Sambhar with Basanti Pulao part II

This is a continuation of my earlier post. I am in a mood to write so i wouldn't spare a day before i write the second part in the series.

Ever since August 2007 till now, I have spent majority of my time in the city of Bengaluru. Barring a year when i was canada and about 20 odd visits to Bengal for an average of 7 days (that makes it 140 days in 7 years), I have spent all the time in this city. The IT industry sort of shields you from a majority of things. No matter how much we blame it, there's a sense of sanity that still prevails in this industry. I found Bengaluru work culture to be very disciplined and well behaved. It was the perfect cosmopolitan environment that I had found during my schooling. Our lunch group in my first company - Wipro Technologies, consisted of a 3 Oriyas, 2 Mallayali, 2 Kannadigas, 1 Maarwadi and 1 Bengali. Here I am just talking about the close group of people I had lunch with, but the sample space at work was even more diverse. So you know - you will definitely find 'one of your kind' here in Bengaluru. I spent some considerable amount of time to learn the local language and I can verse in bits in pieces now. It's the beauty of embracing the local culture which is so similar from one another yet so distinct that makes India a 'one of a kind' nation.

Bengaluru has a range of restaurants and it wouldn't be wrong to say - that you will find food from any part of India here. I am not joking when I say - that there are several popular Naga kitchens here in Bengaluru. The city is a mix of cultures, here people celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi as their major festivity with Ugadi being the New Years celebration, 1 week before the usual Bengali new year. The local language here is Kannada but you'd get away if you speak Tamil/Telegu/Mallayalam/Hindi/English. The city hosts a majority of the South Indian population from various neighboring states but hold on - for the past 2 years, I have been witnessing about 36 Durga Pooja pandals in the city. 36?? That's as many I had in Alipurduar which is in Bengal. The pandals are not just attended by Bengalies but are attended by people from all of India including the south.

When it comes to food habits, I found Kerala dishes to be the most unique amongst all other South Indian cuisines. South Indians typically use a lot of tamarind in their food. I'd be very honest but the very first day, I heard that there are people here who have only eaten veg food in their lives, I was SHOCKED!! In Bengal, there's no one I knew of who ate veg food, other than of course on auspicious days. To see that almost every other South Indian finishes off their meal with curd and rice - was also unique in the eyes of a Bengali. I also didn't know that they could have a meal with just curd/rice and some mixed veg achar. Over the years, I had only known of Idli Sambhar and Masala Dosa in Bengal but now, I know about Akki Roti/Uttapam/Pudi Powder/Avial/Rasam/Curd Rice/Set dosa/Open Dosa/Rawa Dosa and the list just goes on... Sometimes, I wonder if my mom really thinks that she has lost a son to South India when I tell her that i dig the meals we get here. Well that doesn't mean that I don't like the usual Bengali dishes. I do.

People here don't have the ritual of touching elders' feet everytime you meet them. This was one rule that was embedded in my head by my mom and I can't help but do that to elders I meet here. They have their weddings in the day time here. Bengalies do that as late as possible in the night. The weddings don't have any Non-Veg food when following the Hindu rituals, In Bengal - if that happens, then you'd be cursed for the rest of your life for not treating people with atleast 2 varieties of fish alongside mutton and chicken curry. Here, the Brahmins don't eat non vegeterian food, in Bengal - there's no difference in the food habits amongst people. Here they have designated halls to host the weddings called - Kalyan Mandapas, in Bengal - all you'd use a hall for is to treat people. During tea time conversations, Majority of Kannadigas/Telegus can speak Hindi whilst the Tamils/Mallayalis are not so pro/interested in using Hindi, In Bengal - it would not have such a mix of people anyway and if you turn out to be the unlucky one then you'd probably end up learning the language. However, here I found political parties driven by castes but in Bengal there's hardly anything influenced by castes other than some marriages.


