Familiar Stories

1. Rebellas EX WHY

2. Vibgyor...Rainbow Stories from our beloved city

3. Blood and Gore in Bangalore

4. Andhra Merrytime Services

Andhra Marrytime Services

I Will Be What I Will To Be

5. Rubies and Companies - The Case of The Missing Emerald Ruby White Gold Cartier Clip on, Ghandaberunda pattern, a pawn shop in Bangalore

6. Blue Jenes

7. Cafe Jazz Joustings

8. Whitefield Jazz

9. Bangalore Alliances Dalliances Romances Speed Dating Queen

10. Skillet Pan - Cooking up stories

11. Diamonds, Rifles & Naxalite Nicktophobia

12. Gypping and inheritance

13. PB clan - Illustrious ancestors 

14. Ancestor worship

15. Dismembered 

Family members Cutout

16. Hunting grounds Exploits of a Colonial Past

17. God Bless America in Bengaluru

18. Anthems of Change

19. Vande Mataram - songs of home

20. The typist, the dictator, the dictaphone and other addictions

21. Two peas in a podcast

22. The dancing drama queen

23. Fearful in Oratory or Pratiwadi Bhayankaram

24. Don't Right me off

25. Left handed complement

26. Arms and the woman

27. Love all

28. I'll hit you with my best shot

29. Music of The sacred heart

30. Names and other callings

31. A horribly naughty girl grows up, grows fat and grows out, but never outgrows Bangalore. 

32. BFFF - Bangalore Family Friends Frenemies

33. Yella Maadonna Maradonna

Material Girls and Boys

34. Thin, quiet and intense observations by playing dumb

35. Wannabe saint Soldiers of God

36. K&S Mekhri Twinnings and a haunted house in Benson Town

37. Sister Leone and the stylish baby

38. Gopi and Usha's book club

39. Jakes The Rattlesnake The Clown The Thoroughbred Our Family Three Ring Circus

40. Blood Sugar Baby All The World's a Stage

41. Stand Up Comedy Stand Up Tragedy

42. Acharyas and Co Pickle Preservation

43. Suroopakam Kuroopakam Duroopakam - How to remain well preserved like a pickle

44. Playgiarism

45. Dog's Day and Cats Fight

46. Co Shees & Co Hees

47. Put your hands in the air and give me all your money. Ma Baker's Cake Icing and Bakery

48. Collectors Calling

49. Raya - The Royal Bread

50. BenthaKaalaOoru to Beer Ooru

51. Whining and Dining

52. Haha Maadi My Pop's a Cop

53. The stick insects fall in love

54. Musical tales and railway days

55. Drive-in restaurant, drive-in theatre

56. Dingare Dingare Meenakshi, Sepoy Anne, Haadu Santhoshakke, Bobilli Raja, Kadalanakkare Ponore and Yaadon Ki Barat and so many songs we grew up with

57. City and Cantt fusion

58. MPress of Unblandings

59. Turmeric Yellow, Ruskin Bond, Sweet Bernadette, 2 Teas and One Casabianca, also my Granddaddy's nic named after the poem.  Our sister S, our brother Dinesh Ali Akbar Khan, a famous Gharana, Aman Ki Asha and the Oud he gifted Jaggi

60.  Burjor and Khorshed Lord, Mum, Grandmom, Jaggi and me on the trip of a lifetime to Egypt and Cyprus, Jaggi's Oud obsession and the Lords of the Golden Age of Hindi Cinema

61. Siberia, a group of scientists and a mother's grave stone in Russia.  Bonny Dawson, Jimy Bunyon and the antique cello

62.  Kamala's silver spoons, thalis and teasets, winnings of a bridge playing home maker

63. Dolls from around the world, my Michiko's and Mini hahas and how my grandmother taught me geography

64. Clare De Lune, Sakura, a doll named Lisa and other gifts, buffalo soldiers, Russian girlfriends, Michael Jackson and Farewell My Summer Love and Theme song from Arthur

