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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She...

A beautiful sunny day in the offing,
How could I not enter the forests,
She tagged along with me slowly,
A comfort to have her with me

The days gradually progressed,
I found not a soul in sight,
It was a sojourn always tricky,
But there she was to keep me chirpy

Tough to find your way through
Creepy creepers all over you,
I could sense the trickles of blood,
She was there to keep me good

Berries and cherries in my belly,
Nothing else to gloat over fully,
She was the perfect cushion
For the rest of my meal

A moment of tiredness fell,
I pushed along heavily,
Again, I fell back to her,
She was there to fill the void

A long time later, I realised,
She was slowly leaving me,
The sick feeling was getting to me,
Now, it was just a matter of time

Finally, I was really alone,
I was feeling the heat,
It was the point of agony,
How I wish there was more water!

Comments

  1. AnonymousJuly 20, 2007 at 4:54 PM

    Water....this reminds of a line someone wrote when I was in school about floods--"Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink"

    ReplyDelete
  2. Praveen KrishnanJuly 20, 2007 at 8:42 PM

    Anonymous: True, any trek, and all I think about is water!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. david mcmahonJuly 21, 2007 at 6:34 AM

    A post that anyone and everyone can identify with.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Praveen KrishnanJuly 21, 2007 at 9:23 PM

    Thanks David :-)

    ReplyDelete
  5. PavanJuly 21, 2007 at 9:47 PM

    Interesting!
    That's a wonderful word. It leaves the reader thinking what he wants to hear. Yes, but surely something one can relate to :-) Water----more so after today for you anyway.....!

    ReplyDelete
  6. ShubhikaJuly 21, 2007 at 9:56 PM

    Excellent!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Praveen KrishnanJuly 21, 2007 at 9:58 PM

    Pavan: Water, water and water!!! Ooooooh man :-) Unforgettable :-)

    Shubhika: Thanks!!!

    ReplyDelete
  8. AnonymousJanuary 23, 2009 at 1:36 AM

    Very nice you can visit my website for more collections

    ReplyDelete

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