Growing up in Bangalore: What makes this city so special for the ones who grew up in its hybrid culture?

Sarah Osman

I grew up in the heart of Bengaluru. I lived on Brigade Road - the heart of Brigade Road - that is, the compound in which Regent Guest House was situated. The guest house was a really happening place. Here, people from all over the world and all walks of life came to loiter the day away or to holiday. This compound was truly the coolest place in town!

The entrance to the compound was flanked by Paramount Book Shop on the left and Shoe Avenue on the right. Further to the right was Wardy’s, who custommade shoes. Every year this is where we would go to order new school shoes -- sturdy black things tied up with shoelaces. It was an initiation ceremony of sorts for the new year: to go to the little shop, sit down on a chair, have your foot placed on a fresh sheet of brown paper and try not to wiggle as the shoemaker briskly traced the outline of your foot on the paper. It tickled every now and then. Look at the drawing of your foot with awe, one size bigger now, thus requiring a new pair of shoes. Never mind if it was the same, old, boring, black, plodding shoes! One year older now, one class higher now, one step closer now, to getting out of school!

Paramount was my favourite haunt after home work was done. (Or sometimes even before). It looked like a small stall, but behind the counter a wooden shelf moved aside to reveal a flight of stairs...wow, a secret door leading to some treasure! The stairs led up to nothing but a blank wall. Here, the destination was not the goal. It was a journey. One delicious step by delicious step. For, on each step you would find stacks of gawk-worthy comics and magazines. The walls were lined with books and more books. All the books one could hope to read! If I sat on one step a day it would not be enough to go through all the treasures on that one step. Wendy the good little witch. Casper the friendly ghost. Hekyll and Jekyll. the Monster Kids (I forget their names), the Road Runners, Bugs the Bunny. Elmer Fudd. Tweety and Sylvester. Phantom. Tarzan. Amar Chitra Katha, Richie Rich, Archie, Mad magazines, Dennis the Menace, Charlie Brown, Billy Bunter – all of them inhabited these stairs. Whew!

The owner of Paramount was a kind gentleman one who generously allowed me to haunt his shop day after day reading all that I could lay my hands on. The saving grace was, when I finished a book and it was a real favourite, my month’s pocket money would go towards buying it. In all those years, he never once got irritated by my presence or chased me away as one might justifiably do. It is surely people like this whose kindness makes the world go round.

My earliest memory is of the hippies. They came to hang out there in big groups, with guitars and bandannas and long hair. The guest house had dorm-style accommodation too, with amazing bunk- beds all in a row, which they would take, and sit together creating music or smoking. There was a girl called Angela among them who I was rather fascinated by. She had brown eyes and hair and the loveliest dimpled smile ever. I loved to talk to her and she would always have that lovely smile for me. I looked forward to seeing her every year but then, to my disappointment, after a year or two, there was no sign of her. Some years later, to my awe and delight, I saw her again -- in an ad on the back cover of a magazine- she was the Goldspot girl! Remember Goldspot? Like Fanta?!!

Another amongst the hippie group was a man who called himself Ice Kumar. Why, I don’t know. He was a tall soldier-like man with long curly hair, a missing front tooth (or two) and khaki clothes and a khaki helmet, boots, and a satchel in hand. He looked quite formidable and at first I was quite scared of him but curiosity soon overcame my fear when I saw him sitting in the same place every day on the parapet just outside my gate, writing away in a notebook. We soon became friends, and it turned out that he was writing songs/ poetry. This intrigued me and soon started me off on a similar venture. So we would sit on the stone parapet and compare poems and I would tell him little things about my little life and he would listen earnestly.

The Iranian students came next. They would zoom in on their motorbikes and stand around in big groups, talking for hours. They had this intriguing habit of greeting each other with hearty hugs and kisses-on the lips! They also had pretty girl friends. These girls had names like Popsy, Pixie ,Tootsie and what not. One couple was my favourite and quite the LailaMajnu of those times. They were Nancy and Ghalib. They were the only two who gave me the time of day: Ghalib because he said I reminded him of his little sister back home. I was so fond of Ghalib that I would eagerly ask my Arabic teacher to teach me some words in Persian too so I could talk to him in his language.

Nancy was quite happy to chat with me when Ghalib was busy talking