FOUR POST FRIDAY: Trip No. 11- Another Trip to Bengaluru (1/4)

This is the first of the four posts this Friday.

For some reason this year I am visiting Bengaluru quite frequently. I have been to Bengaluru twice till last month. The first visit was sometime in April on office work and the second visit was last month to attend a close relative’s marriage. On both occasions I managed to drop in at MG Road to look in the couple of bookstores there and picked up some very good titles. On the first visit I had picked up quite a few books and during the visit last month too I had bought more books. Last week I was at Bengaluru again, my third visit, and on work. I had to attend a two day meet at an ISRO facility. This time I decided to travel by train, which, it turned out, wasn’t exactly a good decision.

The train was supposed to reach Bengaluru sometime around six the next morning. Having had a good night’s sleep I woke up early to get ready to get down from the train only to learn that Bengaluru was still hours away. In fact the train was five hours late and it was only after eleven in the morning that I reached Bengaluru Central. The organizers of the meeting kept calling me and I told them the train was late and that I would reach the venue sometime around lunch time only. The venue was somewhere at Marathahalli and I got to the ISRO facility just in time to find that the meeting was breaking up for lunch. After lunch the meeting ended a bit early. Since I had time I went to look up my friend’s mother. The funny thing was that I haven’t yet met this very good friend of mine who I got in touch with when I was in Port Blair back in 2006. Seven lengthy years have passed and we haven’t set our eyes on each other till now. After meeting the wonderful old lady I knew how my friend looked from the album she showed me and also from what she told me about my friend. She also gave me some tasty snacks and tea that taste of which still lingers on my tongue.

On the second day too the meeting started a bit late but ended early. It was a tightly guarded venue and we had to leave our mobiles, pendrives and all electronic stuff at the gate itself before going in. So for all day while I was in the meeting I wasn’t bothered by calls on my mobile. The meeting ended just before lunch and we all split after the heavy lunch. I had planned to meet another friend of mine, Eshwar Sundaresan who lived in Yelahanka.

Eshwar, who I met in Port Blair in 2006, has written two books- Bangalored and ‘Behind the Silicon Mask’ which was launched recently. The day I learnt I would be going to Bangalore I planned to meet Eshwar and have my copy of BSM signed by him. So I ordered the book online, read it and then on Wednesday went to see Eshwar. He had that same intensity I noticed in him when we first met at Port Blair. Eshwar has always been a different person following his own path. He left a cushy job with Infosys and struck on his own. We talked for long about our brief stint with an NGO in Port Blair and other matters. I told him about my job in the Government and about my present posting which is taking me places. He told me about the workshops he was doing to create awareness regarding Sexual Abuse of Children.

The next day, after a refreshing cup of ginger tea at the Chai Point in Rajajinagar (one reason why I chose to stay in that area) and later another nice breakfast of soft and fluffy dosas at a local joint I left for the railway station first. I dumped my bag in the Cloak Room and left for MG Road. I was told by someone that there are no direct buses to MG Road from Majestic but I learnt that all buses leaving from Platform 17 at the KGBS go to MG Road. I got down at Mayo Hall and first decided to have a cup of coffee before entering Blossom Books where I spent the hours until it was time for lunch. After lunch I went to Select and another branch of Bookworm in the same lane, then went to the main Bookworm store. I picked up more than half a dozen books during the day at Bengaluru and returned to the railway station laden with more books than I could carry. The train left on time but reached Hyderabad again two hours late.

Three more posts to read today