I find my city becoming duller by the year. Where have all the interesting people gone?
Time was when writers, actors, journalists, playwrights, and politicians – all the literati would gather at Koshy’s for long-drawn-out conversations. One could just stroll in and be able to join any table and be sure of an interesting conversation. Mercifully we enjoyed the place and people before the time of selfies (which we are also very much of guilty of in recent years). Imagine trying to talk to Girish Karnad or Ram Guha or Prakash Belawadi these days. You wouldn’t get five undisturbed minutes with them let alone a leisurely chat for an hour or more.
Many people’s initiation to Bangalore began here, and many acquaintances blossomed into friendships and more. People like me grew up, had kids, and used it as an unpaid creche, with affectionate old waiters plying the kid with milkshakes while one dashed off to meet a deadline on a story. While Prem Koshy, the affable restaurateur is aghast that I seem to have forsaken it, plenty of other people frequent it. There are also new places for new people, younger places for younger people. But our people – the fascinating people – have died or moved further away and grumble about the traffic putting paid to any budding plan for a casual outing to the old haunts, many of which have also closed. I had to throw a big bang party recently to get a lot of them together under one roof and it was worth every rupee to spend time together. PS: Prem came too.
Thankfully, the annual Bangalore Literature Festival (BLF) has evolved into a place for both older and newer residents of the city. Some travel from other cities to attend it. Where else but in Bangalore can you enjoy a cold beer on a green lawn in the heart of the city in December? I heard a journalist who moved here form Delhi a few years ago gleefully point out to a visitor, “See, I told you, it’s cool to drink and work in the afternoon in Bangalore.” This endorsement notwithstanding, there’s indeed plenty of beer to wash down the doses of enlightenment at the fest. It is an uru thing, as I have oft-repeated Kingfisher (beer) is akin to mother’s milk for us natives. While the unrepentant Mr Mallya is making merry in old Blighty, in Bengaluru, we carry on drinking beer and other liquids he and his colleagues popularised.
I had a session this year at the BLF, and it was an interesting one with fellow biographers. Contemporary writing of biographies is an evolving profession in India, and I appreciated the opportunity to exchange notes with other writers. On our panel there were those who had written about royalty, pioneers, engineers, and I was there as a biographer of business leaders and politicians. I had my doubts of this session pulling in the audience as it was at lunch time. We were pleasantly surprised at the more than decent turn out and the questions that followed. Barely had the session ended than we were quickly escorted from one end of the venue to another for a signing session at the bookstore. There was a long line of people winding its way from the entrance to a table where a slim young man was sitting. He is the current hot favourite writer of romantic fiction. We looked him signing away without a break and sighed.
We signed a few copies for our readers who had managed to run to the venue, locate our books and bought them. Then we retired to the authors’ lounge. Over a much-needed gulp of draught beer, I pictured the length of the queue had I written the story of the one that got away. Many years ago, I was approached by a publisher to write Vijay Mallya’s biography. He was interested and asked me to discuss it with one of his colleagues. But he got busy with Kingfisher’s acquisition of Air Deccan and somehow the idea faded. What a story it would be to write about his life. Tell me, would you read it? –
* Sandhya Mendonca, author, biographer, and publisher, casts a female gaze at the world in this column.