secret that he hated brahmins. One can see it even in some of his on-screen performances. Probably for this reason our elders were not for his political party. I didn't like this, and wanted to vote for him if I ever got the chance.. I never got it.
Another occasion I saw him was when he inaugurated the famous temple of Jubilee Hills. How was Jubilee Hills at that time! It was a vast 'layout' with mostly empty plots and newly laid tar-roads. Here a movie mogul's house, there a minister's house.. rocks in between. One could see the Hyderabad Airport from there . The runway, aircraft landing and taking off ... Now, not even a house in the next street is visible, or even the next street itself is out of visible range.
Many years later, in fact within the same year that NTR passed away, a friend of mine visited NTR on behalf of his college. He spoke of NTR's warm reception and the attention he paid to what to him was a small thing - a representation from an engineering college. My friend was most impressed by the powerful personality of the giant. The personality reflected in the sharpness and sheer power/magnetism/glow/energy in NTR's eyes.
Wasn't he already too popular when he entered politics? Why did he still don so many attires to attract public attention and awe? All his various attires, the 'gimmicks' as detractors who could not even trace his glorious path let alone catching up would term, were one expression of the great man's energy. In fact, in popularity, I strongly believe that NTR far surpassed MGR and it is hard to believe that any other person can come close to him in the foreseeable time frame.
Long live the NTR, the pride of Telugu people.
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