a morning of discovery

i spent 3 hours of my sunday morning in an activity that was dismissed as totally "faaltu". each to his own i guess..because i completely enjoyed myself. despite stomach cramps, a ravenous appetite and aching legs, i didnt want to turn away and come back until my victorian bangalore walk was complete.

i took a bangalore walk today. a whole 3 km, spanning over 3 hours, interspersed with TONS of trivia, tidbits from history, and some unbelievable facts -- some that just blew me away. did you know winston churchill lived on south parade at some point?

i also got to shoot bangalore in the morning light, something i havent done in a long time. i got to walk down the entire length of mg road..or should i say south parade? i went up the bell tower of the holy trinity church. i traversed bangalores history from the early 16th century down to today. i discovered things about bangalore that have sort of redeemed this rotting city in my eyes. i watched someone talk with passion and hope, and it gave me a different view on my city..a city that i have lesser and lesser hope for with every passing day. with every living jackass who drives badly, every moron who talks as he drives, every cop whos stands by the roadside digging his nose while the traffic goes haywire right under his being-dug-nose, with every tree thats cut down, with every passing day in the life of the never ending metro construction, with every pothole that i have to endure, with every story of growing gross corruption, with every instance of crime/rape/eve teasing.. i lose hope. and i ave VERY little of it left for my city.

back in the day there were many things i loved about my city. many things i despise it for now. and nothing left to salvage its reputation, except maybe the fact that it is home to people closest to me. theres very little i really LOVE about my city anymore. all i feel for it is cynicism, anger, frustration and a sense of extreme hopelessness.

so in a sense i enjoyed the escape for 3 hours on a pleasant sunday morning. which transported me to a time that is hard to believe existed! and its also left me with a sense of hope, in the circle of life, in the fact that history reinvents itself time and again, that what was once up must come down, and so much the same way every city has a series of life cycles -- a glorious high and a terrible low -- going up and down right through time. it gives me hope that maybe this is how its meant to be, that things must degenerate completely before we see a spark of hope and goodness again. and whats heartening and hope-giving is the fact that bangalore has seen many a historic/legendary/glorious moments in the past. so it is capable. the people are capable. and maybe someday things will change again.