South Indian Wedding Etiquette

If you're anything like me (and I hope for your own good that you aren't), I'm sure you're fed up to the gills with all the irritating things people do at South Indian weddings. I have decided therefore to publish a "Lets call it like it is" pamphlet on South Indian wedding etiquette, so that all the fools who make them as unpleasant as they are, can mend their errant ways. I have to add here though, that this pamphlet does not apply to Malayalee weddings. For them, a visiting card with the words "Do not blink, or you'll miss the wedding" will suffice.

Bridal etiquette
(1) Smile, woman. We didn't drive all the way through the maddening traffic to see you look doped-out and weepy. If you're that glum you probably shouldn't be geting married. Go home.
(2) Brown is beautiful. Really. If we wanted to see pancake, we'd go to dosa camp.
(3) If you liked the black saree you saw at the shop, wear it at your wedding. Anyone who says black is taboo has been irreversibly brainwashed by Queen Victoria who's dead anyway.
(4) If you plan to be in bridal makeup 4 hours into the reception that you invited us to attend, either give us the address of your beauty parlour so we can drop by and murder you, or for God's sake allow us to eat and go home.

Groom etiquette
(1) Face it, you can't help looking silly in semi-drag with an umbrella over your head. Just go with the flow.
(2) You can smile reassuringly at the bride, and maybe at your friends. Not at all the pretty young things around.
(3) Do not give your friends a "thumbs up" before, after, or while tying the knot. We shudder to imagine what you're implying by it.
(4) If you're a Greencard/H1 groom, try not to talk much. A Banshankari II Stage accent with a West Virginia overlay cannot be taken seriously when you have kohl in your eyes and a fat black dot on your cheek.
(5) You're going to be half naked at the wedding. Please work out. We wholeheartedly agree that your flab is nobody's business but yours. Seriously fool, hit that treadmill and pump that iron. Your wife will love it, and we will too. Unless you plan on saving on lunch expenses by putting your guests off their food for the next month.
(6) We really don't care if you don't understand what the priest is asking you to say. Google everything later. Do not irritate us by asking the priest to explain every line. Lunch is waiting.

Older guest etiquette
(1) Don't swarm the stage during the mangal sutra ceremony. This is the only part of the ceremony anybody has even the slightest amount of interest in. We do not want to fling our rice at your ample posterior. If you're that keen on establishing your importance in the ceremony, hang a sign around your neck.
(2) If you're too feeble to climb up to the stage, cut the drama and sit tight in your seat. Spare us the agony of watching you painfully hobble up the steps to bless the couple, holding up the rest of the ceremony for interminable periods of time. Just let the bride and groom know that you wish to bless them and if they think you're important enough, they will come down to you.
(3) When your beady eye spies a young guest who seems 'perfect for your third cousin's second daughter', shut the hell up. Do not point, glare, whisper or pounce. These are people, not camels at the Pushkar bazaar.
(4) When you see two young people talking and feel the urge to make an entendre-filled remark, slap yourself and go wash your face. You're proving irrefutably that the only thing that's on your mind, always, is sex.
(5) Before coming to the wedding, sit down and think of things to talk about, that do not involve coupling or reproduction. We realize how hard that can be, considering this is all you have ever thought about during your adult life. Make the effort, it is time you evolved. You'll be pleasantly surprised at the number of young friends you'll make, who won't get up and leave the moment they see you coming.

Younger/single guest etiquette
(1) Listen, if you'd rather stay home and not go to the wedding, we understand. We know you have a life and can do with a little less of the marriage pressure, you poor thing. There, there.
(2) It is acceptable to walk away when old biddies with only sex on their minds ask you your age, height or salary. In fact it is increasingly becoming acceptable etiquette to reach out and slap their faces before walking away.
(3) Flirt, flirt, flirt as much as you can. A wedding is the only place you are officially allowed to. Remember to mentally undress the flirtee though. Think kerosene colour pant shirt, faded green salwar kameez, yellow overgrown nails, bajji-pakoda induced thunder thighs and radish breath on a Thursday evening. See if the flirtee is still worth it. And if an oversexed old biddy swoops in and tries to hook the two of you up while you're still deciding, show them your armpit.
(4) If you can't handle all the irritating people, the smoke and the noise, either skid off with your gang to the kitchen, or hole up at a nearby ice cream shop. Nobody cares, besides if someone wants to reach you, you can always ignore them when they call you on your cell.
(5) If you're NRI or ABCD, wipe that perpetually surprised, open-mouthed leer off your face. We don't get it. Try frowning when you're uncomfortable, or grinning from ear to ear when you're happy, like normal people do. That way, we'll atleast know what's up with you.

