You can ban me but you can never stop me.

Being just 4' 5 " tall does not take a smile off a man's face, does it?


Entrance of an old house in seetharampalya

After October 2nd when the "Smoking in Public places ban" was implemented only one place changed, that's my workplace. I do not see any change outside, I go to the same places and have a puff where nobody bothers about me, that's a totally different topic which I do not want to talk about much. Now we have to get out of the campus to have a lung full of nicotine in peace. I thought I could use this as an excuse and explore a possible 10/10 place and did I succeed? Hell yeah! I did.

There is a nice little village just behind my office campus called "Seetharam Palya" where after a long search and anxious looking out, I finally managed to find sparrows within Bangalore city (that's like looking for gold and find an angel with gold). It felt as if I met my primary school buddies, just try to get an image of sparrow in your mind you'll know what I am talking about. Seeing sparrows has become a rarity in Bangalore these days. I have to dodge a fair amount of slush, feces and some arrogant pedestrians before I can reach the temple street of the village. The temple street has some newly built, multi-storied, only for rent types of buildings as well as some really old houses with brightly coloured doors, weathering out walls, tiled roofs, flat stones/red oxide floors inhabiting people with a broad smile on their faces and/or a high pitched conversation. Of course, sparrows attending to their own scores absolutely ignoring (sometimes it feels like these sparrows have some serious attitude problem) every human being around.

They have a newly built Anjeneya Temple which has been built with some very nice taste unlike the multi coloured collages you see on most of the recently built temples. O fcourse this temple also has a myriad of colours but a little more thought included as well. The Gopura has sculptures depicting Vishnu's dashavathara and celebrations of the holy wedding of Sita and Rama. I just heard some speakers screaming songs of a Telugu movie Ramadasu (Nagarjuna starrer) filled with best possible adjectives of Lord Rama.

Reaching the end of the road I see "Srikantha Reddy building" which has 5 shops facing a rather busy road. This building also has the "Sri Sai Bakery" owned by a Mangalorean Malayali (that's like RDX and nuke combination) named Mahesh Cheta. Mahesh cheta serves all the things you would expect him to sell. I think Malayalis have a special distinction of storing up absolutely everything one may expect them to have. But I go there for my tea. WOW! what a tea! the strong freshly made hot cup of tea served in a conical glass cup can beat any damn drink in the given context. Egg puffs, Honey cake, bread toast are all there if I am in mood for some quick snacks. Cigarette, tea, cheta's smile and some odd conversations with the other fellow stranger customers of "Sri Sai Bakery"; just the right ingredients to rejuvenate myself from the slackness.

I would generally go there with one of my colleagues, so we end up catching up on lot of things. It's amazing how private the conversation would be in such a chaotic place. There are quite a few vehicles on the road anytime of the day, bringing with them a fair amount of dust. I have seen push carts selling Sugar cane juice(I ain't kidding I saw one), lorries sprinkling sand grains all over(one of the real estate boom's sad stories), autos, school vans, chic professionals riding/driving totally oblivious to the existence of such a lovely place, pedestrians of all sorts; nobody bothers each other. I think that can be called peaceful co-existence for some extent. They would tolerate you until you tolerate them.

Anyway I go there for my tea and cigarette and it is a wonderful place. I wouldn’t go looking for the bakery wherever I am but Sri Sai Bakery is the first thing which comes to my mind if I want a nice break from work.