From the day I set foot in Bangalore, the city struck me as a far less hospitable one than Chennai - perhaps because I hadn't seen the darker side of the latter - but my judgement was confirmed for the umpteenth time this evening, when I walked from Indian Institute of Science to my room.
It seemed almost supernatural, well, an incredible coincidence to say the very least that a day which had started off as a sunny one when I started washing clothes suddenly brought in unexpected showers exactly five minutes after I finished hanging them to dry - another clichéd washing day it had been - that happened yesterday, anyway.
Confident that it wouldn't rain today, given that my clothes were sufficiently drenched for it to not matter anyway, and the fact that it didn't look there were going to be showers, I set out on a walk to IISc - a pleasure that I had been denying myself for several valid and a few unacceptable reasons. As habit, I would carry my umbrella in my bag, to avoid being teased about it, and given that I wasn't in judgemental company, I carried it in my hand.
After lunch and a peaceful, slow-paced tour of the place, I decided to return to my room at Sadashivanagar after an evening snack. I looked at my phone to find that it was already 6:40 pm - I was behind schedule for my religious ablutions, and my feet decided to cater to the feeble cries of my conscience. Just as I was about to start, a heavy downpour ensued. I chose to stick to my decision, and, wielding my umbrella even as a warrior would wield his sword, I braved into the harsh outside.
The old, familiar feeling of being stranded gripped me, making me feel like a homeless man walking aimlessly on a road - friendless, for no one bothered to slow down and let me cross the road. I had grown accustomed to this treatment after eighteen months in Bangalore, but it seemed to bother me substantially today - the automobiles of CV Raman Road were fiercely merciless on me.
Even before it had started raining, I had decided to take an auto-rickshaw home, and now it was beyond question. The prospect of walking on pothole-laden roads, flanked by discontinuous strips of pavement that housed garbage, nameless organisms, human waste and more sounded hardly inviting. In this weather, auto-drivers were bound to demand eyebrow-raising fares - and while one part of me was preparing for a long argument, the other pleaded with me to simply agree to pay whatever was quoted and go home. Each time an auto could be seen, my heart would leap, hoping against hope that this would be the one, but would sink as it neared, when I'd see the passenger sitting in it - the effect was cumulative on the negative side, with the heart-leap altitude reducing and the sink-depth increasing with each iteration. The traffic was building up steadily (I can never understand why rains result in an exponential increase in traffic jams on every road I take) and I was getting increasingly worried about whether any driver would even agree to come - and my worry was eventually proved right.
After what seemed like eternity, a passengerless auto slowed down to stop beside me - the driver felt like Shah Rukh Khan holding out his hand to help Kajol into the train in DDLJ (only a simile, mind you) - and, relieved, I told him, "Bhashyam Circle", adding, "Sadashivanagaradalli" in my broken Kannada - a previous experience reminded me that there were two areas named Bhashyam Circle in Bangalore, both not very far from my current location.
Without a word my fellow interlocutor took off, implying that he had to go elsewhere. Often, whenever auto-drivers refused to come to a locality, I'd retort, arguing that they weren't bus drivers to choose their route or destination, but all that escaped my mouth today was a stream of swear words, after which I watched my last ray of hope disappear behind the veil of smoke and rain into the thicket of ever-increasing vehicular traffic.
Hopelessly though, the process repeated with three more auto-drivers, one of whom certainly deserved appreciation, maybe even gratitude - he was kind enough to shake his head indicating dissent before he sped away. The sky would've been pitch black by now had it been a clear night, but today the grey clouds formed a thick blanket spreading towards the horizon in all directions, hiding any star or planet, lest any of them turn in my favour. A few clouds at a relatively lower elevation blew like wisps of smoke which strangely resembled a smirk, and innumerable raindrops continued to emerge out of nowhere, showing no indication of cessation.
I abandoned looking at the sky and looked down at my jeans - the damage had been done - a significant portion had got wet. Cursing myself for choosing to wear this particular pair today, - it was a favourite - I made up my mind to walk the rest of the journey - a decision that meant I had conceded defeat to fate.
Walking on a rain-lashed road in Chennai would've had its own ups and down, but at Bangalore it was too literal - being located in a peninsula, the latter's roads are abundant in crests and troughs, forming wavy curves which give walkers and cyclists immense exercise, sometimes laving them inadept to do anything on reaching their destinations.
Bangalore's peninsular location also filled up the city with several bushy several bushy, slopy areas which must preferably be ignored, even on dry evenings. Fringed by these on one side and traffic on the other, my line-of-walk was pretty constrained.
Out of nowhere, a bus sailed towards me, towering, honking hard at me - I was lost for a moment, imagining the Knight Bus in Harry Potter - until I realized that I had to jump right into a puddle to save myself. Once the bus passed, I tried to imagine what would've happened at Chennai - buses may have behaved unpredictably, but any other vehicle would have stopped long enough for its driver to hurl a dozen abuses at me - a treatment that I could only dream of at Bangalore. here, drivers would expect pedestrians to magically disappear at the first sound of their horn. Even Arthur Weasley's invisibility booster couldn't make his car evaporate.
The part of the road on which I was walking funnelled down into a narrow stretch, thanks to a thoughtfully constructed underbridge (sarcasm intended) and only one car could pass through it at a time. Cars which had won the mad race to catch my lane celebrated their remarkable triumph by speeding through it in a Batman-ish way, little noticing the not so thin pedestrian whom they were splashing with puddle-water. One by one, cars followed suit, taking turns to douse me, generating waves of sizes proportional to the weight of the vehicle and the ego of its driver. From what I could make out, there wasn't the slightest indication of guilt on any of their faces - a slowdown and an apology would've, at least, metaphorically warmed me down. Why did cars have to go so fast on rainy days? Aren't they warm and dry inside? Would a little empathy be too out of place?
As the fourth car approached, it took all the resistance I could muster to stop myself from throwing myself in front of it and hurling abuses - oh, and my swear word count was fast approaching a peak value. It was funny how these words granted a deep satisfaction in helpless situations. Perhaps I could keep count of them - it might turn out to be a good distraction. Dismissing the idea almost instantly, I opened Google Maps - and at long last, I realized who my true friend was - my smartphone, whom I had found an excuse to criticize almost every week, along with other technological advances as unnecessary luxuries. It indicated a shortcut through a slender alley that it claimed to be "3 min faster" - a direction that I 'd have ignored on any other day, but today I found it wise to follow obediently.
I took a right turn to enter the solitary street that Maps suggested, grateful to be free from the bellicose traffic, only to be greeted by a road which I might've easily mistaken for Sankey tank, if only I hadn't been there before. I was now faced with the probably the least of my day's challenges - to test my competence in one of those children's games - "nondi", "langdi tang", or "kunte bille" as it's called - when I had to make calculated jumps to avoid stepping into puddles.
Climbing up two flights of stairs to reach my room was the hardest part of my journey. The sight of my bed was irresistibly inviting - it had been a long day - perhaps I'd write about it tomorrow. But for now, I needed to.. sleep..... and before I knew it, deep waves of slumber engulfed me.
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