GROWING PAINS for Simply Bangalore (India Today), 2006

 

Bengalooru is a baby. It was born of a convoluted naming game. It requires nurturing, which the multi-crore IT juggernaut generously provides. Its metaphorical nappies are changed everyday by its loving god-parent, the BMP. And it is disciplined, morally and rigorously, by its gentle police force which firmly believes in conventional wisdom of the spare rod and spoiled child variety- no modern, PC parenting for us, oh no. 

 

If you don’t know what I’m on about (um...are you an alien?), this is yet another moan about the 11.30pm shut down rule for all establishments that serve food and alcohol in Bangalore. Which means, given all our OTHER problems- like work stress, traffic stress, power-cut stress and pot-hole stress- we now have to deal with not-enough-time-to-party stress. See- in the one hour I get at any restaurant or bar I go to on Friday night (I’ve given up going out on Saturday. The helicopter I hire to get me from my house to MG road would just make too big a hole in my savings.), I have to fight my way to the bar, force the bartender’s attention away from the celebs who are displayed on the counter, get my drink, wade through sweaty hellos and in-the-air kisses, reach my friends, gyrate for about 5.4 minutes to DJ Puppy’s newest remix of Kajra Re, and then, just as I have convinced some sweet young boy to get me another drink, the lights are on, the music is off, and the evening is over.

 

So I realize that all this doesn’t sound like too much fun. Its not. Partying in this city just ain’t what it used to be when I was younger. Along with the meaning of life, and are we descended from fish, and are Sushmita’s boobs real, the big question is this: Will longer partying hours restore our youth? Even if the powers-that-be suddenly understand that grown-up people can decide crucial things for themselves like what time they should go to bed, and that music and dancing are not tools of the devil that will permanently subvert society’s moral fabric and that there is no established link between late closing hours and crime…even then- do I really want to party till 4 am anymore?

 

Tragically, I don’t. But that’s just me and my ageing sensibilities. Now, I like going to friends’ houses more than to bars and pubs. I adore dancing, but I certainly don’t enjoy doing it to hard-core trance at nightclubs where I am jammed up against hundreds of perspiring people- I’d rather have a party at my house and play my own version of house and soul and retro. So I must confess- at the risk of earning the wrath of several of my friends who are DJs or bar owners or just pure party animals- that the 11.30 pm rule doesn’t really bother me much, personally.

 

Wait, wait! Before you condemn me to a life of isolation and, worse, no free entry into any bar, and no drinks on the house- let me add that, naturally, as a free-thinking individual, I protest the arbitrary nature of the rule and its several nonsensical sub-rules. (Although the Government’s suggestion of classical music at bars and Bharatanatyam in pubs would be most interesting- it would probably go down well with the tourists and expats who, disappointed with the complete lack of maharajas and snake charmers and flying elephants on our roads, would finally see an India they recognize from their second-grade text books.)  

I do feel for the live acts- music and dance- that get guillotined because of the wide nature of the rule. I hate the fact that some self-righteous government busybody gets to decide how drunk people can get and how having any fun other than strolling through Cubbon Park on Sunday afternoon is immoral. Poor chap. What a chore. And its all terribly scary because, like dress codes in colleges which are already creeping into the area of personal freedom, silly rules telling people when to stop dancing could slice open a bigger can of worms creating a snowball effect- moral policing of more and more actions…and you know where that leads- always, always to curbing the liberty of women.

And there’s something I feel very, very strongly about. But that’s another debate, another column.

 

In the meantime, Bollywood dances and Bangalore drinks, and never the twain shall meet (it’s not legal to drink and dance in the same place in Bangalore). In Bangalore, it’s fine to let people breathe a poisoned atmosphere, but it’s not ok to have even an acoustic band perform in a restaurant. It’s ok to let authorities with the integrity of amoebae get away with blue murder, but not ok to have good, cheap food available after midnight for hungry people working overtime. It’s common practice to take 5 years to make a flyover, but it’s not ok to be in a nightspot after 11.30pm. Come on, machaa. Even Cinderella had till midnight.

 

I’ve done my share of partying in my halcyon youth and no longer miss the all-nighters. I LIKE getting home by midnight. But Baby Bangalore’s growth pains are just starting. Will she ever reach her teens, be allowed out without a curfew, get pissed and sing old movie songs on the street? Will Bangalore be allowed to grow up?