Parent etiquette
(1) You're allowed to look good. But remember, you are at your most endearing when you look hassled and disheveled. The guests will take pity on you and leave you alone. If you're all primped relaxed, they will assume you haven't done enough for them.
(2) Delegate, delegate, delegate. Or die.
(3) Honestly, all the wild goose chases the priests send you on, are rubbish. You are allowed to tell them to go fish if you can't do something with minimum effort.
(4) Do not usher people secretly into the dressing room and palm them off with a recycled blouse piece. If you don't have anything nice to give them, just grab their hands and say "ate aa?"
(5) Do not get the audience's hopes up by waggling your finger at the nadaswaram players and getting them to play the getti melam every 43 seconds. One pee-pee-dum-dum during the thali ceremony is enough. Nobody cares about the rest.
(6) Tell the cameraman not to moon the audience everytime he wants to get a closeup of the groom picking his nose, or the bride counting her toes for the 600th time. He's going to scrap all the footage and encase their mugshots in purple circling hearts anyway.

Eating etiquette
(1) Try and get to the dining room as early as possible, to avoid the feeding frenzy. It doesnt matter if the cooks sigh and grumble that you're early. It will save you and the hosts needless trauma if the diners are spread out through the day.
(2) If you're the host, please get a grip on the number of guests you'e expecting. Make extra food, and make prior arrangements for the left over food to be transported someplace where it will be appreciated.
(3) We like it when you fuss over your guests. Makes us feel less guilty about stuffing our faces while the world outside starves, because you're the ones forcing us to.
(4) Don't be pathetic and hover over your fellow guests to make them finish fast. Go home and eat if you're that desperate.
(5) If there's something you don't like about the food, shut up. This is a one-off thing and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Remember the starving millions outside your door.
(6) Remember to eat everything on your leaf. It is good manners to ask for only as much food as you need, instead of dramatically folding over a leaf full of uneaten food at the end of the meal. Oh and did anyone tell you that folding a used leaf over after a meal is, in fact, bad manners? Well then.

Dress etiquette - women
(1) If you're under 45, wear anything you want. Really, everything from a 9 yards saree to a strappy number looks great on you.
(2) If you're over 50, do not wear anything you want. Really, sarees look awesome on you.
(3) Try not to wear those rather bizarre duppattas around your waists and over your forearms, that tie your arms back all evening. They're pretty but we feel sorry for you and do not want you to be deformed for life on their account.
(4) Do not wear stilettos. Most people in South Indian weddings run around barefoot. Amputees are significantly lower in the marriage market.
(5) It is now acceptable etiquette to wear fluorescent blue hawaii chappals with elaborate kanjeevaram sarees. You'll need to take your footwear off everywhere anyway, so you may as well wear something that won't be stolen. Besides, if it's men you are aiming to attract by dressing up, you can rest assured they won't be noticing your footwear.

Dress etiquette - men
(1) Dude, dress down. Please. Those jigajiga brocadey kurtas only serve to accentuate your thair sadham features and make you look dorkier than you already are.
(2) Leave those filmy man-dupattas that you wear around your neck, at home. They are 5 minutes ago. I will personally come and blow my nose and wipe my sweaty face with them if you don't.
(3) Give those curly jooties to the poor. Even they will probably hit you with them if you do. Wear sensible stuff like chappals or floaters that you can take off and leave at the door without worrying about them.
(4) If you're in Chennai, do not gel your hair. Even if you are an NRI. The gel will trickle down your face and make you look like The Melting Man. If you're in Bangalore, you may gel your hair in the months of December and January. For the rest of the year you will look like Juggy Dee. Nobody will marry you.
(5) The bare chested look is over. Even if you're 68. Especially if you're from my family. We know exactly where all the puliyogare and and panchamritam goes. Spare us.

Alright, go now. And behave.

