itinerant — a Bangalorean's blog on people and places, here and everywhere

when I was red…

January 28, 2010

An item today in The Hindu suggests the way to laughter, which is to look beyond anger to the absurdity of the situation. I glanced at the story and read only the big-lettered nut graf on my way to work and forgot all about the idea when we entered the gate, where, for two months [...]

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back to being Rip…

January 20, 2010

I’m reading Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Finding the Flow, along with Natalie Goldberg’s Wild Mind and Tim Robinson’s Stones of Aran. All together: Wild Mind when I wake, Finding the Flow in the car, and Tim Robinson at bedtime. Alain de Botton’s book on the Pleasures and Sorrows of Work arrived from Amazon yesterday, and I’ll open [...]

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a coffee-table story of Angadi

January 13, 2010

There isn’t an outlet that serves a decent cup of coffee in Malnad. The little shops that make it use instant-coffee powder; but if you are desperate for good coffee, knock on the door of the coffee-planter. His woman will serve it with a fluff of froth with a wee bit of powder on top, [...]

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the eye and Madurai

January 6, 2010

I spent an entire day at the Aravind Eye Hospital, founded by Dr. Venkataswamy thirty years ago, and which many say is the second great temple in Madurai. In the book From Here to Nirvana, which is a Lonely Planet kind of guide to ashrams and temples, the Aravind Hospital is one prominent destination. The [...]

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the Hoysalas: brigand chiefs who became kings

December 27, 2009

In my last post I told you that all the public walls of Bangalore are painted over with scenes of ruins of our historical monuments, and larger-than-hoarding depictions of our beasts and birds and beaches. I am sitting in the Cafe Coffee Day by the highway at Hirisave, a hundred and ten kilometers west of [...]

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this foggy clear December

December 21, 2009

This December, as in every December, I approach Electronics City seeing the sun through the fog, and mistake it for a morning moon—I see it so absently. I wonder that the moon is so large, and after a while I realize there is no rabbit on it, and so it is the sun in its [...]

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a divine smile called Hassan

December 17, 2009

The ride into town
Turn right to the north on NH-48 and then at the square which comes up turn left to the west. The road (Bangalore-Mangalore Road) goes straight and curves fine to the right after a while, and then it is straight again for the few furlongs into the town center. On either side [...]

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the Bhagawan’s eyes

November 29, 2009

Every introduction to Bangalore speaks of the four towers of Kempegowda that marked the corners of the capital he founded four-hundred years ago. But these small things are not towers—not in the way the Jin Mao or the Sears or the Qutb Minar are towers. Kempegowda’s Towers are small gopuras, tiny things built on dome-shaped [...]

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red in my head

November 22, 2009

This week, on the treadmill, it has been The Who and Janis Joplin. It was Joplin today, and I finished my exertions to the tune of Ball ‘n’ Chain and her messianic advise to stay locked on today, to hang on to the moment.
Zen. If I could do what she and zen ask I should [...]

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being mentally challenged in Bangalore

November 15, 2009

Image by Little_Ricky via Flickr

“Saleem’s sister’s son,” Raja said of the young man in outside room that the gate led to, which served as the office. “He’s a potential drug addict.” The nephew took no offense, his eyes and face remained blank and emotionless. He was sitting in Saleem’s chair when we entered, and rose [...]

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the floods: near Raichur last week

October 23, 2009

Women and children milled about the back of the truck. There were men on top handing down stuff: rice, stoves, packets of biscuits of which a child got two instead of the ration of one and she giggled to her mother. Women went in twos and threes for short conversations with the policeman by the [...]

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Chasing the Race

October 1, 2009

He was pleasant and made good conversation, and for a Singaporean manager, seemed quite easy, there was not that brusqueness about him. He is determined to source a range of aerospace components from India; for which he will open his office in Hyderabad by January. “You will be our first source,” he said, showing more [...]