What Once Stood There
There comes a day when you return to your childhood neighborhood and realize that you're the only one who still remembers what once stood there.
For me, that neighborhood is Malleswaram.
When people think of Malleswaram, they think of CTR, Janata Hotel (it's common in India to call a restaurant a hotel), Veena Stores, Sai Shakti and the other iconic eateries that continue to thrive. I think of the ones that quietly disappeared.
Bangalore is famous for its darshinis—quick, self-service eateries where people stop for a bite before getting on with their day. When we were living in Kasturi Dhama Apartments, I would invariably find myself at Sahyadri, located near the 8th Cross bus stop on Margosa Road. The fluffy idlis, the steaming hot sambar with just a hint of jaggery, the freshly made coconut chutney, and the potato palya that accompanied the dosas had a way of pulling in anyone walking past. My favorites were always the idli, vada and masala dosa. There were onion dosas, rava idlis and poori saagu too, but I rarely ventured beyond my usual order. My brother and I came here countless times. Whenever my uncle, Sundi Mama, visited us on his official trips to Bangalore, Sahyadri was almost always our breakfast destination.
A few streets away, on 15th Cross and 8th Main, stood another favorite—Eat Out. It would be packed every evening, thanks in no small part to its proximity to MES College. The crowd was young, energetic and noisy, and the chaat counter never seemed to get a break. One of the wonderful things about Bangalore was that you could walk into almost any darshini and be assured of a satisfying meal. At Eat Out, my regular indulgence was a plate of bhel puri or masala puri.
Then there was New Krishna Bhavan, or simply NKB. I don't know when the "New" was added, because for as long as I can remember, it was always New Krishna Bhavan. It had been around for decades, and while it was a traditional South Indian restaurant, it introduced many of us to dishes that weren't commonly found elsewhere at the time—NKB Buns, akki roti, ragi roti and more. In the nineties, they opened an annex called Gopika, which became well known for its excellent North Indian food.
I have visited these places so many times that I no longer remember every meal I had there, but I vividly remember the people I shared those meals with. Friends, my brother, my parents, relatives and family friends—we all seemed to have our own memories attached to these restaurants. NKB, in particular, became our default meeting place whenever family friends were in town. At the time, it felt like one of the fancier restaurants in Malleswaram.
Over the years, during my visits back to Bangalore, I watched these places disappear one by one. Eat Out was the first to go, probably over a decade ago. Then Sahyadri disappeared.
In 2023, I met a few friends at Gopika. Little did I know then that it would be my last meal there. The following year, my brother told me that both NKB and Gopika were shutting down. I don't know the reason, but it felt far more personal than it should have.
Perhaps that feeling comes from the fact that NKB wasn't just part of my memories—it was part of my family's story.
When my father first came to Bangalore to study law, and when my mother later joined him, they stayed for a few days at a lodge behind NKB while they figured out their next steps in life. For those few days, NKB became home. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were all there. In that same little lodge, my father's friends, Sambandham Uncle and Louis Uncle, were laying the foundations for what would eventually become their chemical factory. My parents would often reminisce about those early Bangalore days, and NKB was always part of those stories. Long before I began making memories there, they already had.
Today, someone walking down Margosa Road would never know Sahyadri existed. A visitor to 15th Cross would have no idea that Eat Out was once filled with noisy college students every evening. And someone passing the old NKB building would never imagine the number of lives that quietly intersected there over the decades.
The restaurants are gone. The signboards have changed. New names occupy the same buildings. But in my mind, Sahyadri is still serving hot idlis, Eat Out is still overflowing with college students, and NKB is still full of conversations that shaped generations of my family.
We spend years thinking we're building memories. Only later do we realize the places were preserving them for us.
Perhaps that is why the loss of an old restaurant can feel so much more personal than it ought to.
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