When the Building Came Alive

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Kasturi Dhama Apartments — the play area where many evenings came alive. The lights would go out without warning. For a brief second, the entire building would fall silent. Then, from somewhere in Kasturi Dhama Apartments, a chorus would erupt. “Yayyy!” It is difficult to imagine children celebrating a power failure today. But in the Bangalore of the nineties and early 2000s, a power cut did not always feel like an inconvenience. Especially in the late evenings, it felt like permission. Permission to stop whatever we were doing, leave the darkness inside our homes, and step into the building outside. Before Kasturi Dhama became home, we had moved through a few different parts of Bangalore. My family had begun in Srirampuram and Vyalikaval before gradually cementing ourselves in Malleswaram for the next few decades. My earliest memory is of living in a vatara —a Kannada word loosely used for a building or a cluster of homes—on 15th Cross, near Karur Vy...
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How the hell does it matter?

The other day, it was just me and Yadu catching a late night movie from the late nineties, Dilwale Dulhaniye Le Jayenge (DDLJ). The other two roommates of ours had got into bed early, and we had just got up after our evening sleep. Strange things prop up while watching movies and strange ideas give rise to funny situations. It is baseless to equate the cinematic moments with real life scenario. But, it is fun to see to what extent we can go to simulate what we see on screen. I have this "terrible" habit of posing questions out of thin air. No wonder my friends complain when I sit back to watch movies with them.

As we started watching the movie, we came across a scene where Kajol is supposed to marry a guy whom she has never met before. Come on, this is actually not an all out surprising scenario for people like us. But, I still had the nerve to ask Yadu, "Maga, tell me what will you do if you were in such a situation?" Yadu gives that glance which could mean a thousand different things, and then comes up with this reply, "Sh..(Hell for commoners!!), That's what is going to happen to us!!". I just couldn't control my laughter. Obviously, all of us were(rather are) in the same boat. I don't want to make the situation more apalling by writing the obvious. Let me just end it here and wait for a better turn of events in life!!!

Comments

  1. AnonymousJanuary 18, 2007 at 10:10 PM

    Ahem.....maga why don't you write about your great expectation of finding a girl from your workplace in California?

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  2. Urban geekJanuary 19, 2007 at 12:28 AM

    well, i think this blog is a total cover up. its not going to work though...

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  3. Lotus ReadsJanuary 19, 2007 at 3:20 AM

    Ok, you've got me curious as to what "Maga" means - is it something like the Mumbai "Yaar" or the tamil "Macha"?

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  4. VyasJanuary 19, 2007 at 5:42 AM

    ^Yes I need this answer too
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    But live is short pal...depends on how you want it to go..

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  5. Praveen KrishnanJanuary 19, 2007 at 12:33 PM

    Hi,

    Anonymous: Will take it up in some other post :-)

    Anand: Never been hideous in my life!! So, forget it :-)

    LR: Yep!! Maga is a common word in Kannada to address friends...yes its like machi in Tamil. There are also good number of kannada words like guru, sisya (Note it is sisya not shishya), siva (my personal favourite!!)....

    Vyas: The answer has been very elusive....I am still probing :-)

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