65. The Three Musketeers of Koramangala and friends and family elope

66. Adam and Mako and a trailer ride to Mangalore

67. Seema Rani and Badi Sayani

68. Jyoti 81/6 and Jyotinivas

69. Vepagunta the house my Grandparents built from scratch, a neighbour called Bernie Rosario Lacchi and Demadu from Burma

70. Piggy banks doggy tails discount sails Cashmir to Bangalore an IOU notes

71. Anna & Keith and my Inner Circle crush. 

72. Dornahalli and the patron Saint of lost articles

73. Oh Carol dad's worth McGuires, Giddens, O Grady's, and Stations of The Cross and a statue of Our Lady

74. St.Jude Thaddeus, a French Celestine connection, the Holy Ghost and Casper the Friendly Ghost.

75. Nepal and her beauty

76. A missing bottle of Glenfiddich and grandma's Mexican skillet pan and other nicking and pickings.

77. Guru Nanak and The Grove. And a Painter

78. The pianist and painter, also a poet, the physicist and artist. The cultural anthropologist, twins and and Maya and a bunch of lovely folk.

79. Two back-to-back North Malabar feasts

80. Dad's free advice. Who will play the piper and the Pied Piper of Hamlin

81. MAJJa maadi family reunions

82. Happy and his Housie

83. Tell your brother Chris

HAPPY TEACHERS DAY

1. Our Mother and The Tree of Life - A plant students gave her, a tree now outside our window.

2. The Centre of Our Universe

3. Best Zen Master awards to J&J

4. Best swimmer and deep sea diver award to A

5. Lekhak student of the year

6. Under performance and the student - i had Wonderful Teachers.  You see I jus wanted to sing and nobody would buy that

7. Life coach award goes to G "Mum simply called him that lovingly "Mr. Gopinath" when she was really fed up of his shenanigans.  Out Together Dancing Cheek to Cheek is their song

8. To every ONE I say "Thank You for The Music" and Our Patron Saint Cecilia whose Feast Day Mom shares.

TWO HOME MOVIE MEMORIES VIEWED IN GROVE BEFORE THE PROJECTOR WENT PHUT. BOTH COURTESY OF MY DEAREST THATHA S.N. BAYANKER

His homes were named Srinivasa in Waltair Uplands where a massive commercial building now stands.  Apparently, all the trees my grandmother planted still bear fruit.  The best mangoes we had ever tasted ripened in the storeroom by my grandparents and given to us where we had to say 'May I have a mango please" and thank you".  Because English manners are quite different from our Indian customs, but anyway we learnt our English manners like this, also multiplication tables, painting in the afternoon, singing in the morning and evenings, watching my grandfather perform the morning pooja and evening pooja, reciting all his prayers. Late evenings were for visits to people’s homes in Vizhag where we would sing fun songs around the piano.  There was a compost pit at the back of the garden where leaves and other things used to be burnt.  I once ran and dived right in with my brother watching in horror as I told him to go and get help because my legs were entrenched in burning leaves and I couldn't get out of the very deep pit.  Kanaka and Simhachalam, the house boys helped me out and I wore long pants for a while so I didn't have to tell my parents and grandparents of my wild ways and self-inflicted injury.  The Bhatia's our neighbours who lived a mile across from us would play Tina Charles and other modern music that filled my summer holidays with Dance Little Lady Dance and other songs.  Back to now.  The topmost section has family photographs in black and white of Waltair Club Days, Fancy Dress Parties and days of yore, taken without my permission by my uncle and apparently used to decorate the pub.  Maybe I should play FBI and CBI and sue him because of the terrible things he has done including physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually harassing my grandmother, Jaggi and me.  His wife, his equal partner in crime and I think they are using our money because we are the legal heirs of our grandparent’s estate after my Mother.  Probably using our money to fund their son's business, an App company in Gujarat no less.  They probably don’t pay taxes, probably using our money to fight a litigation case on my aunt's side of the family.  I think she should draw a line and put a stop to her avarice. We've registered a report in the Whitefield Police Station of a particular incident that happened and a friend of ours was luckily the eyewitness to blood and gore in Bangalore.  The will was forcibly changed in Bangalore and my grandmother forcibly taken to Hyderabad.  The police really did nothing and he’s just been summoned based on the complaint.  He has denied me access to my home now which contains gifts including jewellery, my trousseau, silverware and other sundry things that all belongs to me.  He's nicked most of the albums and a lot of other things as well.  Basically, to spite us.  We really want him to be transparent with what he has to give us including shares of ITC (Indian Tobacco Company) which are now a gold mine and huge amounts of money.  He went around spreading rumours, trying to damage our reputation saying Jaggi and me were not to be entertained at the banks where my grandfather's money which belonged to my Mother and to us hopefully is still there.  My grandmother said he was mismanaging my finance  The money is accruing interest no doubt and definitely my interest because we could use the money to enjoy ourselves and a whole lot of good.. 

