Posts

Showing posts from February, 2013

Why Malleswaram Railway Station Still Feels Like Home

Image
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, ...

India trip - Learnings

Coincidence is a rare thing.  It happens all the time, but unless it is absolutely explicit, you don't realize that there was actually one.  Some of the worst and best things in life are those that happen on the spur of the moment, and somehow, when they seem to be remotely connected, they add a new flavor to the whole situation.  Mostly, you're making a reference to someone, when the same person either calls you the next instant or shows up on you.  You call it a happy coincidence or a comeuppance depending on your equation with the reference. You question yourself occasionally. Recently, I was at a point where I was questioning my beliefs and the whole purpose of existence, presence of God and so on about things which I have no idea of, and which even if I read a million texts, would ascertain none.  I spoke to a lot of people, and most of them have been through this phase or dismiss it as over the board thinking.  Whatever! I am surprised that peopl...