The Hindu Business Line : Caught mapping!

Author and anthologist Aditi De met me a couple of years ago in my office and asked if I would write for a book on Bangalore that Penguin had commissioned her to put together. She explained to me, very affectionately, the idea of the book. She sounded like she was talking about building a house by the sea with a large compound, a long winding driveway, a raised verandah with white, cane furniture, stucco walls, where coconut fronds would intersect the crimson rays of a set ting sun. I was meeting her for the first time and the diminutive lady sounded like she was going to curate the Museum of Modern Arts in New York. She told me about some of the people who had agreed to write for her. I readily agreed, but soon realised that I had gotten carried away and clearly underestimated the load I already had on hand. I called her and expressed my inability and sought her forgiveness. She was very gracious about the matter.

A few days ago, when I learnt that the book, Multiple City, was ready to launch, I told my wife Susmita that we must go and fete Aditi and the authors. I am glad that we did and thus partially made up for having reneged on my word. The book launch was a delight.

There was Swedish writer Zac O’Yeah who has written a piece on Majestic — that could mean a movie theatre, a bus stand and a railway station, a place for all kinds of eateries, crowds of people, or all of the above, depending on who you are, and what you may be seeking. O’Yeah regaled the audience at the launch with his story of how he fell into one of the many potholes of Bangalore while walking on the road one evening and broke his leg. Helpless and in pain, he groused to himself that “this indeed is Bangalore.” It was then that a young couple on their way to a party rescued him and, realising he needed serious attention, rushed him to a hospital. Once there, everyone realised that O’Yeah had no money. The couple, the party long past, paid his fees. And he thought: “So this indeed is Bangalore.” The narrative moved from one experience to the other, all woven around a broken leg and, through it, how a city touched O’Yeah .

Then a young lady read from Ramachandra Guha’s piece on the city’s quaintest little bookstore that has shrine-status amongst its patrons. The priest, like any deity, is as important a part of the shrine experience and in the case of the Premier Bookstore, it is the eternal T.N. Shanbhag, a man who can tell you which book is the most authentic treatise on Vedic literature with the same ease that he may suggest the required reading on wildlife, occult, astrophysics or biotechnology. Guha narrates the charming tale of how his girlfriend Sujata — now wife — had taken him there to buy him a present as the two had to go separate ways for a while. Among the ceiling-high piles of books, youthful affection suddenly swelled and she, yes she, planted a kiss on his cheek. This was in a Bangalore when avocado still grew in the large compounds of monkey-trellised bungalows with Mangalore tiles, and where such a public show of affection was a matter of social scandal. In that moment of youthfulness, Guha and Sujata realised that the owner, Shanbhag, was witness to the indiscretion and had turned a deep shade of red!

The book reading turned to a piece by Achal Prabhala. This was on the city’s eating haunts from MTR to Kadambam, from Vidyarthi Bhavan to street food. I could relate to the inviting idiosyncrasies of each place. In 1989, when I was relatively new to Bangalore, I had hosted a group of visitors from the US for Tiffin at the famous MTR. The visitors ate like there was no tomorrow, much to my horror, as I did not want to be responsible for their gastric downfall the next morning when we were to ink a significant business deal. As the uppuma was served and a Brahmin-server with his dhoti in half-mast threw some ghee on their plates, one of them turned to me and asked what the substance was. I told him innocently that it was “clarified butter called ghee”. By then, the server had turned back and was going away but my explanation was caught by his antennae and he sprang back like an injured leopard and barked in a stern, correctional voice, “Pyooor ghee,” and stomped away. How could I have violated his being by equating the stuff with what could have been adulteration by default?

To the flummoxed Yankees, I had no explanation because then I would have had to tell them that MTR had once chosen to close down in protest than to bow down to price control by the Indira Gandhi regime during the Emergency!

I bought three copies of the book. Two were to be exported to my daughters who live in exile and one I am currently savouring with the slowness that it deserves. After all, the narratives go back to 600 BC — microliths of the time have been unearthed in familiar precincts; it also talks about the Chieftain Kempe Gowda, who made the place his capital in 1537; it evocatively narrates the fight of the British, who needed Hindoostan to avenge the loss of the United States. The authors move through four parts, arranged chronologically, to tell us about the 24/7 City that Bangalore has come to be. Aditi De’s authors have written their pieces with a certain gentleness of the pen that is as beautiful as the objects of their narration.

The book is the work of a curator and its poetic prose is interspersed with black and white photographs and some absolutely wonderful cartoons by Paul Fernandes that bring alive the story of a culture in constant transition. It is wonderful that this book is released from the outset in a paperback edition, making it affordable for a larger audience.

In closing, I am happy that I could not write for Aditi De as she had desired. The 51 pieces that span from The Ballad of Kempe Gowda to Metroblogging are way above what I could have churned out despite my claim to be a writer and a lover of Bangalore.

The author is co-founder and Gardener at MindTree. His books “The High Performance Entrepreneur” and “Go Kiss the World” are Penguin best-sellers.

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