A Tribute To Koramangala

5^th Cross, Venkatapura Layout, Koramangala First block. This was where I spent three years of my Bangalore life. A slightly crowded place, Koramangala is considered as the residential Hub in which most of the software engineers reside or rather just sleep for the night next to HSR Layout. I had always wanted to write about this crowded place and I have even done that during weekends, when the sky was blue over my head or when I just sat out to gaze at the night sky. But I don’t remember where I missed those long Ballads and some short prose that I had written about that vivid place Venkatapura layout in Koramangala.

That place was really different and truly incisive. A mixture of cultures and traditions– Kannadigas ,Tamilians, Malayalis, Brahmins, Burmeese, Manipuris, Biharis, and lots more….all travel the same one main (slushy) road which leads to the Sri Sagar Hotel – The most important landmark. The Sri Sagar Hotel is smaller than a Panchayat bus station and at least seventy people can dine a time standing around the tables.

When it is raining the entire Venkatapura becomes a muddy swamp and the cross roads are void of people, but water. When it is sunny the sky is flamboyant and dramatic; there are hundreds of thousands of people on the roads….either shopping, or taking a walk on the silent Police Quarters roads, or heading to the Busy Forum Mall which is just ten minutes away from Nenkatapura. There is an English medium school, a hospital, a post office and a bus station. You can put out your fingers and count the number of shops on the main road but you can buy whatever you need from them. Clothes, Sweets, Medicines, Vegetables, Fruits, and even hot onion Bajjis from the street hawkers. In the evening up to even eight, the place is full of activity. You can’t stay inside doors because you are pushed out to the streets where people are celebrating a festival- be it Magar Snakriti, diwali, Ganesh Chaturti, Christmas,or Ramzan every day is a celebration and every body is outside celebrating.

In the early days when I was just getting used to life in Bangalore I used to wonder why God put me in such a crowded and busy place when there were lot more good residential areas with highly trimmed lawns , cool and clean nature and better infrastructure. My dear friend Arthini was gracious to find out a place for me to stay in Venkatapura and I had to stay on the first floor of a beautiful house. My roommates had the same taste as mine for food, and nature and we enjoyed the weekends dining out or going for a movie. Slowly I got used to the place and people and understood that it would have been very difficult for me incase I was put in the middle of a glassy building which only had cement and stone but no life.

This place was full of life, there was no space annulled, and it was always sun-drenched and luminous. Just sitting on my balcony I have spent four to six hours without getting bored. As a bellwether, the pressures of office work and the hectic nature of my job wanted that kind of a relaxing in which the ephemera of day to day life gradually changed. Thanks Koramangala……