Thatha's other home in Koramangala Bangalore was named Shree 612, 80ft Road Koramangala.  Now in its place stands YES Bank and something called the Attic.  Behind there's a coconut tree my grandmother planted.  We sold the place for a song thanks to restless Uncles who couldn't have cared less about our inheritance.  1000sft of the plot was not even taken into account when the property was sold.  My grandmother really wanted to maximise profits whereas my grandfather wanted out of that terribly crowded locality.  Thatha had an accident on his morning walk on Vishu Day, was in a coma for 10days and passed on peacefully.  The sons came only after he had passed on, thanks to their wives who only swoop in like vultures. One to claim money and the other to claim a husband but we were there for Thatha and couldn't have his funeral because the rains had got in to the low-lying area that Koramangala is and filled our sunken living room, a home designed by Jaisim the famous architect who often said "we should allow the elements to come in to our homes", I wonder if his home is constructed to let every sort of element in. 

Straight from the hospital on the way to the crematorium, in the back of the Maruti van, where I sat, I heard my aunt discuss the division of my grandfather's property.  It's after that my grandmother and me began to co-invest.  Uncles and their wives owe us a lot of money. They wanted us to stay poor and hungry while their children thrived and arrived.  Well, it sure has backfired on them and mediocrity is what they will ever know or maybe things that are less than mediocre and their children will come to no good. There is the Highest power that protects the meek and the mild and even the ones with righteous anger.  God is the ultimate Judge.     

Now for the two home movie memories - Mum in her resplendent red saree, blushing furiously as dad with his toothy smile whispered sweet nothings in her ear on their wedding day in Guruvayoor, Kerala.  When it came to my naming ceremony, Dad wanted to name me after his girlfriends.  I might have had a thousand names.  My brother is named after tennis star Jaideep Mukherjee though my maternal grandmother wanted to name him Dhiran Vasudevan after his paternal grandfather Vasudevan.  The second home movie memory is after I was born, the first time I saw the ocean in Vizhag at the age of 1 wearing a blue bikini with Mickey and Minnie Mouse motifs which my grandparents had got for their first grandchild from USA.  The video has me running towards the ocean really fast and my father an ace sprinter, boxer, swimmer, flight sergeant, driver of trains a Man who could pretty much do anything if he set his mind to it.  My Mother said, he had a really good brain and we do know that the human brain (for instance my uncle and aunt in Hyderabad) can conceive of every sort of evil known to man. Dad caught me before I drowned.  I am still a hopeless swimmer.  I can just about stay afloat, but I possess a fool's confidence and no fear because I know somewhere on Earth and in Heaven someOne is watching over me.

My grandfather Thatha's paternal uncle cheated him of a massive trust fund.  Honouring his father or Petaji's word, he never put a case against his uncle and started from scratch.  My grandmother has given me bills, letters and accounts of bullion shares invested in, how she funded her village using my grandfather's hard-earned money, saving ungrateful nephews from meningitis, who came to take our signatures to construct buildings on property my brother and I still own because my Mother signed on behalf of us when we were minors.  When I refused to sign, my grandmother's nephew asked me how much I was getting for our music performances.  The village is thriving and we've got many wonderful family members as well.  Luckily not everyone is a greedy, selfish human being.  We plan to revisit when my Mother's cousin visits to talk about what my grandmother really wanted to do for her village.  I usually stay with one of my dearest friend's daughter and husband who is a top litigation lawyer.  Their daughter is a design researcher with an Australian company and a fabulous Indian Classical Dancer.  their nephew is a fabulous Indian Classical Singer and is finishing a course in an Indian Arts Conservatory in Trivandrum. The village and beyond is extremely hospitable.  Anytime we can enter the home of a Muslim, Christian, Hindu and be hosted with yummy food and yummier beverages.  Ultimately, that is what is important.  And why we celebrate Onam and Vishu and the great king Mahabali where prosperity and peace were a given during his reign.  The God particle is not a figment of our imagination.  Science and Spirituality will always go hand in hand.  

