Life on brigade road: when the city was a melting pot of regions and even races

Sarah Osman

There was a nawab from Hyderabad who came there every summer with his family and retinue of servants to Regent Guest House. (A happening place where people from all over the world came to stay or just loiter. The hotel and my house were in the same compound.) He had a son my age. Every evening the nawab would take his begum and son for a walk up Brigade Road and buy him toys and whatever he wanted. Once I too was invited to join them. He insisted on buying me toys too, but I refused. He was most put out, and would not take no for an answer. So I told him he could buy me an Enid Blyton book instead, which he did. Yes, from Paramount Book Shop! Of course.

Many years went by and the nawab and his family did not return. Until one day, when I was in the 9th standard, the doorbell rang and there stood the nawab. He had come to say hello (or rather, aadaab) to me with a gift in hand. They were now settled in Bangalore permanently and had found a house on Richmond Town. The gift was (a la Tagore’s “Kabuliwaala”) an Enid Blyton book! And stupid me, I refused it saying – “Oh, I don’t read these anymore!” I feel so bad when I think of it now, that I didn’t have the tact to accept his loving gift gracefully. His disappointed face was a picture! God bless his soul, he was one of the kindest, sweetest men I have ever come across and a part of my happier memories of childhood.

There was this grand old lady with a gruff voice and a long grey plait called ‘pasha’ a female nawab, I gather, who also took up residence in the hotel for two months every summer in one of the rooms with just one maid-in-waiting or ‘Girl Friday’. Every evening she would have an armchair put out and sit and smoke beedis as she watched the goings on outside and occasionally called out to a familiar face to come and chit chat with her. I wonder why she was so alone!

Then there was the local college crowd that would visit every afternoon. Girls and boys, who, having given classes a miss, would pass leisure afternoons sitting on the wall of the concrete water tank next to The Only Place restaurant - smoking, chatting, laughing, playing, romancing - all under the tolerant, but watchful eye of Haroon, the owner, himself as he went about his work in and out of the restaurant and the guest house. Of these people, Farhad and Annie stand out as the most popular couple in my memory.

Alice lived in a little cottage behind Regent Guest House. She was an American who had come to India on a visit, fell in love, and stayed back. She introduced me to the wonders of colour on paper. She had this box of 365 (if I remember correctly) Crayola crayons and reams of beautiful white A4 sheets of paper. Whenever I visited her, she would hand me some paper and the colours, and many lovely afternoons were spent at her place drowning myself in the delicious sensation of bringing that white sheet of paper to life with myriad colours. The colours themselves had such wonderful names! I learnt colours I’d never heard of before. Burnt Umber. Mustard. Aquamarine. Whew! And every one of my drawings she would take, and place them carefully in a drawer of her desk.Once she asked me to make a poster for the sale of the fabulously sweet, yellow Japanese watermelons. Even though I didn’t think it was such a good job I had done, she loved it and put it right up!

I remember her asking me to draw a picture of the snake charmer who visited every day to entertain the guests. He had a mongoose, a few cobras, some snake venom antidote and small cloth balls and metal cups with which he’d perform some magic tricks. I drew the scene , and she sent the drawing off to her brother by post. I was no artist, but she validated my amateur efforts and that was just a small part of the lovely person she was. She was the most special and precious part of my childhood days, the sunshine and smiles of my life.

And then, there were the geese. And turkeys. Haroon used to get them for Thanksgiving or Christmas or Easter or whatever. They would, in the meantime, waddle around everywhere, not knowing they belonged to The Only Place. Their favourite place, away from the madding crowd, was our garden. Coming home from school and walking to the back of the house to get in (the back door was always open) was an ordeal for me, because there was this feisty leader of the gaggle of geese who would chase after me trying to nip my ankles with its beak. Ouch! The turkeys were more peaceable and would just gobble away peacefully, looking down their multi-layered chins at me as I passed warily by.

This was a sprinkling of memories from the rosy days of time gone by, of life on Brigade Road, Bangalore, my wonderful city. I think it must love me too, because I live not too far from there even today. Life has taken me to other places, but