It was raining, raining and raining; heavily, slowly, non stop, all day long. Our life in CSR became fully boring and gloomy. We didn’t really need to take a bath. If we went from bedroom to kitchen, we took a bath, we went from dorm to office and we took a bath; even for going to toilet we needed to use a raincoat or an umbrella……. horrible!!! As a result is we started planning to escape Auroville for a weekend and we did so.
On 30th October, Friday night our boss Satprem was leaving for Tanzania for two months. Saturday is half. So we decided to go somewhere and Bangalore was the first choice we all had. Priyadi, Satprem’s secretary, also wanted to join us and it was good as she arranged a cheaper accommodation in Ashram guest house.
This time we didn’t go for any adventure. We booked our ticket in advanced and we booked it for both way. We had chosen a private bus service so it was 740rps per head.
At 10:30 we entered the bus….. I have never seen a bus like that. It has comfortable chairs and above the chairs there were sleeping berths. One row of berth is single and one is double. The weird thing is, Couples was staying at those double berths and they were maintaining privacy by curtains. I must say India is far fast than Bangladesh….. I don’t know anything More about the journey; I slept the all the way.
Now let me tell you what I was wearing….a white cotton shirt and a tree quarter trouser. We reached Bangalore at 5 in the morning. Still it was dark. I stepped out of the bus and I felt thousands of niddles pierced me……..it was a little bit cold!!!!
Thanks to Allah, He is so kind that there was a lot of Autos waiting and we got one for 150rps. So we reached the guest house we checked in and we slept. At about 7:30 the manager wake us up from sleep and informed that Priyadi and Me (as I am an Indian!!!) can stay there but Celine and Camille can’t. We said we will arrange something but we need time.
But the truth is we were not at all thinking about accommodation but about Koshy’s and K.C. Das. Koshy’s is a famous restaurant, especially famous for breakfast and K.C. Das is famous Bengali sweet shop. But honestly, the whole Bangalore city is too lazy to wake up early. No restaurant is open before 9:30. What to do now? We took tea from a footpath shop, walked around nearby places and finally it was 9:30 and we came back to Koshy’s. It seemed like we had never seen good food before and we were very rich. Just for a breakfast we paid 800rps! After that no space for K.C. Das… later.
“pet puja” done! So we called Varun (one of our friend from Earth Institute). He heard about the guest house and he is so sweet that he invited us to stay at his place. So Chandrima (Varun’s friend) would come to take us to Varun’s place by her car. But she will come at 5, so we have a lot of tome in between. We again started walking from one street to another we the whole commercial street, mission street, cubbon road….we eat, we shopped, we visited …..wow. After two months I am visiting a real city. So classy, so smart, so modern. … superb. For lunch we went to a restaurant- Coconut Grove. Very expensive again and very good too. I felt life is expensive here. People earn a lot and they spend a lot. I really liked it… speciall the girl ;-)….. very smart.
But still there is a problem that we were ignoring from the morning- we all are gonna stay at Varun’s place, but all our staffs are in the Ashram Guest House and we don’t want to pay. So at 4 we went there and the great Priya di manage not to pay and we just left..hahahaha…
Varun recently built a new house for him and his parents. He designed it himself and managed to build it simultaneously while working at Auroville. Bravo! In South India people do their house warming party and prayer before the finishing work is done. Varun’s house warming party was done but a lot finishing work was remained. So they were living in another house nearby. We went there just after sunset. It was almost dark and so we rushed to see his house. It is a 10 minutes walk through green. Most of the plots were yet to be built on. So Varun’s house was standing in the middle of a green sea!
I can imagine how lucky Varun’s parents will be in a house like this. Its fantastic! Its calm, its quiet and when its night….. I have no word to describe…
The ground floor is for his parents and younger brother and the first floor is his bedroom and studio. I would say the relation of space he designed, the light and air circulation path he created is really very logical and perfect. I don’t know Varun is gonna read my blog or not. But I want to say, Varun, you just did it. Congratulations.
Now I want to say to you what I experienced that night. Light in the dark!! The people who have been to Chittagong Neval Academy, at night have you ever seen the light of CAFCO on the other bank of Karnafully? Even in a moonless night have you ever noticed a very clear sky full of stars? Did you feel something………. I already said that Varun’s house is in the middle of almost nothing. At night the green becomes black, just black. And then ….. you will find small bright light sources one after another.at every 1 minute at least one plane crosses Varun’s house to land at nearby International Airport. Sometimes long trains with hundred of lit windows appears…. And twinkle twinkle little stars.. they are always with you…….. no guys I could not describe anything. One has to feel that, there is no other option.
I think I am a little excited about the house Anyway, we had nice dinner that night and we decided where to go next day.
Next Day early in the morning w again went to see Varun’s house…. Don’t be scared people; I will not start describing again. But it was wow… Varun Dropped us at the bus stand and we took a local bus to go back to the main city. In the bus I realized the most posh, smart and modern people are mainly leaving in the center of the city. At outskirt it’s like other parts of South India…. I mean they are Indians, not westernized Indians.
We reached Majestic Bus Junction and took another bus for Lalbagh Botanical Garden. The whole day we visited the Botanical Garden, cubbon Park, we ate Hydrabadi Biriyani, we shopped and at night we went to the pub. Priya di was very interested to go to the pubs as she went with her husband 14 years ago. So we went to the same pub, Nasa…. Nice. We tried to go to Hard Rock Café, but its so expensive that we had to come out. Not only Nasa, before we went to the bus stand we visited others pubs… that was a pub night. Actually it was true for other people too. As it was Sunday night the whole Bangalore city was in party mood and so were the pubs.
We were enjoying so much, but time was limited. So we went back to the bus stand and started for Auroville again.
If anyone asks me what we did in Bangalore, first thing I would say is “eating”. We really ate a lot, Celine and Camille shopped a lot (o, you can get very good silk there), we walked a lot and so, we saw a lot. What else we could do! Wow we had done everything, na? good…..!!
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