Breakfast in Bangalore – 3

Another Bangalore favourite this time – Vidyarthi Bhavan – the king of masala dosa since 1943. Go there on a Saturday for the best Bangalore experience. VB is close to the Gandhi Bazaar circle and was initially meant as a mess for students and bachelors living in that old part of Bangalore. And the interiors are nothing fancy – but who goes there for the decor? And here is a tip – there are those who will argue that the MD at CTR (Central Tiffin Room) in Malleswaram is better. Listen to them politely and then just smirk. And head straight to VB.

If you reach any time after 8 am, you will have to jostle with the locals for a table. It is not an orderly wait but involves standing by the tables which look like they are going to get free and grabbing a space even before the plates are cleared away. The waiters are just a blur as they whizz around with a pile of plates of masala dosa. Don’t rush them, don’t try to catch their attention or ask for random things like upma or rava idli – I am told that they are available on request but stick to their specialty, I say!

Be patient, for good things come to those who wait. One of them will eventually stop by your table for a few nanoseconds to deposit the plates in front of you. The masala dosa is to die for – brown and yummy, with the whiff of ghee – and no sambhar please, only chutney. Enjoy maadi!

Breakfast in Bangalore – 2

Presenting the second in this series, after MTR – New Krishna Bhavan in Malleswaram. NKB, as it is known, is tucked away in a quiet street near the Mantri Mall and is where the mamas of Malleswaram meet every morning for filter kaapi and local gossip. NKB is a local adda and they acknowledge this – so there is no rush to finish your “tiffin” and run out. Here, it is acceptable – indeed it is expected – to sit back and linger over your coffee.

The first time I was introduced to NKB (circa 1954), the introducer raved about the green masala idlis – ignore the startling green colour and tuck into these capsicum-spiced mini idlis. Indeed, one of the best things about NKB is the quirky boards everywhere listing their “specials” (also called “Unusuals” here). NKB serves yummy Karnataka specials like neer dosa and ragi dosa – and it is one of the few Bangalore places that has got its sambhar right (I like it the thick spicy Tamil way, okay?). Add to that the fact that the waiters here are friendly and actually smile at you – there is none of that attitude that MTR throws about liberally – and you can see why this is a winner.

A newer addition (I presume) is Gopika, the air-conditioned restaurant inside the building that serves North Indian and Chinese (yes!) food – avoid that and stick to traditional South Indian at NKB. You cannot go wrong here.

Breakfast in Bangalore – 1

Lingering over a hot dosa / upma + filter coffee breakfast is one of the simple pleasures of a Bangalore weekend morning. Not so much the lingering in some places but in general, there is an air of what’s-the-big-hurry on these occasions. This being the general air in Bangalore. Which suits me fine sometimes. Just sometimes. The problem is that the waiters in these places also have the same attitude – what’s the big hurry? Add to this the other major chip-on-shoulder that these guys in old Bangalore eating places carry, viz. be grateful for what and when I serve you, and sometimes it turns out to be a patience-testing meal. Think: India Coffee House. Grrrr.

Anyway… here, the first in a series on these wonderful ‘Bangalore Breakfast’ options.

I may as well start with the legend: MTR. High on the list of the aforementioned waiters-with-attitude Bangalore places. It’s a bit like being in the Tirupati temple (I am told, I have not been there) – there is always a huge crowd, people waiting have the same look of eager devotion on their faces and they are generally pushed around by the man in charge of the “here is where you sit” arrangements. Defy him and you don’t get served any food – I kid you not. Add to this the fact that MTR always has only limited options at any meal – take it or leave it.

So strictly speaking, not a favourite favourite with me – I like the food there. What am I saying, I love their dosa. I respect the fact that it is an old Bangalore tradition – established in 1924. I like the way people head to MTR after their morning walk at Lalbagh to undo any good the exercise may have done, with a dosa soaked in ghee, followed by the special sweet of the morning. I like the way they serve their filter coffee (wonderful pick-me-up!) in silver glasses, with that warm froth on top. I like how large families come there for a together meal, any day of the week. I just don’t like the way they push me around – but then, you win some, you lose some.

And I am overjoyed by the existence of the new MTR on St. Mark’s Road – nicer seating, friendlier staff (well, they don’t actually snarl) and more choice of what you can actually eat.

Nostalgia

I know it has been a long time since I wrote anything here. After Ooty, I made a day trip to the Cauvery fishing camp at Bheemeshwari and then a three day visit to the Chalukya temples of North Karnataka – Badami, Aihole and Pattadakkal. So expect notes and pics from these trips soon.

