Pointless reminisence

"When Manoj first arrived in Bangalore in 1982, he looked out of the car driving him from the airport and asked the question that was to haunt him for years: 'But where's the city?' It was wide-open spaces and low buildings and to someone arriving from Mumbai, it was like stepping out of the heart of a cyclone to a quiet little plateau. It took him about a decade to stop missing spoken Hindi, and almost another decade to finally figure out that Bangalore possessed something no other metro he had been to in India had: it was a cultural stronghold that actually welded the modern with the traditional and came out a winner.

Culture is everything. It is who you are. In Bangalore, it covers a multitude of areas in a way unique to the nature of the Kannadiga; we can absorb, but at the same time our roots are strong."

- The Indian Express - Express Magazine, Sunday April 2000. Bangalore, India

I will never forget what Cubbon Park smells like after the first of the April showers, or how beautiful Bangalore Palace looks lit up against the clear evening sky. There are few moments that compare to watching an India-Pakistan cricket match in Chinnaswamy Stadium with 60,000 other people. Climbing mango trees, breakfast on the roadside or lunch at the dhaba, cheap Chinese food, amazing views from Nandi Hills, road trips to Ooty or Masinagudi through the foggy roads, long drives to college and back, whipping the seniors on the "indoor" court at MCC, floodlight matches at Indiranagar, watching the sun come up on the ring road, or just chilling at home - with the cool Bangalore breeze tapping me into a peaceful slumber.

I miss namma Bangaluru.