
This flash essay is part of a collaborative, constrained-writing challenge undertaken by some members of the Bangalore Substack Writers Group. Each of us examined the concept of ‘BANGALORE’ through our unique perspective, distilled into roughly 500 words. At the bottom of this snippet, you’ll find links to other essays by fellow writers.
Every year, for two months of the summer vacation, my brother, mother and I would travel up North to spend time with our relatives. I’d accompany my mother to the railway station two months in advance to book the train tickets and count down the days left for our departure when we’d board the Karnataka Express at around six in the evening. The next morning, through bleary eyes we’d watch ourselves hurtling through Maharashtra. That first afternoon was the hardest, when the black volcanic soil would radiate heat into our compartment and our Bangalore born and bred bodies would rebel at the madness of leaving the city behind in early April.
Mum didn’t look forward to that second day in the train either as her sons would begin whining about the heat when they took a break from fighting. Every hawker who sold cold drinks would lock eyes with our desperation, then my mother’s firm expression and move on. In her defence, those cold drinks wouldn’t really be cold. They’d be bobbing about in lukewarm water held together by buckets of steel, a great conductor of heat, as I’d learnt by then. The ice in those buckets didn’t stand a chance by the time we got to Daund and Bhusawal. But mum would relent twice a day, both out of mercy for us and her own struggle with the heat. We’d ask our co-passengers to keep an eye on our luggage and head for the pantry car.
To get to the fridge of the pantry car we had to walk beside the furnace where bare-chested cooks in drenched banyans fried dal vadas. We had to duck and cross that section on our haunches to escape the blast. Once we bought the cold drinks, we’d place them on our faces for a few minutes before drinking them. Our fellow travelers in the compartment would watch us with bemused chuckles.
But there was a way to avoid it all.
After my father died, knowing our precarious finances and the struggles of single parenthood in raising two boys, our relatives asked mum to consider moving to Lucknow on these trips. The cost of living was cheaper, there was a good school where my cousins studied and we’d have the support of the family instead of being alone thousands of kilometres away.
Didn’t these onward journeys tell us that we didn’t quite belong to the city? Our roots lay in the North. And yet once we’d reached our destinations, it would take a while for Hindi to replace English as our primary tongue. ‘what da’ had to become ‘kya yaar’. We’d falter and stutter a bit for the first couple of weeks while talking to relatives who spoke too quickly. My brother especially had little Hindi as my father – who spoke to us only in English - got him ready for kindergarten after mum and I had left for school. Then our brains would begin to adjust, with our Hindi becoming more fluent with each passing week. But by that time, we felt that there was still enough of the city left in us to return to.
Here’s a list of other flash essays by fellow Bangalore Substack writers:
Looking Down over Bengaluru by Vaibhav Gupta, Thorough and Unkempt
Blossom Book House, Bangalore by Rahul Singh, Mehfil
A Walk, A Pause by Mihir Chate, Mihir Chate
Bookless in Bangalore by Vikram Chandrashekar Vikram’s Substack
Bangalore: A personal lore by Siddhesh Raut, Shana, Ded Shana
Bangalore,once by Avinash Shenoy, Off the walls
My love story with Bengaluru by Rakhi Anil
Bangalore Down the lane of History by Aryan Kavan Gowda, Wonderings of a Wanderer
Nagar Life by Nidhishree Venugopal, General in her Labyrinth
Belonging by Shruthi Iyer, Shruthi Iyer
The Street Teaches You by Karthik, Reading This World
The Wild Heart of Bangalore by Devayani Khare, Geosophy
A Love Letter to Bangalore by Priyanka Sacheti, A Home for Homeless Thoughts
Movies Dates, Bangalore and Them by Amit Charles, AC Notes
Between Cities by Richa Vadini Singh, Here’s What I Think
A Haven? Awake in Bangalore, by Lavina G, The Nexus Terrain
My love affair with blue skies by Sailee Rane, Sunny climate stormy climate
A City That Builds Belonging by Sathish Seshadri, Strategy & Sustainability
The train sequence is so evocative, Ayush!
I can’t imagine having to walk on your haunches to get to the fridge! My goodness! I can just see it in my mind’s eye! Lovely essay!