Robinson Clueless

“OK boys, time to pack up. We’re leaving”, announced the (then) youngish Mutter. We were going to relocate to a township in Andhra, to join Appa who had transferred there. I couldn’t imagine living anywhere but in dear old Trivandrum. I'd miss my lovely school, the paddy fields, the gurgling canals, the beautiful Kovalam beach, and the army of kids in my heptalingual colony so much! I kicked up a row, threw tantrums and refused to move. After a while, when I realized nobody was paying any attention, I gave up. Several farewell dinners, filled autograph books and walks around the neighbourhood later, it was time to leave for good.

The parents had done a recon expedition a few months before, to check things out before our actual move. The house was smallish but the garden was huge, they said. I would love the wild life, the migratory birds and school, they said. Ah well, I thought. If I couldn't cut it, I could always run back and live with the Guptas next door, where I could play with the kids all day and live in aloo-kachoried splendour for the rest of my life, I thought.

Our new home was located in a township carved out of a 50 sq km forested island. It was surrounded by the gigantic Pulicat lake on three sides and the Bay of Bengal on the east. The journey itself was quite spectacular. We travelled to Madras and drove 100km to a small town at the edge of the Pulicat Lake. Beyond it was 16 miles of nothing. Just a straight road across the lake's tidal bed. At the end of the road was the township. The road now entered a pair of formidable gates manned by tough looking CISF jawans. The jawans stiffened, saluted smartly and let us through. Coming from communist Kerala, where people wouldn't even give the Maharaja of Travancore the time of day, this was quite startling. In the three years that I lived there, I could never quite get used to it. I'd always cower in the back seat when the jawans jumped to attention as we passed them.

The housing colony was spic and span - and slightly neglected, in the way only a central government township can be. Our home, the first in a line of several identical quarters, had scrubby jungle on two sides, and overlooked the colony on the other two. Poker-straight roads criss-crossed the colony. It had a school, a hospital, a guest house and two modest shopping centers. All houses had been issued the same plants by the horticulture department: Chickoo, sitaphal, guava and pomegranate. Those, the horticulture dept had decided, were the only species that could survive the sandy soil and the harsh coastal heat. They were right. Inspite of our best efforts, nothing else did, except the odd jasmine and a couple of Allamanda and Moonbeam plants.

At the other end of the housing colony was school. Sprawled over a few acres, with small quadrangles between classrooms, it housed all the children of the township. Coming from a fairly progressive school in Trivandrum, the strange rules of this school took me quite by surprise. There was a drill for everything. Students marched out of class into assembly every day, listened to the principal and marched straight back into their classrooms. Girls and boys sat on either side of a wide aisle, across which they exchanged notes and the ocasional fleeting glance. The kids had hardly any interaction with the outside world, and had evolved a culture of their own. Even the language they spoke was a strange pidgin English, strung together in Telugu idiom:
"What ra rey, haircut naat doingaa? Bush like looking it is."
"Shettup ra. Your grandmother squirrel catching my son."

A second pair of security gates led from the housing colony to the scientific installations dotted across hundreds of hectares of jungle. The jungle itself was like nothing I had seen before. Short thorny shrubs covered a sandy forest bed. Jamoon and palymyrah trees poked out through the shrubbery, and exploded in a torrent of berries every autumn. The only sources of water for all the jungle's resident feral cows, jackals and birds, were large marshy ponds called vaagus, that served as oases in the otherwise unforgiving landscape.

Occasionally, we would spot a tribal dwelling - an igloo shaped hut that you needed to crawl to enter. The few tribal settlements that inhabited the island before the government took over, were left alone. The government offered to build them better houses, but the tribals refused, choosing instead to live in the same way that they had done for thousands of years.

The feral cows on the island were quite a phenomenon by themselves. They were probably brought into the island centuries ago by nomadic tribes, and left to fend for themselves after they moved away. Some of the residents of the colony had managed to tame a few cows into coming to their homes every evening. The cows would agree to be milked in exchange for the day's leftovers. After being fed and milked, they'd swish their tails and amble peacefully back into the jungle, only to come back to the same houses the next evening. Definitely the most symbiotic human-animal relationship I had ever seen!

