Mungaru Malhe...

I'm not exactly talking about the first showers of the monsoon season, but the rains always send emotions running high...

I'm no school kid who enjoys splashing around in puddles, but when a friend and I got drenched on our way back home one afternoon recently, we decided to have some fun given we were so wet already. And so there we were, trying to run down a puddle-filled street, splashing each other all over, and trying to save our bags from the rain instead of using them to cover our heads, because notes for the next day's test seemed more important than our heads even :P

More worried about staying dry in the rains are the school-going 'Kane's with their multi-colored umbrellas and graffiti-ed bags (will save the contents of the grafitti for another day). "Aiyyo...", one girl sighed, "jor malhe band-bidth-alle..." (Ind-lish translation - "Aiyyo, big rain has come of no ya.."). "Ilve, hortu-hogona, jaldi-jaldi baare...", ("No ya..let's go off..come fast-fast"), said her friend, dragging the girl on... I hoped they didn't get too wet as I continued to wait on the footpath for my sister's school-bus to arrive. Cars went along splashing water across the roads and close to my feet, and my tongue silently rained some choice curses on each of them. Bangalore's auto-drivers are another set of people who can really get into verbal fights - be it with other auto-drivers or with bus-drivers for whom they all share a un-dying hatred. Both (auto and bus drivers) will honk at each other relentlessly even in red signals, and while passing by will point their hands and call each other things like "Konan-maga" ("son of a buffallo" - I should find out how this curse has come to be used) and "Yaako..? Goobe!" ("why man...?You owl!")....and more animals that seem to come out of hibernation in the rains.... Though I'm yet to see what the rains do to the "hares" in Bangalore city!

hare in Bengaluru...

Hello! n a big welcome to all the 'ya's, 'kane's n 'macha's!
Ed-jusht-ing to life in Nammuru (our town, literally), which happens to be Bangalore city, is not so difficult at all.
Jayanagar, part of South Bangalore where I live, is full of tree-flanked roads, old and new beautiful houses and of course, the many 'Blacks'. You will understand what I mean when I tell you about the delicious 'Block'forest cakes you can savour at the Iyengar bakeries in the city.

And while I travel from 9th BlAck to Mesh-tik (city terminus Majestic bus-stop), swalpa (little) ed-jusht-ing in the bus, I'm entertained by the college-going 'cool-dude' machas (Macha is brother-in-law literally, but it's a term generally used by all the 'cool dudes' in the city to address one another), some school-going '-ya's n 'Kane's (Kane is the Kannada equivalent of Ya), and of course by the "Hares n Theres" that are immigrating in scores into the city from everywhere else in the country.
And then ofcourse, I simply can't ignore those perpetually irksome characters, but we'll discuss them another day.

Beng-lish, I say, not Kan-glish (Kannada + English), simply because Bangalore isn't just about the sincere, polite, ed-jusht-ing Kannadigas anymore. It's about... well, keep reading and you'll see!