For now, an image from the Kalamadhyam crafts fair at Chitra Kala Parishat…

Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson: you find the present tense, but the past perfect! ~Owens Lee Pomeroy

St. Stephen’s church at Ooty

One of my quick halts at Ooty was at St. Stephen’s Church on the way to Charing Cross. I had been keen to visit the church ever since I had seen photographs of its lovely stained glass windows.

The church was almost empty but for a solitary worshiper on the last pew. The late morning light streamed in through the stained glass windows, making the colours come alive.

Here is some history: the foundation stone for the church was laid in April 1829 and it was opened for service two years later in 1931. The cemetery by its side holds the grave of many of Nilgiris’ Britishers, including John Sullivan, the founding father of Ooty town.

The rocks that smoke

I should rightly call this piece ‘how not to go to Hogenakkal falls’. For this is an account of a trip to Hogenakkal on a route that did not exist.

Early September, very early Sunday morning, mid-monsoon. Three cars, twelve people, three cameras. No food. No maps. And no idea of which direction to take to Hogenakkal falls. We all vaguely knew that it was somewhere on the Karnataka – Tamilnadu border. And so the twelve of us set off merrily on the Kanakpura road towards Hogenakkal, asked for directions soon after leaving Bangalore, got ourselves misdirected (not once but several times!) and ended up on the road that never was.

Brimming with optimism, we kept going, the levels of optimism not dipping even slightly as we drove and drove through a long and completely deserted road. At points, it was so tempting to turn back… but none of us was really sure of finding our way back to Bangalore either. And then of course, there is that silly obstinate streak in each of us that tells us to go on, even when we know it is best not to. And so, we went on. And on and on. For more than two hours, not coming across another living soul, or signboards.

Finally, we stumbled back upon civilization – small Tamilnadu town – food! and correct directions! Lunch over, we asked for directions at the dhaba and drove on, finally coming across the first signboard for Hogenakkal (48 km to the right) that we saw since we left Bangalore over six hours ago.

At Hogenakkal

Hogenakkal is not one single huge waterfall but a series of smaller falls, all in full flow at that time, thanks to the rains. The only way to actually get close to the falls is on coracles, small round boats capable of seating upto five people including the boatman. Heavy bargaining later, we seated ourselves on these coracles, which turned out to be surprisingly comfortable and sturdy.

The bargaining is an integral part of any trip to Hogenakkal, I learnt later. This is where the real action lies; a group of boatmen approach you as soon as you near the area of the waterfalls. The price they quote initially is so high that you are tempted to believe they are offering to sell you a coracle instead of taking you for a spin on it. The trick, as with all sound bargaining, is to start at a ridiculously low amount, and over the course of the next few minutes meet the demand of the boatman somewhere midway.

These coracles, known as parisal locally are used commonly across the Cauvery, Krishna and Tungabhadra rivers. The boats look flimsy but are extremely sturdy and the bottom is covered with a layer of buffalo hide to keep it waterproof. It is said that the design of these boats have remained unchanged for centuries, the only modern addition being a layer of plastic sometimes added at the bottom (instead of or along with the buffalo hide) to enhance the sturdiness.

The boatman took us close to the first of the huge falls, and I am told, in lean season, it is possible to go even further upstream, closer to the others. It is a wonderful feeling, the mist and the water drops against your face. It is not for nothing that the place is called Hogenakkal – meaning “smoking rocks” – the Cauvery that winds through rocks in this placid valley between two states falls from a height of 150 feet.

Due to the splitting-now and merging-now nature of Cauvery’s flow in this spot, Hogenakkal strictly is not a single fall but a series of waterfalls spread across a kilometer of rocky terrain.

And then turning back, we began to move downstream. In this part of the ride, the coracle moves through the calm waters, bounded by giant black granite rocks on either side. There is lots of activity on these waters, sometimes causing situations similar to traffic jams on urban roads. Kids, as small as 9 or 10, run nimbly to the top in front of your eyes and dive into the waters from the very top at a signal from you, all for a few rupees. Commerce thrives merrily even in the middle of the water with vendors selling packed snacks and cool drinks from their coracles – door delivery of a different kind! We pass tiny little caves, the black stone glistening as a result of hundreds of years of combined exposure to the harsh sunshine and cold waters.