The differences probably end there, the rest of the things seemed similar.  People - their basic nature, the things they like and the typical Indian rituals. Friendship is one thing that has got a new meaning here in this city. I made few of my best friends in this city and not just from this city but from various other places in India. It's a city where I can walk into a Bhojohori Manna for a regular Bengali meal or go into a Calfornia Burrito to eat some tex mex food. I'd walk to an Anjappar or Nagarjuna for South meals or go into a Chinese Delicacy to eat some Thukpa and Momos. It's a city where I can learn Kannada and at the same time hear Kannadigas knowing/learning few words of Bangla. It's a city where people will reply to you in Hindi/English but would be delighted if you knew a few letters of their language. This is a city, where you'd learn the first about western Fashion and yet find way around with the culture you'd like to follow. There's a reason why I love Bengaluru...It has that small city feel for me yet growing really big. There's a reason why people have decided to live here despite probably being a misfit to begin with. There are little adjustments that I try every day, by not forgetting who I am...a Bengali at my heart but an Indian to the core...and I feel, it would have only been possible here in this city!

Sambhar with Basanti Pulao.

This is different from my usual posts. I am not going to be writing philosophical things but would like to lay down some dishes on the table. I am a Bengali who's been in Bengaluru for the past 7 and half years. I must start by saying that my perception of this place was nothing like what it turned out to be over the years. While growing up, I had my science and English teacher from Madurai. When they first came to my hometown in Alipurduar, there means of communication had to be either Bengali or a little Bihari dialect inspired Hindi. Let's face it, Bihar is the closest to my home town and we do have a lot of UPites and Biharis there.

Kendriya Vidyalaya allows to have teachers from various parts of our country. In my school in particular, we tried speaking in English but i for one was never good with it. I could write but i could never speak. I would say - i was representing the majority mass of my school who were like me. So what did Mr. Ramanath or Miss TS Asha Devi do to survive? They would talk to us in English but then we wouldn't be able to reply back. They would try to speak in Hindi but we wouldn't understand. A great contrast. Over the years though - both Ramanath Sir and Asha Ma'am picked up their Hindi skills. I was a bit surprised about them not knowing Hindi from before, since all of my friends could speak the language. I only realized the portion of the population of Bengalies not well versed to speak Hindi when i went to College but that's for a different time. Along side Asha Ma'am and Ramanathan Sir - I had the company of few pseudo Telegu guys studying in my class. I say pseudo coz, these guys were so well versed with Bengali that even my mom wouldn't know where they were actually form. There's a huge bunch of them in Alipurduar. I was good with GK in my school time and I had read that Kerala is the first state in India that achieved 100 per cent literacy. The other reason was of course the fact that Kerala and Bengal were the only two states with the communist governments. Add to this the "Mile sur mera tumhara" video on doordarshan...and I would know that there are some languages in the south which are distinct and different unlike of course the common perception that exists here in the south that people from "North" (they only know that there are North Indians and South Indians), think that they are all from Madras.  I tell you, that's a BIG FALSE assumption. Or maybe - we are talking about stereotypes here.


So I land up in Chennai for my first job assignment. During my college years, I had heard about Bengalore (then) as the city that hosted a bunch of rock shows. There was a swagger about the place. It was so called the "hep" town to be in. The opportunity to get posted in Bangalore within the first 10 days - did fill me up with a great deal of Joy. So I land up here in Bangalore and honestly, i was blown away by the contrast in climate across these two cities which are  separated by approximately 250 KMs. Bengaluru was cold in August, the nights were chilly, literally cold in 2007. I am a bad traveler w.r.t clothing or accessories. I don't like carrying much. I didn't have anything to wrap myself around other than a bed sheet which my mom had packed in my bag. I had a Sony Ericson phone. I switch it on to listen to the FM radio and Hola! I heard a channel dedicated to English music!! I will never forget that feeling (call it fixation) but i was amazed by that. Kolkata never had it and now i was in this city where I was looking forward to meeting all of my rock gods and was gifted with the chance to headbang in style.

This post turned out to be bigger than what i anticipated, so i am going to write over a continuation on the same about the cultural experiences I have had after coming to the City of Bengaluru in my follow up post.