Bangalore

Brief visit to Bangalore to meet friends who I was meeting after a long time. It all felt lovely - though you do worry a bit about the friends having to go out of the way to accommodate your schedule. Like a trip on a Sunday afternoon to see the  Maitreya Buddha Dhyana Vidya Viswalayam which turned out to be a fair distance away (Bangalore traffic of course is as chaotic as any in India, there are only degrees of differences).

I can't say I am big on new age philosophies or meditation so the place itself was of little interest. But the company was lively, the landscape charming and the place itself serene so it turned out to be a pleasant outing.

There are villages around the place - some very evocative of ancestral villages - so out came my camera but I ended up with just a few  because it was end of day.

Bangalore itself has changed a lot from when I last visited. There is the long drive from the airport, the cars on the roads, the different languages on the street and the  buildings of modern India that are deluxe, prestige and fill the landscape. In other cities perhaps one thinks of it as the natural remaking of a city by a new generation, in Bangalore you are filled with a sense of wistfulness, regret for not visiting it when the city was at its best. Because the city is one of few in the country that has an aesthetic coherence.  Even the yellow distinctive road signs that dot the city now have an air of melancholy. And though there are moments like rain and darkening skies on a Tuesday evening or the blaze of colour afforded by the roadside trees that remain you know that the city's genteelness, its mellow beauty will not last.

 

Still, the trip felt happy.  One thinks often of friends (and family) but the pleasure of meeting is different. There is happiness in hearing a voice, in banter, seeing a face - the intensity of this catches one by surprise even in the closest of relationships. So perhaps a small thanksgiving for such events is in order.

What I Know about TV Dramas

I rarely watch sitcoms, soaps, TV dramas and the like. Not for any particular reason other than being scatty and impatient when it comes to anything that requires prolonged attention.  That and the direness of most of them. Sometimes though they come seeking you as in the case of the three serials that my father watches (the rest of the time luckily its just cricket and the news).  These occur in the time slot of 8-9:30 when simply being sociable and in the living room will result in deep knowledge of the tedious details of all three. This is particularly awful because even in the tedious world of TV, Indian TV achieves new depths of tediousness. 

Of the three, the serial my father is most devoted to is Jhansi Ki Rani. He assures me it was "very good in the beginning", in which case its deterioration is spectacular.  The only history in it lies in the barest details, the rest is wish fulfillment of a kind that is supremely absurd and surreal.  Today, for e.g. a shouting sort gave a speech on the besting of Queen V by the home grown version. One need not be a fan of Victoria to know that a Queen who presided over an empire cannot strictly be compared to a naive, albeit brave, Queen of a small Indian kingdom.  Other sorts preen and parade through this travesty. The Indians are always brave, the English are always rascals.  Horrifyingly some English folk are played by Indians in bad wigs and  white paint. Mysteriously some have a modern American twang. Its all about as accurate as a work by Frank Miller  - but stripped off his inventiveness and layered with the verbosity of Indian historicals.

This is followed by a soap so ludicrous that I can't be bothered to set down any details except to note the abundance of over dressed women and the abundance of very slow episodes.

Things get down scaled a bit in Pavitra Rishta, the kind of chawl drama that was popular way back when television was quite different. Beneath its updated facade beats the heart of the Indian social drama.-it is in fact based on a Tamil serial, Thirumati Selvam. I can understand how it might hook people in, its like an Indian Packed to the Rafters replete with actors from the 80s/90s in older roles.  But one tires fairly quickly, the novelty of a simpler soap wears off pretty fast.

At which point it all ends and normal programming resumes. Thankfully.

On Beauty-II

Age is not all decay; it is the ripening, the swelling, of the fresh life within, that withers and bursts the husk.- George MacDonald

There is a beauty in youth.

And there is a beauty in old age (picture via the Sartorialist).

Of course it helps if you are Joan Burstein.

But that beauty is also in everyday folk.  As seen in this picture of my aunt's mother. I never come away without being touched by her kindness, the gentle beauty of her face.

Somewhere in between there is middle age which is rarely lovely. Youth is lost and the husk is yet to burst open.  But there is the promise of it and that is enough.