We would sometimes drive through the jungle, out to the pristine beaches on the other side of the island : A 50km coastline untouched by habitation. It was odd to see the sun rise over the sea here, unlike in the west coast where we were used to seeing it dive into the sea in the evening. We would gather seashells by the bucketful and toss them back on the beach, not knowing what to do with them. Tortoises nested on the quiet beaches during the season: major happy times for the few tribal settlements by the sea.

The sea itself was rough and unbatheable. Cyclonic storms would ravage the coastline periodically, causing massive destruction to everything in their path. The housing colony was situated as far inland as possible to avoid being wrecked by them, though a massive cyclone in 1984 almost managed to wipe it out.

Every month or so, we would cross the Pulicat lake to get to the mainland for shopping, tuition classes, or just for a break from the monotony of the colony. The Pulicat lake, dry and lifeless during summer, would come to life after the rains in October. Thousands of migratory birds would fly in from places as far as Poland, to roost on the lake bed. Crossing the dreaded 16km 'road to nowhere' (as Mutter delicately put it) would now be a treat. Acres of pink plumed flamingoes would plod through the floodwaters, patiently dredging the lakebed for crill. Pelicans would flap around clumsily, their beaks filled with fish. Painted storks, dabchicks, spotted ducks, cormorants, pond herons, and a myriad other birds would descend in flocks all over the lake and cover it in a carpet of pinks, browns, yellows and blues. Truly a spectacular sight.

After three years on the beautiful island, it was time to move again. And this time, to the youngish Mutter's home turf, good old Bangytown! While we were on the island, we felt cloistered, cut-off, and deprived of company. When we moved though, it wasn't without a tinge of regret. It was a tranquil, calm and spectacularly beautiful existence, that taught us much. For one, it made me the compulsive tree-hugger that I am today. I got to experience first hand, what most others can only see on tv, or in a glossy Salim Ali bird book. My botanical knowledge quintupled in three years.

And even today, if I can rattle off scientific names at a 100kmph in a heavy Telugu accent, it is because of my three years on the beautiful island of Sriharikota.

*Cartoon: Yentraa babu is the Telugu equivalent of 'What's up dude'.

A Chronic Deccan

"Kanna, epdi irke maaa? We miss you da love-raj", cooed the old mutter embarrassingly into the phone, a day after I'd gone missing. "Um harumph, fine." I growled back. I was afraid the airtel man who was secretly listening into our conversation, would cut in and say "Ha ha! Momma's boy!" and hang up. Luckily no such thing happened. After several reassuring coos from the old mutter and a pleasant chat on the current socio-economic situation in south east asia with the old pater, I hung up a happy man. I had run away to Poona because I needed to get de-bangalored for a bit. Besides, there wasn't much happening at work, and everyone I knew in Poona (ie, 1 sainted cousin and 1 long suffering friend) was in town.

Poona in a word, is lovely. Poona in three words is hot and dusty, but word 1 more than compensates for the other three. Lovely food, charming old-worldlines, lots of space, a fairly pleasant nightlife, and plenty of sights to see. The cousin watered, fed and whisked me around town with characteristic cousinly efficiency. The friend stuffed me silly with amti, srikhand puri, and every other imaginable maratha viand until I screamed for mercy . Ok I didn't. I just ate and ate until he ran out of supplies, and then he screamed for mercy.

The non-eating moments in Poona (and they really were only moments), were spent reading a book by the nullah-side, walking through the charming lanes of Tulshibag and Sadashivpet, gawking at the enormous mansions in Koregaon Park, trekking up and down the wooded tekdis in the centre of town, and making plans for the next meal. All in all, a wonderful time. Thanks muchly, o sainted cousin and long-suffering friend.

Back in Bangalore, I took one look at the traffic outside the airport, and almost caught the next flight back to lovely dusty amchi Pune. My dismay was short-lived thankfully, as my auto driver managed to slither through the traffic bottleneck like an oiled cobra.

A blast of cool air hit me as as the auto turned into airport road. I looked out and noticed it was drizzling. Gentle winds were blowing everywhere. The people in the jam were smiling. I was puzzled. What happened to the uncomfortably warm city that I had left barely a week ago?

And then I remembered: The Mango Showers had arrived.