USH PLUS USS

THE GODDESS OF DAWN 

MOM'S THE WORD

ADD AND MULTIPLY DON'T DIVIDE

UNITED we stand and the rest is history, let it not repeat itself.

BLUEMARLIN

ENTR

PRIZE

Dad's  first baby conceived on a farm in Vepagunta, Andhra Pradesh.  The house was built by my grandparents using  bricks from a brick making machine built by my grandfather and his dear friend Alf D'lima along with workers. Farm grown produce included sweet corn, trees grown included soapnut or kunkudikaya trees, drumstick or moringa, mango trees, guava trees, jackfruit trees, courtesy my grandmother, assisted by farm hand Demadoo who looked after the dog Sheba. Taras and Tiya came later.  Baby J running after chickens and older sister Mana, a baby herself snooping in rooms that smelt of Gamaxine, poking her nose in two pink cupboards that housed some of her grandmother's treasures, nothing short of the treasures of Sierra Madre.  Her grandfather had nicknamed her CIA and his code would be STOP TALKING CIA IS LISTENING.  Mana (what J used to call his older sister because he couldn't pronounce her name).  A stream with tons of rose apples and cashew trees grew beyond the barbed wire fence behind the the farm.  The house was a two story with basic electricity and water facilities, a lovely balcony on top where the bedrooms were and an Irish priest regularly visited.  Downstairs was a living and dining and kitchen.  The first Indian language I picked up was Telugu and then English from our neighbour Bernard Rosario, a an Anglo Indian bachelor, retired from the Vizhag Port.  He lived on an equally large farm growing flowers and fruits rearing sheep, goats, chicken.  We had cows that gave us milk on our farm and chicken for eggs.  Bernie Rosario had a fisherwoman named Lacchi (ironically the name is Lakshmi, named after the Goddess of Wealth and Prosperity).  Lacchis were also night soil workers, sweepers, fish mongers or did the lowest form of work you can think of.  But our Lacchi was the lucky one.  We all treated her like gold.  She was covered with tatoos, wore every kind of body piercing, smoked 'chuttas' and drank toddy, had a vocabulary to make a sailor blush.  Though I've forgotten telugu, I remember every profanity she taught me.  Had even shared her paan and got my mouth burnt with chunnamb and my first smacks from my father and mother.  Dad spent too much time in the village with the tribals, drinking toddy, smoking cigarettes and also had maxed the tribal gambling dens.  He always used to bring back extra vegetables for mom to cook after his sojourns.  It did get him into lot of trouble with mom who had to singlehandedly look after two babies but Bernie Rosario or Bernie Babu as he was referred to had a home full of books, most gorgeous collection we had ever encountered from fairy tales to encyclopedias.  We were never short of entertainment, education or home healing tips from the workers and our erudite neighbour.  This is my first memory and dad's baby Blue Marlin Enterprises.  La,la,la life goes on and as Paul sang Obladi Oblada Life goes on. Music was the centre of our lives even then.  Mom and Dad singing and to us, visiting grandparents, grandfathers harmonica, Bernie's music collection.  Also learnt some riebald telugu songs.  This I have forgotten but my grandmother reminded me.  Demadoo's family still lives in Vizhag.  His son Kanaka used to work for us.  He used to say Sheba Laba Laba.  Apparently it meant something in Burmese because that was where he was from.  I'm glad I've kept these memories of a beautiful place and beautiful time which is been swallowed up by the greed of the city and roads to progress which frankly lead to nowhere.