Bangalore diaries...My acquaintance with this city of gardens began last year in August when the company that I work in currently posted me there. People who know have accused me of being one of the few, may be the only north Indian to have fallen in love with the city. There are reasons...the primary being that I realize the true worth of a thing only after I have lost it...so sitting here in Delhi my mind often goes back to the eight eventful months that I spent in the city of gardens...though when there I have missed Delhi terribly too sometimes...after all its home. Though right now I would gladly give a limb to get out of this god forsaken place! And then follow it up an ode to Delhi when I start missing it...that's how life works for me! Anyways getting back to Bangalore, here is a list of things that I have done there, wished I could have done there that make memories of that place special to me...

#Filter coffee...loads of it and in every variation...light...regular...strong...or as my dear friends from FSS Bangalore called "extra strong" variation abnormal! One particular friend in FSS started the practice of adding some bournvita (or was it boost?) to it...the result...our very own lip smacking mocha filter coffee! coffee with breakfast at nine...the eleven am coffee break...the four pm coffee break...coffee with evening snacks at six! What particularly endears me to the coffee is not only that it was a gastronomical delight but that each cuppa has memories attached to it...of chit chats, jokes, book discussions, woes, worries, cray ideas, dreams, thoughts, aspirations...what not! shared with friends.

#Bookworm on Brigade Road and MG Road...this nondescript little place is a book lover's haven...with its amazing collection of used as well as new books in a place which is smaller than my bedroom...ahh! the musty smell of old used books...the courteous, ever helpful owner...and the books...filling up shelves from floor to the ceiling...at an affordable price too...though later I discovered that one could easily bargain too! I have spent many a happy hour there...looking for stories...The Brothers Karamazov, Lolita, PG Wodehouses, Rubaiyat, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Exodus,...and for tales that each second hand book carries...the histories of the owners through whose hands it has passed...names, places, dates, scribblings, notes... Even the diary that the owner kept to make a note of the books requested bythe patrons but not available with Bookworm had a story of its own...It was gift from a man to his beloved...with a lovely note on the first page dated sometime in the 1970s...bound in black or maroon, I forget with a motif on the front...what followed inside was even better...the pages were yellowed with a hint of gold and also with age and each page had a quote by Kahlil Gibran...for each day of the year! How the diray had to come to land up in that place no one, not even the owner had a clue! For a long time I coveted that diary but as to how to procure another one like that was never able to find out... Of course there were Blossoms and Premier and Crosswords and LandMark and zillion other places that sold books but for some reason Bookworm will always be the one closest to my heart.

That's all for now...Bangalore diaries will be continued in the next posting...cheers!

In our lifetimes, we identify ourselves with several things...animate, inanimate, tangible and intangible. I am somebody's daughter, somebody's sister, somebody's friend. I am also a Delhite, an Indian...and so on. The list of identities we give ourselves run into huge numbers, sometimes. An identity that is very commonly and very vehemently used is that of religion...I am a Hindu, I am a Muslim, I am a Christian, I am a Sikh, I am a Parsi, I am a Buddhist, I am a Jain, I am a Jew... Not content to be identified by a religion alone, we create more identities for ourselves...I am a Shaivite, I am a Brahmin, I am a Shia, I am a Sunni, I am a Catholic, I am a Protestant,... All identities seek to segregate people...to create that feeling of individuality, uniqueness and none more so than structured religion.
Religion...created by man in the name of God and exploited to serve the vested interests of a few. Human beings need more than just food, water and air to survive...being cognitive creatures we need faith, something to believe in. Faith is the life force that flows along with blood in our veins and keeps us alive...a man without a belief is as good as a vegetable. Many people believe in idols, rosary beads, stones, healing waters, messiahs, hymns and mantras. Many other people make fun of these people. But I believe that its okay to believe in whatever you want to as long as that belief stems from love, from longing or just because you want to believe in something. Let your faith not become your fear. Structured religion as we know it uses fear, the terror of God as its basis. Heavens are not going to rain their wrath on you because you ate an egg on a Tuesday, Thursday or a Saturday...or because you don't read the namaz five times daily...or because you haven't been to a Gurudwara in ages...or because inspite of being a Jew you ate at a Christian's house. To fear God's fury because we are made to believe so by some pundit, maulvi, priest or rabbi or anyone else for that matter is the greatest disservice that we do to God and to ourselves.
On one hand creating divisions that are indelibly imprinted in our pysche, religion has united people on the other, brought them together to commit some of the most heinous crime that we have seen in our times...be it the Holy Crusades, the Salem Witch trials or closer home sati, untouchability, honor killings, partition of the country, demolition of the Babri Masjid, burning of a train in Gujarat and the ensuing riots,...the list is a long one. It also has the dubious distinction of fanning the fire of ignorance among guileless people like you and me by promulgating silly superstitions and elaborate rituals and rites...the motive behind these being filling the coffers of the middlemen performing and promoting them rather than the salvation of the souls of the one paying for it all...as it is usually espoused to be.
Faith maybe a basic need of humans...but something that precedes this is the need to love and be loved. Faith and love are very intimately entwined with one another...you repose in whom you love and, the more you love the more you trust...the more you trust, the more you love. Love seeks to liberate...every atom in the body of the lover as well as the beloved. Religion seeks to enslave...from base things like our money and worldly possessions to our minds, hearts and souls...for there is no conquest as complete as the conquest of a man's soul. And a man who has sold his soul, how can he love? How can he have faith in anything or anyone? Without love...without faith...how can such a man said to be living? An identity that threatens God's most beautiful gift to us- life, of such an identity I refuse to partake any part.