"Ahh", I sighed. Right on time. My favourite season in Bangalore. When the skies explode, wash the streets clean, turn trees green overnight, inspire poetry and make everyone smirk about how lucky they are to live here.

And now, while the rest of the subcontinent slowly begins to bake, all you "vods so great aboud this waather yaar" types can call your relatives in your sizzling hometowns, and tell them what they're missing: Cool, moist evening breezes blowing up your.. err street. Boiled peanuts at Lalbagh on a wet March evening. A half masale sweet after an April shower. Shetty's nippat masala followed by a drizzly open air concert at the Palace Grounds in May.

Do not encourage them to move here. It is enough if they know.
And if the voice on the other end of the line says "Yes da raja, I knnnowww maa. Its reeeelly luvleee, no?", please hang up instantly. I want you to contact your relatives, not mine.

Odes to Bangalore

To the tune of: Yesterday (The Beatles)
Mathikere..
Far as hell and dull as dust, but hey..
Would you rather choke on smog, or say
You're glad you live that far away?

To the tune of: You fill up my senses (John Denver)
Chud-dies, con-tact lennnnses,
Butter Gulkand, Black Forest.
Its always shop-ping time
On Malleswaram, 3rd main.
Stop at Asha's for dessert
Where milk tastes like hand lotion.
The '98 census
Showed alarming brain drain.

To the tune of: Jamaica Farewell (Harry Belafonte)
Sat-ur-day,
I wanna party away
MG Road is teeming with angry cops.
You look as hip
As a fashion clip
But at midnight your party is gonna stop.
We can't stay and play,
What is this, I say?
This rule will stay for many a day.
Just simmer down,
Stop hoppin around
And bring the party to my pad at the edge of town.


To the tune of: Country Roads (John Denver)
Migrant haven - Koramangla
Flats with fountains
By a sewage river.
Land is gold there, not so much the trees
A hundred Jacarandas
Mowed down 'fore you sneeze.
Bumpy roads, spell your tome
Not the place, to sing a song
Koramangla - money corner,
I'm staying home, won't miss you loads.

To the tune of: California Dreaming (The mamas and the papas)
Oh to Frazer town,
You shall go away.
Go take a wa...lk,
To Thom's bakery, I say.
The cakes are fresh and warm,
Made at 4 every day.
Should I send you screaming,
Or will you go to-day?

To the tune of: Take it easy (The Eagles)
Oh if youre really very bored
Just hit DVG Road
But just tell me what is on your mind.
Looking for some flowers?
The kem-pe-gowda towers?
There's V.B if you wanna dine.
What's up duuudey?
Are you a fooodie?
Lets get a nice fat benne-dose, outside U.D.
Just get here in a car or van,
Or on a horse with a wedding band
Because it's great in the far off land
Of Basvangoooodi.


Cartoon Translation: "Where will you run now?" (Pun on the word 'Odu' = run)

Modern Indian Idiom - An illustrated tutorial

Linguistic education in India is in dire need of change. Casual conversations in modern India are no longer limited to one language. Multilingual textbooks are therefore the need of the hour, and must include modern turns of phrase, wise sayings and quirky Indian idiom in a minimum of three languages. The following is the recommended excercise format (with solutions) , for a "Learn Kannada, Tamil, Hindi and Telugu in 30 days" textbook, to be released in 2010.

Excercise 37: Translate the following passage into Tamil, Kannada and Hindi wherever applicable, with neat, labelled diagrams. (10 marks each):

'Hey Manjunath, why are you seated as if you are just back from a bungee jump? '
Ans: Dai Manjunath, yaen da bungee adichcha madiri ukanthirukkai?
--(Tamil: Bungee = cannabis. Bungee adicha madiri = looking doped)

'Argh, destroyer of evil, I hit the bore and became a mad dog. '

Ans: Ayyo, bore hodidhu huch naai agbittidene shiva
--(Kannada: I've become a mad dog out of boredom = bored crazy)

'Yes dear friend, I too have caught the madman and am currently scratching the mat. '

Ans: Aaman da, naanum paithyam pudichchu paaya praandindu irukkaen

--(Tamil: Gone crazy and scratching a mat (out of frustration))

'Hey Piyali, what disease has come to you? Who has shaken your chair now?'