 

 

 

 

Get Thee to a Nunnery for City Reporter, circa early 2000s

 

Get Thee to a Nunnery

 

The badge of ‘convent-educated’ is one I tried to shake off for many years after I graduated from school. Looking back now, it seems a waste of time- I realised somewhere along the road to maturity that I couldn’t and didn’t want to escape from the influences and the experiences of being a product of Sophia High School, Bangalore, so I might as well sit back and enjoy it.

 

And it was rather enjoyable- the Sisters of Notre Dame were a bunch of entertaining, often irreverent teachers, philosophers and guides. From the Irish-American nuns in their pristine white habits, who were gradually replaced by the Malayali sisters in their peach saris tied flood-level, the Sisters were a source of constant amusement, even inspiration, to us impressionable (but ready to die before admitting it) young girls. 

 

The first memory I have is of a quiet soul with the unlikely name of Sister Anima who was principal when I joined school at the seriously destructive age of 7. She was a mild-mannered, near-invisible presence in her white costume- I was fascinated with her slim brown legs and her unfamiliar Malayali accent. Only much later did I understand and appreciate her impressive quality of gentle governance. 

 

Sister J was the owner of an operatic voice that would put Maria Callas to shame, and trying to follow her soprano in morning assembly made many a young heart quiver- and many a young voice break. Morning assembly- ah, now there’s an institution. Row upon row of prepubescent girls subjected to a stumbling rendition of the day’s headlines, mingled with mutterings of “Our Father who art in heaven”, beautiful hymns and liberally sprinkled warnings against the direst evil in the world- BOYS. (Just being female exposed us to the risk of falling into the darkest pits of temptation.) Thereafter, strict checks to make sure nails were unpainted, eyes un-kohled, shoes polished, socks pulled up knee high and hair tied securely back- and NO TALKING in the file, please! The army was nothing compared to this.

 

Sister L was famous for her hilarious comments- she once enquired of my friend Gayathri- “Gay-a-three, where is gay one and gay two?” In another legendary tale, indoors in a classroom, while some prankster squirted her with water from behind, she exclaimed, “The Lord has brought us rain!”

 

But then there was Sister M with her wizened face and a sense of humour just this side of irreverent, and Sister R with her penchant for Julie Andrews’s songs- and my favourite, Sister Jessina. 

 

You know that one teacher in your life who changes you forever? Who opens up worlds you never thought existed, who breeds in you a love for something that will stay rooted in you for life? Sister Jessina was my personal portal to great literature and writing. She was the first person who cast me in the lead role of a class play- so you could say she sort of had me figured!  

 

She was young and (to my 10-year old eyes) gorgeous. She should have, I thought, been an actress, or a journalist, or something equally glamorous, and I used up all my romantic imagination conjuring up stories about the abuse and destitution that forced her to waste her life being a nun. Contrary to all my imaginings, Jessina seemed a happy person, with no signs, however much I searched for them, of deep trauma and un-fulfilment from not being married, a mountaineer or any of the other parallel paths I would have chosen for her. I so often wonder where she is now.

 

The strong Malayali accent the Indian nuns spoke with made for some miscommunication and often great laughter. Many an hour was spent mimicking the rolling ‘L’ sounds and flat vowels- so much so that after a bit we started talking to each other the same way! To this day I speak to the father of a friend (we call him engle!) with the same accent. So much for posh convent- school English.

 

So many of my milestones were passed with, so many lessons learnt from, so much fun made of these women whose lives were wholly different from any other people I knew. Devout relatives who used to get shocked at the sacrilegious singing of Christmas carols on car journeys to Tirupati still blame ‘that convent school atmosphere’ for the terrible (read: unmarried), disobedient (read: independent) girls my sister and I are today.

 

And so I graduated, having only glimpsed the dreaded enemy (boys!) occasionally and from a distance at school competitions, or when they came to beg for socials yet again (naturally they were refused- the IDEA!); and having studied in a classroom with ‘differently-abled’ kids from the Notre Dame “Opportunity Section” and classmates from every strata of society (our fees were only Rs80 per month).  

 

And I ended up in a co-ed college run by priests. Which is a whole different story….