Monday, December 5

Kabhi Kabhi

Bangalore the Garden City now a days is in the news for reasons for being just the opposite.
Once a pensioner's paradise, today it is the hub of many events, be it Bill Gates' visit , or MLTR's concert, be it Dravid's homeground or the home of many a techie.

"The infrastructure is going to the dogs",
"This city cannot bear any more load",
"They say the'll give money per pothole, first ask them to show the road"
"It wasnt meant to be an IT centre"
"Damn these North Indians , they settle here and spoil the beauty of the city"


Few, just a few of the common frustrations being vented out.
Add to all this the gloom of being impersonal and friendless to me ... I hate this God Forsaken city.

I travel around 30 kilometers daily , commuting to and fro from my residence to my office takes around 1.5 hours per trip in the company cab.
Tell this to my friends in Vijayawada and they will go
"Oh!!! 1.5 hours , we could have reached Guntur by then".
Ohh how I hate this city. This is the city I was born in, an entirely different city then , 22 years back.
It was different 8 years back when I left it to relocate to a totally different state, it is not new to me , my dad travelled a lot, we tagged along.
I remember the vast open spaces, the beautiful wild flowers that grew every here and there, those with strong fragrances, those with soft petals that diintegrated the minute you touched them, the aboundant Touch-Me-Nots.... so many memories...
Nature has always fascinated me, the then Garden City was a boon to my troubled chilhood heart.I would lie among the flowers for hours, either kissing them, or shaking them as my mood swung.
And of course I had my grand dad with me.
Now this God Forsaken City looms ahead like a tower in the prison looms to the prisoner, the fact that this city is intricately woven around my life and there is no escaping it , itself gives me shivers and chills.

Today though,
As though the city was responding to my mute cries of lonliness and hatred. As though, it was burdened with too many accusations,with many a tear and sighs, with many ravages on its structure and infrastucture reached out to me. Physically and emotionally.
I hardly bother to see where we are going once Im settled in my office cab. Im either reading a novel or busy dozing off, today though, a seperate route through Corporation and into the gardens of the Library and High Court took me aback.

Beautiful trees , in full bloom during the winter... beautiful, just beautiful. I had to forget everything else and gape at the trees there.
The city wanted me to do that, it wanted me to lose myself (if even just momentarily) in it, it wanted me to feel its soul and reach out to it.
Beautiful trees absolutely barren of any leaves, butin full bloom with these pinkish magenta flowers took my breath off ... a tree at every 10 paces ... like a fool , I took out my mobile to catch the breath taking beauty on lens, but the city did not want me to do that, it wanted me to watch, it wanted to tell me of its beauty which was now being destroyed, it wanted me to know that I am one of those who have tried to marr its beauty by hating it. The green juxtaposed with the pinkish hue punched me in my stomach like an aphrosodiac..... I loved the beauty there... the city , as though asking me to realise myself in its beauty so that I can stop hating it.

3 comments:

br!j :-) said...

So where do you want to be, whats the ideal place for you??

br!j :-) said...

i still dont understand why do you have to keep the aprove comment thin on, one word verification is enough to keep the spamers away,, what's the funda :-/

arpana said...

@brij, somewhere far away ... not in Bangalore yaar mera dum ghut tha hain yahaan ! kaheeen bhi jee loongi , yahaan nahin ! :((