Ans: Hey Piyali, Ningen roga bantu? yar nin chair na alladsidru?
--(Kannada: What disease has come to you = What's wrong with you? Who shook your chair? = Why do you look disturbed?)

'Sigh! Yesterday Rahul touched me and my death occurred. '

Ans: Hae! Kal na, Rahul ne mujhe touch ki aur meri toh daeth ho gai.

--(Hindi: died = 'I just died in your arms tonight' sorta died)

'Clean, go. Ladles two ladles, both loose ladles. '

Ans: Suththam po, Aapai rendaapai rendum kazhandaapai.
--(Tamil: Suththam = clean= Perfect, Loose ladles = useless)

'Oh move aside, monsoon cloud. You and your underwear friend are the ladles.'

Ans: Ae, chal hata sawan ki ghata. Aapai hoga tu aur tera chaddi dost.
--(Hindi: Move aside monsoon cloud = buzz off, underwear friend = childhood friend.)

'Oh pshaw old girl, are you turning on your meter? How did your exams go? '

Ans: Uyy, yenamma, meteraa? Sari, exam ella hegithu?
--(Kannada: Meter = autorickshaw meter = being obnoxious)

'After giving the last paper, I sold horses and slept. '

Ans: Arre, kal aankhri paper deke ghode bechke so gai main toh.
--(Hindi: sold horses and slept = slept soundly)

'Oh by the way, you haven't fallen properly in any of the photos I caught during our trip. '

Ans: Aye, naan trip-la pudicha photola ellaan nee nallave vizhala ma.
--(Tamil: Tamil words reserved for photography. fallen = appeared, caught = took.)

'Forsooth, dear friend, Did all of all not emerge properly? '

Ans: Arre yaar sare ke sare theek se nahin nikle kya?
--(Hindi: saare ke saare = all of all)

'Pish tosh, leave it, woman. Whose father's house bundle goes?'
Ans: Aiyo, bidamma, yaar appan gant hoythu.
--(Kannada: whose father's house bundle goes = who cares).

28 day fever (Or five day fever, part fouru with pichars moru)

Read Parts 1, 2 and 3 here.

Day 28. I parked near the construction mela like I do almost every day and peered over the edge. In a heartening show of solidarity, college students were pitching in to complete what trained, paid masons were struggling to do. They had even set up a helpdesk to explain the convoluted traffic plan to the public. Some pro-active Bangaloreans at last! Such a relief from the usual jaded, moaning lot!

Manipuri artists were creating sun-patterned frescoes along the walls. Painters were giving a final coat to the concrete. The errant bulldozer was smoothening out slopes in a calm, lobotomized manner. The wronged crane was nowhere to be seen. A group of 60-something gentlemen were standing atop the underpass, fingers pointing in every direction, giving a hapless supervisor a piece of their collective intellect:

"Allappa, hing craas aag katsi yen sukha bantu?" (But young man, like this crooked you build means what comfort has come?)
"Ishtu chikka bridge mel yenaiya madthiya? Shuttle-badminton aadthiyenu?" (On such a small bridge what lord you will do? Shuttle badminton playinga?)
"Haiyyo, yen katsthaaro, bidthaaro. Thale iddru upyogsalla saar ivru. Eega idara mel bussu, gissu, maNNu masi, ella band sikakond bitre devre gathi ."(Haiyyo, what they will build, what they will leave. Head is there also means they will not use sar. Now bus, giss and several similar sundry objects will come and get stuck on top of this means god is only recourse.)
"This is vy country has gaan for daags sar. Aal these peepal musht be lined up and shaat I tell you. "

"Sir ond nimisha, bande" (Sir, one minute coming), said the long suffering supervisor, and vanished into the underpass with the old biddies harumphing after him.

I studied the student helpdesk's thermocol plan (slightly soggy after a cloudburst), and noticed that my dancing fountain idea to entertain gridlocked commuters on the U-turn atop the underpass, was not included. I advised the student body to undertake installation activites immediately. Grim studently silence ensued. Nevertheless, I managed to get a fair idea of what the traffic plan is going to be, and this, I think is it (fountain optional):

But sob!!! All the action will be be over in a couple of days and I will miss it sorely! What on earth will I do now, without squint eyed supervisors, mad machinery and genteel crowds to blog about? Sniff!

