Friends

It was the December of 1991, one of the coldest winters seen in Bangalore. The days were pretty tense. My grandfather(maternal) had been serious. There were quite a few anxious days and nights, and anxious visits to Srinagar (we were in Chamarajpet then). He eventually passed away in his sleep the same month.

Bangalore, Mysore and Mandya were also burning over Kaveri. Sights of buses charred to the last bits of metal were common. There was curfew with shoot at sight orders imposed in Chamarajpet. Had seen a huge posse of policemen, all carrying rifles patrolling the streets. We were sitting on the terrace watching the whole action, before one of them caught sight of us and ordered us down and inside our homes.

Those were days of anxiety. The monsoons had been strong too. Classes had been running at half strength as students stayed away due to the rains. There were rains all the way till November. My tonsils had been acting up too causing many days of sickness.

And then one day, I heard it for the first time. A dog howling. It was long, and drawn out. Almost baleful, as if mourning something he had lost. It sent shivers down my spine as I lay there in bed. Next morning, my grandma (paternal) told me this wasn't the first time. That dogs could sense Yama, the God of death when he is around. That the dog had howled the day my grandfather had passed away. It beat me why it would howl in Chamarajpet when my grandfather was in Srinagar. But the association stuck.

To this day dogs howling at night scares the hell out of me. And yesterday they set off a symphony of their own as half a dozen of them stationed themselves near my house and set off a long drawn out howling racket, that went on for close to an hour. All the time, I, now 29 years old, lay there in bed scared like shit! The important thing is they don't set up such howls every night. It happens only certain nights, once a fortnight. Makes me wonder if its the moon, and their call to it.

The association still lingers. During day time looking at the same dogs lying timidly under the shades of still adolescent trees, I laugh at the thought that they could strike such fear at night. And then, once it starts the fear grips me. Makes me wonder who it is that might be visited by Yama that night. Am not a non-believer, but I do temper my beliefs to decide what to believe and what not to. There are enough holes in dogs howling and Yama visiting for me to know that it might be far fetched. Dogs have howled a lot, but they haven't always resulted in people being dead in the morning. Or people die during the day time too and haven't seen dogs howling during day time.

But then, they start their dolorous howls which no matter how I rationalize things, always manage to set my heart racing with fear. I wonder what it is about them, maybe it is the unnatural way the howls turn out from otherwise timid dogs, or maybe its a scar/fear from childhood that am yet to outgrow or is yet to heal. Until I know the answers I guess I'll just close my eyes tight, hope that sleep takes me, and pray that all is well the next day morning.

Fasts come full circle for Andhra. Its almost like a cruel joke of irony played on that state. Almost exactly 57 years back, in the December on 1952 Potti Sreeramulu went on a similar fast, which eventually claimed his life. Except that then his motive was the unification of all Telugu speaking regions into an Andhra state. His death and the uproar it caused forced Nehru to go ahead with forming states on linguistic basis, what we have now.

And now, KCR's fast divides the state all over again. I just can't get enough of the irony here! Question is, what will become of Hyderabad. Again its almost like Mumbai, developed by the Gujjus mostly it was claimed by the Marathis simply because it fell inside their state. And yes, you guessed it right! It took a lot of agitation and political arm twisting of Nehru to get that done. Hyderabad was developed as part of AP, and its now being claimed for Telengana simply because its inside that region. Its almost like they kicked Andhra out and asked them to form their own state! And again it will take a lot of agitation, fasts, suicides, self-immolations as each state stakes claim to the crown jewel.

What worries me most is what it will give rise to in other states. People around the Darjeeling-Siliguri belt have already intensified their agitation for Gorkhaland. Some are talking of Harith Pradesh. God knows where! Not sure what it will give rise to in Karnataka. Will the northerners in the Mumbai-Karnataka belt ask for their own state? Will the Kodavas rise up for their own state? I kind of feel the latter is less likely to happen, as they don't have much political influence. Saurashtra is another state that is being called for. But except for Harith Pradesh and Gorkhaland, the rest of the calls have been pretty muted, barely causing a ripple or a 2 inch mention in the papers.

Have always wondered how demands for statehood arise. Is it for genuine reasons like lack of development, like in the case of Jharkhand or Uttarakhand because the state was already too big? Or is it more likely subtle cultural differences that are blown out of proportion by vested interests looking for vote banks and poll planks? I can hardly see any reason for the formation of Telengana as that place seems to have more resources and is seemingly more prosperous than the remaining Rayalseema/Andhra belt. Is it just people refusing to share their resources with the rest of the state, like Mumbai not being happy about having its money ending up with corrupt Thakurs in UP.

