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Showing posts from October, 2010

Why Malleswaram Railway Station Still Feels Like Home

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Malleswaram Railway Station — a place that never felt like “just” a station. A few months ago, someone forwarded me a video of an elderly lady speaking about the charm of Malleswaram Railway Station. She mentioned how, whenever her children visit Bangalore from Canada, one ritual remains unchanged. Her son insists on visiting the station, picking up idly from Raghavendra Stores, and eating it right there on the platform. I smiled when I heard that, because for many of us who grew up in Malleswaram, the railway station was never just a transit point. It was a quiet witness to our growing up. Even now, if I close my eyes, I can hear the metallic rhythm of trains slowing into the platform, the echo of announcements bouncing off the tiled roof, the smoky sweetness of roasted maize drifting from the bridge, and the soft warmth of idlies wrapped in paper from Raghavendra Stores. The station was never silent — but it always felt peaceful. For nearly a decade, ...

Forgetfulness and several reminders

As I walk through several hundred unread posts on my Reader on a daily basis, it failed to cross my mind that I had a registered domain for blogging.  It waited endlessly, and the ravages of time had brought to it an almost antediluvian look, and, at a time when web 2.0 was carrying along with it a rapid approach, leaving everything behind in obscurity.  At long last, at the stroke of the hour that had no impressible significance, I decided that the blog had been dormant enough. We(read my wife and I) finally joined the gamut of smartphone holders.  The astronomical data rate plans prevented us from getting one earlier, and the procrastination (my friends can vouch for that) to switch to one that had all the advantages of the cloud bore fruit after more than a year of endless wait and admiration for those sexy creatures.  Anyway, it was just a matter of time before the fear of extra expenditure was outweighed by the tons of advantages of holding a smartphone. ...