I will therefore leave you with an ode composed in memory of the birth of the Cauvery Junction Magic Box Underpass, before I go away and cry myself to sleep:

Under passu
You will help to crassu
The road without laassu.

Of your ingenious planu
I am a fanu
And so is my clanu.

So my magic baaxu,
Pull up your saacksu
Because you provide irrefutable proof that Benglur raacksu.

Sri Gattikal Coffee Works

Bangalore is where things have traditionally been put to pasture. Hyder Ali tried to retire his troublesome army chief quietly, in Bangalore. The British turned Bangalore into a hospice for weak and wounded soldiers. Professors, accountants, and army officers retired in Bangalore to escape the heat and disorderliness of the plains. Ageing rock bands perform swan-song concerts in Bangalore. Old and unhip foreign institutions open new botoxed-up avatars in Bangalore, hoping for a final blaze of glory before biting the dust.

One such institution opened quietly on St. Marks road this year. I watched in distress as the antique-chic Barista and Nineteen Twelve were scooped out of the old Bible Society buildings, and fused into one huge space. My Indian sensitivities bristled as the yellow neon Hard Rock Cafe sign was hoisted over the door. I was only slightly mollified when a sign that said "Bengaluru" was tacked on underneath it. I watched them knock down walls, open up windows and re-structure courtyards. I hoped and prayed that they wouldn't convert the beautiful old building into another jarring modern eyesore that we certainly didn't need.

Fortunately, they didn't. It looked just as pretty as before, notwithstanding the yellow neon. As expected, people flocked in on the opening weekend. I didn't feel like battling the crowds, so I stayed home and did my nails for a couple of weeks till they died down. This weekend, a cousin and I finally decided to go find out what all the fuss was about.

"Hi surrrrrh", sang the ubiquitous Manipuri maitre d'ni, as we walked in and looked around. The old granite walls of the building had been left intact. The newly installed distressed wood flooring and furniture gelled perfectly with the rough stone. The mezzanine floor had been ripped out and a purple-lit bar put in its place. The old vaulted Mangalore tiled roof soared high above us. Elegant picture windows looked out at the the beautiful LIC building across the road. Slightly scuffed rock memorabilia, guitars, costumes and photographs glared down at us from glass coffins all around.

"Vyelkam to Hord Raak Cyaf-fayyyy!!" screeched our waiter Manjunath 'Call me Mannie' S.V., and went away while we studied the menu. Aside from standard American fare, it had an enigmatically named section called "Namma Bengaluru", that featured 'local specialities' like paneer wraps, pita bread and hummus. Wonder what my grandmother would have had to say about that.

"TGIF plus fifty rupis, no?" remarked the cousin as we glanced nervously at the prices. This was true. The menu read exactly like a marked up version of the already overpriced TGIF in Indiranagar. Luckily for us, they had half portion salads and the like, which we instantly ordered. "They'd better be good", I grumbled. "Medam, just I will check if Vanill 'odka shtack is there and come won minit." said Manju to the cousin. After a brief consultation with the ever-grinning bartender, he returned triumphantly, glass in hand.

The drinks were pleasant. The salads and mashed potatoes (yeah I know, whats the point) that we ordered were nice. The service was courteous and unobtrusive. The DJ played lovely classic rock. The obnoxious bartender interrupted our reverie periodically by yelling out to people that arrived and left. The gifts section had endearing "Hard Rock Cafe Bengaluru" tshirts, and little autorickshaw keychains.

I have to admit though, that they've succeeded somewhat in giving the place a Bangalore twist. Perhaps it was the familiarity of the music and the old building, or the comfortable kannada accents of the waiters that did it. In fact, for some bizarre reason, it reminded me of a big bad super rich cross between Guzzlers Inn and Windsor Pub. As for the grinny screechy bartender, I'm going to ask Manju to wrap him in a Bengaluru speciality and drown him in a barrel of Vanill'odka.

Old Bangytown has proven itself yet again, to be a perfect pasture ground: this time, for an ageing temple of Rock. To enter it, however, you need what most Bangalorean rock lovers do not have: TGIF plus 50rs.

Acknowledgements: Photo of the Hard Rock Cafe from SloganMurugan's brilliant photoblog.