Oh well, its difficult for me to see the point behind all this. I guess am just an idealist thinking of bigger issues like food for 7 billion people, the amount of food that Americans consume, the number of forests they bring down, how we'll all die once the Ganges dries up or I guess am just too tired at 10 in the night and already struggling to put words together to form coherent sentences.
Guess I'll just drop and sleep now.

It was a lovely Bangalore evening, around 8:30 PM. I set out from church street with my cousins after dinner and decided to stop by for an ice cream at the place adjoining Rex. It happens to be one of those places that I tick off a list every time I visit Bangalore. The Italian delight is especially good and definitely not be missed. Of course, this time I had butter scotch, leaving the Italian one for later. With our ice creams in hand we set out to cross Residency Road and move towards Richmond Road. Plan was to continue as long as the ice creams lasted and then take an auto back home, all the way to Nagarbhavi.

We had just made it past Residency Road and crossed the weird triangle near St. Paul's when a cousin declared that he won't be able to walk a step further. All that we had dumped into our stomachs at our tongues' bidding seemed to be causing a chemical reaction, at least in my cousin's tummy. We decided not to risk the situation any further and promptly crossed the road.

Trying to cut auto costs down I made it to the front most auto manned by a guy looking like RKJ-with-hair-minus-the-weight meets Steve Buscemi. He heard all that I had to say in terms of destination location, which usually goes "Ambedkar College Nagarabhavi Mallathahalli Papareddypalya". The thing is, I stay at a place that is kind of at the intersection of all these regions and missing out any one of these usually results in the auto driver claiming that I had brought him to that very particular place, which he wouldn't have agreed to in the first place. And thus, having brought him to a place he considers cursed, and also having made him drive back a tiny distance without any girakees I would need to pay him 10 rupees more! All existence comes down eventually to the 10 rupees more.

Coming back to the topic, the auto driver, without even considering where the location was pronounced "200 rupeesh!". "Chance-a illa" said I. It had cost me Rs. 136 on the to journey to the exact same spot and I figured 150 would be a good deal for the return. "150 kodtheeni" I offered. "Sari banni" he seemed to agree and as we took some reluctant steps towards the vehicle he came back again with a counter offer "sari 190 rupees kodi". "Sumne time waste maadbedi namdu. 150ge bandre banni, illandre bere auto nodkoltheeni" I said firmly and asked the other guy behind him - "150 rupees kodtheeni, ambedkar college bartheera" I asked. The guy was on the phone and asked us to get in without as much as a "10 rs extra kodi sir". I wasn't so easily convinced and said "150 Rs". He nodded. Still not convinced I said "Nagarbhavi hathra". He nodded. "What's the world coming to! There must be some catch somewhere" thought I.

"150 Rs jaasthi Nagarbhavi circle ge" he said all of a sudden. "100 Rs aaguthe ashte". Now this was something unheard of. An autodriver telling me I was paying him more than what I should be? "130 Rs kodla" I asked. He turned back, gave me a pretty contemptible look and sighed "Nimmishta". Already on the defensive I said "sari aaythu, 150 kodtheeni", but pretty annoyed at someone questioning my knowledge of distances in Bangalore, I challenged him "100 Rs gella hogakke aagalla, at least 120 Rs aaguthe" I challenged him. "Sari meter haaktheeni, nodona" he said and did the half way left side turning back thing only auto drivers can do and set the dice rolling...er...meter going. And there began the challenge.

I realized that there was now a situation where the auto driver was trying to take the shortest routes possible, while I kept looking at the meter egging it on as it climbed higher and higher. I knew it was 10 Kms from Mysore Circle to my place so that was a benchmark for me. At Mysore Circle however, the meter read somewhere between 40-50 Rs and I knew I held a slight edge unless he took some weird shortcut.

He took the right at BHEL, which is what drivers do when they try to save time and distance, and crossed Chandra Layout and on reaching the circle close to NLS, which is some 2 KM from my place he turned back and asked "Nagarbhavi circle banthu, ellige eega?". The meter read 102 Rs exact now. "Idalla circle, AIT hathra hogbeku" said me. He didn't say a word, took a right and continued on towards AIT. When we got down, at a place where he could take a U turn, the meter read 112 Rs. Considering that I got down pretty early and that he had turned the meter on slightly late, I guessed we were close to 120 Rs, my initial estimate. I paid him the 150 bucks I had promised him, feeling pretty pleased with myself.

Of course it dawned on me later that my idea of where exactly is Nagarbhavi circle was different from his, which kind of meant that both of us were right about our estimates!