The lane hadn’t changed much over the last 30 years, except for two new apartment blocks. I was visiting one of them (the red garish one) on Househunt, Episode 2.

But the flat that I was visiting in this apartment block wasn’t on rent. It was on sale. I’d heard about it in the old-fashioned way that still works best in this part of town – by word of mouth.

Since the flat had been built 18 years ago, it didn’t have a lift or car parking. So I walked up to the second floor.

As it turned out the flat was being refurbished, so there was paint and plaster everywhere. But though small, it was quaint – almost out of Enid Blyton’s world. Yes, this could be home.

Then Mr P, the house owner began bargaining. The initially discussed price of 34 lakhs now became 35 lakhs. He wanted me to make him my best offer. I asked for time to consider it over.

As I drove back, I did consider the fact that this was THE lane. But I found that as I thought about it as a property that I wanted to own and not rent, I was dissatisfied.

It was a beautiful lane, but this apartment had not been built for the future. In Bangalore of 2011, parking was important. So was a lift – for a a flat on the second floor. Besides, an 18-year-old building could also not be without its construction and structural flaws.

So I let my head rule over my heart, and I said goodbye to the house on THE lane. Yet something already tells me that this is one ‘head over heart’ decision that I will always be very happy to have made!

Location: Da’Costa Layout
Price: 35 lakhs (and going up!)

I had an important office call in another 10 minutes at 8 pm. So I pulled the car onto a deserted stretch on the opposite side of the road—where I thought I wouldn’t be in anyone’s way—and took the call.

The only problem was that my ‘deserted stretch’ turned out to be not so deserted in some time. Bikers from the opposite side of the road got onto the stretch as well to beat the never-ending traffic jam, merrily braving the stream of vehicles riding into them.

I turned my headlights and indicator on just to ensure that one of them didn’t ram into me.

An hour later my call was done and I was ready to get back home. The only problem was that my car didn’t seem so ‘ready’ to join me. An hour with the headlight on, and that on a cold and rainy evening, had drained the battery out.

I dialed BS. There was another time where I had left my car’s headlight on for half the night and my battery had gone dead. On that occasion I’d been with BS and her family. Her brother B had helped me get in touch with an all-night service, and we’d managed to jumpstart the car.

But BS’ line was busy. There was a moment of fear. BS has this habit of ‘missing’ her missed calls. But that night, though she was out driving, she did call back.

She volunteered to get me the number, and she did. But when I dialed that phone number, I found that I was dialing in to a number that did not exist.

I called BS again, and that’s when the truth came tumbling out. Her brother B’s wife was in labour, and she could not disturb him.

I told her not to worry. There were other friends who I could reach out to, especially on a night when my dear friend’s only brother was having his first baby J

I tried starting the car again. It spluttered and went dead.

I called my mum’s friend Aunty R—the first woman I’d met who handled her own car with panache. No one picked up the phone. I remembered that she was spending a month at her son D’s home, and I didn’t have his number.

One more attempt at starting the car did not get me anywhere. By this time it was 9:30 and only getting later.

I tried MC–another girlfriend who was really good at cars. No she did not know any all-night service stations and she was just logging out from work, but she could search for them online or drive across and join me. This from an office that was almost 30 km away.

I told her not to worry. I could get the number over the Internet as well. After all, I still had my last trump card—my laptop and my datacard were both in my car. If nothing else, I could at least get all the information I needed via the world wide web (why hadn’t I thought of that???!).

I pulled out my laptop, but as my hand groped desperately into the darkness, there was no sign of the datacard. There was a sinking feeling in my heart as I remembered taking the datacard out of my laptop bag last night. Had I put it back?

In desperation I made one last ditch attempt to get the car started again.

This time, almost miraculously, it spluttered, and then came alive.

I drove without stopping till I reached home—the golden rule with a ‘dead’ battery that you manage to revive.

As I drove back, CR (who’d been alerted by MC) called to find out if she could drive across and help me jumpstart my car. BS’ husband SV also texted me the number of the Maruti helpline. As it turned it out, very soon later, BS & SV’s little nephew took his first tentative steps into the world.

Later, when I reached home, I also found that my datacard had always been in my bag!!!!

So I guess if you’re ever stranded on the road on a dark lonely rainy night, it’s important to have your wits and your friends around you. But most importantly, if you have a Maruti car, dial 18004200. It’s the Maruti 24×7 helpline number, and it works!