At the very end is a placid stream where it is possible to swim and cool off in peace and isolation; the boat man left us there for an hour to swim. The water here is also said to have curative properties, perhaps due to the presence of minerals or the goodness of herbs it crosses path with on its flow – and massages are freely available at various points in Hogenakkal. Apart from the boating, massage seems to be an activity almost every local has taken to as a money-spinning option. It is an almost scary sight to see well-oiled men getting pounded and pummeled by the locals, all in the name of a massage. To each, his own, as they say.

After an hour of water sports (as defined by a bunch of lazy people who were content to soak in the sun while floating on the shallow water), we headed back to what is “mainland”. At the shore, there is a watch-tower of sorts, close to the first fall, from where it is possible to get a panoramic view of the falls on both sides. This is perhaps the most picturesque spot in the area, especially the view towards the side where the stream meanders on towards the hills in the distance, bounded by black rocky walls on either side. Tens of coracles glide on it silently, as we did just a couple of hours ago, now looking like little dots from where we stood. A mild drizzle had started and ended just as abruptly, and then as we turned to go, there it was, a grand rainbow across the waterfall right in front of our eyes. And suddenly, the heat and long directionless drive were forgotten, and I resolved to be back at Hogenakkal soon, this time with a road map in my hands!

***
A confession: this is a slightly shorter version of an article I wrote for Windows & Aisles, the inflight magazine of Paramount Airways a while ago. I have since made another trip to Hogenakkal falls from Bangalore, this time well researched and planned and I am glad to say we made it and back without any such experiences. The photographs are from the recent trip when the water levels at Hogenakkal were a summery low.

A walk through a crafts mela

Bangalore in the last month played host to two arts and cultural festivals, one organized by the Times of India – which I missed completely – and more recently, the Bengaluru Habba – of which I caught one excellent jazz concert by Dana Gillespie and the London Blues and the crafts mela at the Chitra Kala Parishad.

The visits to CKP also coincided with the arrival of my brand new camera (yaaay!). So here are a few images from my first walkabout with the Canon 500D.

To begin with my favourite – the old man selling the glittery crowns for kids. He sat through the day wearing the crown and holding the other plastic toys in his hand, calling out to passersby.

And then the man I have come to call the ‘turbanator’, with his steady and honest gaze, selling wooden artefacts from Uttar Pradesh. I took so many shots of him – at rest and at work – that I finally ended up buying something, out of a sense of guilt + gratitude.

And then the usual suspects – bangles and earrings, slippers, mouth fresheners, pots and pans, paper flowers – and some not so usual ones like dangling fish and hanging monkeys.

[click on image for larger size]

I stood in front of this stall selling these puppets and made up titles for each of the photographs I took. Here are my top two -

Aati kya Khandala? …and No one can have just one respectively…

Have a nice week!

Hampi: more than ruins

Published in HT Cafe this Saturday…

The colour of Hampi is sepia. Not the soft sepia of fading and happy memories but a sharp brown that seeps into all your senses and dulls them after a while. It is the colour of the dry earth, the imposing hills and the precarious rocks of the region. It is also the colour of the temples and monuments that Hampi is rightly famous for. Even the auto-rickshaw waiting to take us around carries this slogan – Hampi: a historical story tells by every stone. Indeed.

It is perhaps to make up for the monotone of the land, that the people of Hampi fill their surroundings with as much colour as possible. Sitting on the ghats on the banks of the Tungabhadra early one morning, I watch the tableau unfolding in front of me (keeping half an eye and ears on the interesting been-there-done-that conversation between two groups of European backpackers). A man waves his white dhoti in the air, willing it to dry, as his small children run under it and make up an impromptu childhood game. Lakshmi, the temple elephant, lumbers down the steps a few minutes later guided by her mahout. The kids shriek in delight, even as Lakshmi indifferently goes through her routine scrub and spa ritual.

Later, walking up the ghat steps leading to the rear of the Virupaksha temple, I come upon a familiar sight in Hampi. Three brightly dressed men – in their ‘holy men’ avatar of orange and green robes, orange turban and peacock feather on the head to boot – are posing for a photograph with a foreigner. A small amount of money changes hands after this photo-shoot and everybody leaves the scene happy. Not for long though. They spot me taking their photographs and begin demanding money, irate when I refuse with a smile. Ah, well. I was lucky the earlier day; the sadhu near the market was happy to pose, and with a benign “free photo for you” proclamation.

