[Reader-list] Bangalore bytes!

[zainab at xtdnet.nl]

23/01/2007

I was out of Bangalore, traveling.
Received news about riots in East Bangalore from a friend in Bombay.
She asked if everything was okay.
I wondered if everything was okay at all?
Sent a text message to an acquaintance in Bangalore asking if all was well.
He replied saying that you Bombay people become paranoid when you hear
about riots.
I yelled back saying and what about you Bangalore people, you are
indifferent to trouble.

(A boy was killed in East Bangalore in a procession condemning the hanging
of Saddam on the first day of the month of Muharram. I still don’t know
the details 
)

ENTER SHIVAJINAGAR this morning 

It is about 12:00 PM. The sun is shining bright. It has been my intention
to walk around Shivajinagar market and begin the year’s writings from
here. So here I enter Shivajinagar, amidst an odd silence and a white
Rapid Action Force (RAF) van zooming past me. The place might appear
normal. But certainly this silence is not normal. Some tension is looming
in the air. The normalness is not about the silence; it is about the
tension.

Standing in his shop is a young Muslim boy, dark skinned, running the
machine to serve sugarcane juice to a waiting customer. I ask for coconut
water. He seems like a pleasant, amiable fellow. As I sip the coconut
water, I ask him if there is tension in the market. “Raada idhar mein nahi
hua, udhareech hua, mere ghar ke paas!” I asked him if he was suggesting
that the trouble broke out in Cantonment area and not in the market and he
said that was the case. The trouble broke out close to his house. “Abhi
baraah baje maloom padega kya hua!” I paid him and went off inside the
market.

I am not sure how to map out the market to you. It’s a vast place,
incompatible with what I had imagined it to be. It has various hues and
colours, perhaps many histories, memories and of course, there are
multiple identities here. I see Muslim women walking, Christian women
walking, and South Indian women walking. There are police vans and army
vans near the Ave Maria church. I am quite surprised that these are
stationed here instead of around the Jumma Masjid which is also in the
market. But then, I have never understood the logic of security and
protection.

Shivajinagar is made up of several streets. There is the Central Street.
There is a Chettty street which I avoided today. I went all around the Ave
Maria church to discover a world within Bangalore which I was unaware of.
I walked down from Central Street and watched all the shops and their
wares. There were lots of clothes, some in shops, some outside the shops
on the streets. There were hawkers, some stationery, some mobile. One
hawker had displayed his minimum wares on a motorbike parked in the street
and was negotiating with a customer from that space. The back side of the
wall of the Bowring Hospital is occupied by hawkers who have displayed
their clothes-wares on the wall. There are Tibetan women sitting there,
selling woolens. On the opposite side are cane crafts and furniture shops,
engaging in export and import of their wares. I can’t say that the density
here is that of Bombay markets, but there is a peculiar sense of time that
I feel here, a time of the past, a present of that past, a future 

perhaps 
 who knows!

I emerge out of the market by moving towards the bus stand. Opposite me is
‘Singapore Wares Shop’ selling Chinese goods and a little distance away is
the Bombay Chowpatty Kulfi and Bhelpuri. A little away is a poster
carrying Saddam’s picture saying something to the effect of:
“Saddam is the friend of India
We pray for World Peace
Down with George Bush, Tony Blair and global imperialism!”

As I walk out from Central Street, I notice yet another white RAF van. All
through this visit to Shivajinagar today I have navigated through
feelings. And here, with another RAF van passing by, I ask myself if I
feel a sense of numb indifference, a product of the memories of the Bombay
riots of 1992-1993, watching several RAF vehicles then. Who knows! It’s
either paranoia or indifference 


Towards the end of Central Street is a wall with posters of South Indian
films. One of the film posters has an English subtitle saying ‘feel of
flow’. Yeah, perhaps walking through this city will give me a feel of the
flow.

A Pakistani acquaintance had once said to me that you Bombay people don’t
walk; you simply look for transport. As the year commences, I am testing
the strength of my feet, the tenacity of my heels. (And then in the BMTC
bus which I board to go back home I find a boy sitting in front of me, his
feet naked, caked with dirt, perhaps finding solace in the bus ride).
Let’s see how far I can write with my feet.

Adios!

(For those following my citybytes blog, it is live again! Testing the
strength of my feet, the tenacity of my heels!)



Zainab Bawa
Bombay
www.xanga.com/CityBytes