The first time I went house hunting, I had just turned 21. So I didn’t ask for too much—just a room with a view and my own independence. In a city that had still not got its water supply act together, I also checked about possible water shortages. All other details were happily forgotten.

I ended with a roof that opened out onto a large terrace. It was my own space in the sun (literally!) and I loved it. Till I discovered that a tiny gap between the wall and the ceiling let bats and rain water enter at will. I could deal with the rain, but not the bats. I vacated the house long before my lease expired!

In the next house that I rented, I did examine the ceiling very carefully. But as it turned out, the house was infested with rats. Needless to say, I did not last for even nine months. From here, I moved to my own house, and with that concluded (thankfully!) the never-ending search for a home.  

But the bogey man was back last month. I find myself back in the real estate market, and the game has changed alright!

Like all other things, real estate has also moved online. After running through scores of properties, I finally settled on T’s advertisement. The location and the size seemed right, the price ridiculously low. I clicked the “get number” option on the website, and there was beep on my cellphone. T’s number had reached my cellphone via a text message. Renting a house in Bangalore definitely was not what it used to be!

I gave T a call, and she guided me right to her doorstep over my cellphone. While it had been a long drive, my heart warmed to her house on a lane that still had many trees.

Later T led me through her newly tiled, freshly painted home. She was especially proud of her bathroom. The kitchen was unusual because it had a coconut tree running right through it—her attempt to save every possible tree while building her house. All in all, the quality of construction had definitely improved since the old days.

Like every potential landlord, T had plenty of questions. That at least was one aspect of house hunting that stood unaltered by the intervening decade I fielded her off as best as I could, but yet I warmed up to her. She was a cosmopolitan old Bangalorean, who still lived in a world where everything had not yet turned concrete.

So did I end up renting the house? It did have the right price, quality and landlord. Not to mention plenty of green.

As it turns out, the answer is ‘no’.

For one, the long drive off the main road could be slightly scary on a dark lonely night (and that’s when I usually travel). Then, a tree in a kitchen is a cool idea when it’s just in your head, but if you are living with in your home, it’s another story. (Would it bring my old companions ‘the rats’ back—considering that I had open roots and mud in the middle of my kitchen?!) It didn’t help that parking was a mess either.

But more than anything else, when I looked at T’s ‘property for rent’, I did see a roof over my head, but it could not inspire within me a desire to own (or even rent) it.

So I moved on.

This time at least I have decided not to settle for four walls with a roof. My search for a home continues.

Location: Hennur
Size: 1 bedroom house (abt 900 sq feet) with space for a garden
Price: Rs 6500/- only

The picture in question showed a Muslim family in Ahmedabad, dropping their son to a fancy dress competition, where he played the role of Lord Krishna. My friend posted that we should take pride in being Indian because these things (that might seem unusual  anywhere else in the world) come so easily to us. There were others who argued that instances like this were few and far in between.

Yet I believe that India is instinctively pluralistic, and that is why inspite of all our problems, this country almost miraculously survives.

I see pluralism in…

• The symbolism of the Infant Jesus Church that I first visited because Usha (and not me) prayed there every Thursday. Many years later, I thought of Usha when I noticed a statue of Infant Jesus on my cabdriver’s dashboard. He incidentally was Muslim
• The small details like thalis and sindoors that have found their way into most South Indian Christian wedding ceremonies.
• My 18-year-old maid’s spirit when she sets out to shop for both The St Mary’s Feast and Ganesh Chaturthi. 
• Those days when we wish each other “Eid Mubarak”, “Happy Diwali” or “Merry Christmas”. The instinctive response most times is “same to you”, irrespective of the other’s religious faith
• The earthshaking goose bump inducing moment when an Irfan Pathan stood at the University Of Karachi and responded to an audience who had the audacity to ask him if we would consider playing for Pakistan saying, “First of all, let me tell you that I am proud to be Indian”. Especially powerful words as they came from someone whose family was almost burnt to death in the Gujarat riots!
• The politics that gave us Abdul Kalam as President and Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister–at the same time!
• The ease with which our names, our cuisine, our music and our dance forms intermingle. So a Mubarak is not necessarily Muslim, a Lakshmi is not always Hindu and an Andy need not be Christian.
• The incongruity of two commercial establishments–The Sherlock Holmes Pub and The Islamic Boutique–that stand side by side, peacefully running their respective businesses.
• The way that at the best of times we co-exist– an Iyengar Bakery besides a cold storage or mixed and vibrant mixed neighbourhoods.
• The composition of the only two interests that have genuinely become national passions–the Indian cricket and Bollywood. Need I say any more?