Portuguese traveller Domingo Paes (early 16th century) described the Hampi market as a broad and beautiful street where “live many merchants, and there you will find all sorts of rubies and diamonds and emeralds and pearls and clothes and every other sort of thing there is on earth and that you wish to buy”. Today, there are shops selling kitschy handicraft and multicolour tubs of kumkum, children hawking postcards, restaurants offering world cuisine and guesthouses sporting ‘Recommended by Lonely Planet’ boards. However it is true, every other sort of thing there is on earth is still here. Welcome to Hampi.

TRAVEL INFORMATION

It is easiest to get to Hampi from Bangalore; take the convenient overnight Hampi Express (departs 10.30 p.m. from Bangalore City station) that drops you at Hospet, the nearest railway station by 07.30 a.m. From Hospet, Hampi is a short (14 km) half hour autorickshaw ride away. From Mumbai, fly or take the train to Hubli, and then take a car or bus for the 160 km (three hours) journey to Hampi.

Inside Hampi, you can hire an autorickshaw to take you around. A better way is to hire a bicycle or motorbike and make your own way; in the cooler months, you can walk, since most temples are scattered around the market area.

There is enough to do in Hampi, after you have seen the temples and monuments. Walk along the Tungabhadra, spend time people-watching on the ghats or take a coracle ride. Climb up Matanga Hill (near the Achutaraya temple) for a sunrise certified by the venerable Lonely Planet as one of the best in the world, or Hemakuta Hill on the other end of the market (an easier climb, close to Virupaksha temple) to watch the sun set over the valley. If you are feeling adventurous, you can trek up Anjaneya hill near Anegundi (considered the birthplace of Hanuman), just 5 km from Hampi. This is worth the effort, if not for the small Hanuman temple at the top, then definitely for the view. For lunch, head to the Mango Tree, in the middle of a banana plantation, where you can sprawl on chatais and watch the placid Tungabhadra in front of you as you eat.

A day at Melkote

Melkote is a small temple town, just over 150 km – two hours drive – from Bangalore. It is home to a couple of Narasimha temples, a large Iyengar community and lip-smacking puliyogare (tamarind rice, for you unenlightened souls, but calling it that really takes away from the drop-dead spicy yumminess of it).

We’d heard that the temple closes by 1 and planned to get there early in the day. Weekend mornings being what they are and Bangalore traffic being what it is, not to mention having to stop for thatte idli at Bidadi on the way, it is well past noon when we reach Melkote. The temple, it turns out, is open till 2.30 p.m. or even later.

And then a quick walk around town, a puliyogare pit-stop and some photographs later, we head towards the Narasimha temple on top of the hill. There are no large restaurants in the town (or I am told, places to stay), but there are several eateries known as “mess” which offer delicious local food. The steps to the temple begin from near the water tank, known locally as the kalyani.

The banks of the kalyani are abuzz with activity; bangle-sellers and coconut-vendors, pilgrims and locals, women carrying their clothes for washing at the tank, young children running up to the camera with a smile and a pose.

The friends we are with huff and puff their way up the 300 odd steps; V and I sit on the steps and watch people. There is a cool breeze and a great view from where we are sitting. The old man near where we sit clangs on his metal plate every so often to attract the attention of passersby; he is offended when a group of women ignore him and give alms to the women sitting next to him. The kid with the little shruti box is busy playing; his mother chides him from across the steps and he absent-mindedly chants govinda, govinda even as he is eying the frisky goat, his playing companion.

Fathers are carrying their small children on their shoulders, the mark of Vishnu bright and shiny on both foreheads; the mothers can barely carry themselves up the steep steps. There is a doli lying neglected on one corner, meant for people who are too old or infirm to walk up. Nobody is using it though – it is as if being carried up equals a serious loss of brownie points in the eyes of the god siting in the temple on top of the hill.

Our friends join us and we head to the kalyani for some much-needed rest (heh!). That is when we meet Arun; Puneet Rajkumar devotee, body building ustaad, aspiring superstar, eager model – all of 12 years. He poses, and poses, and poses – alone, with friends, smiling, frowning, jumping. His friends squirm with the awkwardness of that age; Arun takes of his shirt, flexes his (non-existent) biceps and says, take a photo of my body. After each shot, he looks into the LCD and proudly says, HERO.

It is time to leave then and we head back into town, to the place of the original puliyogare halt. More puliyogare is consumed, as is curd rice and sakkare pongal. The lady at the cart tells her friends in the neighboring stall, these girls came in the morning, they liked my food so much, they have come again with their friends. Indeed, aunty.

The drive on the Mysore road, the several pit-stops for fuel (of the food variety) and the friendly folks of Melkote – definitely worth another visit soon.

(More photographs from Melkote here)

Faces of Hampi