coming to Bangalore

Bangalore has always fascinated me, not only as a city but also as place that has its own life. So, whenever I get a chance, I always come to Bangalore. Apart from my inner soul, I also come to Bangalore to meet my parents. Yes, they live in Bangalore.

This diwali, my wife decided to celebrate her diwali with her maa (my mom). So, we left for Bangalore on 19th of this month. Since flying was not feasible, we decided to travel by train. And when it comes to train, I always prefer Karnataka Express, or simply, the KK. Traveling on KK is like wondering between geography and history. The train ride from Delhi to Bangalore is amazing because of the variety of landscapes that it passes through. I will talk of it on my next blog. KK has several myths associated with it. Yeh itni fast thi, do bar palti kha gayi, 'the train was so fast, it fell down twice'. Pahle jab train daund se khulti thi, to solapur tak dacaiton ka khatra tha, ' Earlier, between Daund to Solapur, there was always the fear of dacoits.

This time, I was traveling with my wife and my sister. So, I was little apprehensive about my co passengers. Traveling on train is as much private as it is public. No one can disturb you till you don't want to get disturbed. However, you can't remain isolated for long even if you don't want to get involved. You can't shut you eyes and ears. This time we had Ganguly family traveling with. We also had a philosopher soldier.

Ganguly family consisted of a old yet pretending to be young Mr. Ganguly, his very nice wife, who later on became our aunty, and two grown up yet childish daughter. They were coming to Bangalore for the first time to meet their daughter.

I always like Bengalis. They have a very strong sense of their own little personal space. They eat when they wish, and eat too many. They sing when they wish and sing very nice. They laugh when they wish and laugh too much. This little space is religiously guarded, outside intrusion is not allowed. Gangulies too had their own space, but this time we were accepted as their own.
We shared a good time. We shared recepies, sang along with them, ate with them and most importantly, laughed with them. All my best wishes to Mr. Ganguly and his family.

The train reached Bangalore on 21st. My father and my brother were waiting for us. I finally reached Bangalore, a city I love to explore. And explore I will in my next blogs.

Cheers
Kundan