The examples are all around us. They perhaps are so much a part of us, that we don’t even notice them. The rest is simply politics.

Like her, I first began blogging to practice on my craft as a writer. We started off as a close community of writers on Yahoo 360 – there was AM, SB, AW, L and SS. Not only did I write much, but I also get wonderful feedback on my work from fellow writers who I admired.

Yet I am also a very private person. So this blog has always reflected ‘me’, but not the most important events in my personal life (at least not till I am ready to talk about them-and that could be never). In fact, I’ve worked very hard to keep the personal and public spaces very different. So more often this blog has most reflected my interests or the causes that move me.

But then posts petered down as I got busy with my book. Then cinema moved out of my blog to my column on Citizen Matters and Facebook took over. Yet I kept pushing myself every now and then to make the occasional blog post.

But today morning a blog post from AM said that she was considering hanging up her blogger’s boots. The reason? She just didn’t feel like blogging anymore.

That’s when I realized that I haven’t felt like blogging in a long time now. When I do, it’s more an act of discipline than an act of love.

I don’t feel like blogging for a variety of reasons. The most important one perhaps is that my favourite subjects, which is cinema, has moved to Citizen Matters. I’d like to focus on that a lot more. My work on my books also takes up a lot of my time as well. But mostly importantly, I am not very comfortable about talking about ‘me’ right now and important changes in my life on a public space. So I have nothing to say.

The community of writers that I depended upon has also moved away from the blogsphere into various forms of social media. I do have my trusted inner circle in NG and AM… But I don’t need a blog to share my writing with them.

I still see blogging as a tool to create a great community. But I would like this community to be around areas of interest and not ‘me’. So it seems like a good time to retire 101dreams and replace it with multiple blogs around these areas of interest. And then maybe I could take a break for awhile.

So I am thinking about it… And more on that subject when I have a plan. But this time, my head will be in tune with my heart

Where lies the courage in breaking all the rules,
When you agree to live by all of them?
Who drills a death-hole into the foundation of an enclosure, while building its walls?

Is it courage or cowardice?
Yet you revel in the new-found novelty of old convention.

When I love,
Let it be honestly, openly, madly,
Completely,
In nakedness beyond subterfuge.
Fearless,
In love as in life.

While I am not a the ‘campaigning’ kind of person, I am most certainly the ’cause’ kind of person. And sometimes a cause inspires me enough to get me to campaign for it.

So here’s my list…

1. Equal opportunities for all: The inequality of the world we live has always bothered me deeply. I wouldn’t mind devoting my life to making career opportunities for people from poorer socio-economic backgrounds.
2. Giving back to the Earth: Another one that I believe in strongly. I don’t just want a campaign to to protect the Earth, I want a campaign to give back to the Earth. I believe that each of us must leave the world a better place than we found it.
3. Self-reliant women: Somewhere along the way, humankind seems to have begun to believe the myth that women are the weaker sex. I would like to start a campaign to remind women of their strength.
4. Protecting and growing Bangalore’s heritage – architectural and natural: Most people who know me wouldn’t be surprised to see this one on my list. There was a time when this particular campaign even haunted my dreams. So I am only surprised that it doesn’t stand higher on my list.
5. Corruption: It has never angered me that India is a poor country as much as it has that we are a corrupt country. And then, perhaps if we were not so corrupt, we would also not be so poor??? 

There was another momentary pause as he wondered whether he should take a left or right turn. Like most Bangalore roads that run in circles, both ways would lead us to our destination. He opted for the left turn. I did not object. He turned the metre down, and we were off.

But my auto driver’s choice of route meant that I was visiting a Kammanahalli that I had not visited for the last five years at least. Nothing could have prepared me for the ride ahead of me.

When I was child, Kammanahalli was considered the back of beyond. It was not a ‘happening’ or an extremely rich neighbourhood. But in a city where most people had houses that were large and life was easy, neither was it heartbreakingly poor.

About a decade ago, the loud reverberations of the information technology boom could be heard in Bangalore. Like many other localities that rose up to meet the needs of our fast growing metropolis, Kammanahalli slowly changed from being somewhere in the ‘back of beyond’ to ‘happening’. Swanky brands, cool restaurants and the well-heeled made their appearance. And with them came a new demarcation.

Yes, there was the Kammanhalli of bright shining lights, beautiful houses and nice things in abundance. But on the edge of this nouveau rich respectability, the old halli (village) still lived on. Only it was older and poorer.

My autorickshaw’s choice of path now took me to that Kammanhalli. Most of the single houses on its narrow lanes had been converted into three-storey structures that housed at least six families. Garbage was everywhere. Someone had shown the foresight to plant trees here, but even they were covered in grime. The halli that once happily overflowed into an open railway track was now hemmed in by a bridge. It was the bridge that both cut it off and hid its poverty from the rest of the world.  

The city had grown rich, but it was a stingy millionaire. The halli had not shared in its new found prosperity.

The autorickshaw driver made his way expertly through the narrow lanes and over the dividing bridge, even as the madness of Saturday evening traffic closed in from all sides. But the autorickshaw driver moved with the familiar ease of one who travelled in his own world and knew it well.

At the Bypannahalli Railway Crossing, he was brought to a halt as the railway gate was closed for an incoming train. This shortcut connects Kammanhalli and Indira Nagar ever since I can remember, and inevitably fails you on the days when you most need it because the railway gates are down for a passing train. But a good Bangalorean still always takes a chance  

This evening too the Bypannahalli short cut failed us. Commuters in cars chose to take a U turn and travel by the longer path. But the autorickshaw driver did not have that luxury. So he waited with resigned patience till the railway gate opened 15 minutes later.

By the time the railway gate opened, traffic stretched back as far as the eye. We edged towards the narrow opening in bumper-to-bumper traffic and finally made our way out.

The now familiar sight of Indira Nagar’s new shiny glass façade, displaying the best global brands hurt my eyes that evening. There it lay, sprawled out in luxurious opulence, completely indifferent to the grinding poverty of the halli. In a couple of minutes, we reached nearby Koramangala, which also basked in the happy glow of Bangalore’s new richness.

Both Koramangala and Indira Nagar had always been residential localities for well-to-do Bangaloreans. Now they were home to the cities information technology factories, with homes and shops for workers employed in these concrete jungles.  

So why had the city’s newly acquired wealth found its way into the richest localities and completely bypassed the poorer one? As Bangalore booms, why have the poor never seemed as poor as they did today?

We had reached our destination by this time. I paid my fare and was about to leave. A girl approached. “Forum Mall jaana hain bhaiya”, she demanded. At the mention of Koramangala’s big expensive mall, pat came the standard reply, “30 Rupees madam”.

He had charged me by the metre. But I guess he figured that if you could shop in an expensive mall, you could also pay ‘double metre’.

Yet when I thought of our long ride from Kammanhalli to Koramangala, I almost sympathised. Only someone who has experienced deep grinding backbreaking poverty can understand it.

So the next time I hear “double metre maddaam”, I will not turn my back in anger. I will reason it out with him till we arrive at a mutually acceptable solution. I will not let anyone take advantage of me. But let me also not forget to be guided by the spirit of generosity.   

“Double meter” does not always mean that he is a crook. “Double meter” sometimes just means that he is poor.

It’s also true that until the money from the new Kammanhalli finds its way to the halli, we will fail in our dream to create a beautiful Bangalore.

But I never thought that it would happen to me. Bangalore was after all my great love affair. Other things could perhaps pass away into the nothingness of time, but not my passionate love for this city of my growing years.

And perhaps it will never pass away yet. Bangalore was my first love, and it may still remain my only love. The one city in the world where I will lay my head to rest and know that I am finally home.  

But for Bangalore to remain all those things to me, I must perhaps go away and let the winds of the world heal some deep wounds.

I have always loved that Bangalore is a small-big city. But sometimes it is the smallness of the city that allows some threads to entangle you and then eat into your soul. Bigger cities give you the space to lose yourself for awhile, and not bump into people you know at every street corner.

Where will I go? I am not sure. But I am considering pursuing my dreams. Perhaps it’s finally time for me to be a person who is not led by my love for a city, but led by my love for my dreams.

I will not run away. But I will move on.