Vishwas Srinivas, Princess Kamakshi Devi Wadiyar & Spoorthi Vishwas
BENGALURU: I left the cool environs of namma ooru to fly into the muggy air of amchi Mumbai, on work. The staid atmosphere in Bengaluru was giving me ennui and when this work opportunity presented itself it was ‘up-up’ and away for me! As my aircraft circled my beloved city before landing, I was a little taken aback with an eerie mist that seemed to envelop everything.
The lights of the airport seemed dim and diffused and everything had an eerie glow. One gets used to the pollution and the dust in the air and as Indians, we seem to have a savior-faire attitude about global warming, pollution and other such ‘mundane’ things. But the quality of air as I exited the airport and dashed towards my car was a veritable slap on my face!
The heavy almost polluted and chemical-infested air hung heavy on my shoulders. There was nary a breeze and as I looked at my grand-daughter’s smiling face through the car window I was overcome with remorse! What type of world were we leaving for our children and their children. Since ours was the generation that ‘allowed’ so much rampant destruction of the planet, I think we can’t sit back and rest on our minor laurels anymore…we have to be a ‘cause in the matter’ and not stay silent as the usurpers mock our own little hero, Greta Thunberg.
I look vainly from my daughter’s sea-facing flat for a glimpse of the sea. I cannot see it! It is enveloped in a thick white smog! My son-in-law says we are suffering from the ‘El Nino’ effect which basically traps all the air in-land without allowing it to go seaward and cleanse itself. Mother-nature too, is teaching us a lesson!
Meanwhile in the city of my birth, many of my friends looked quite desolate that I was taking a longish break to jet off to Mumbai. So in-between getting my papers in order, and settling my home so that my perennially-hungry brood would have no complaints, I wasn’t not going out much. But there are a couple of people, who have a specific purpose behind everything they do, (like putting Bengaluru on the map), and that just warms the cockles of my heart.
Vinod Hayagriv, MD and director of the C Krishniah Chetty Group is a third-generation lapidarist and connoisseur of fine jewellery. He often regales us with astonishing stories of how they had once identified a very rare and expensive diamond (of Indian origin) and unfortunately could not find a anyone in India who could afford to buy it.
This and many anecdotes and stories are painstakingly chronicled into a beautiful book aptly named Bejewelled Past, jointly written by Hayagriv and Usha Balakrishnan. The party was a fabulous affair with women in rich silk and diamonds, the members of the royal family too graced the occasion one could see the ‘bejewelled’ elegance of auld Bangalore. Not a bad feat for a young lad whose father started with a small store on Commercial Street.
The unassuming but extremely talented head of the Department of Hotel Management, Christ university invited a big group of gourmands for a ‘first of its kind’ in India luncheon. The meal consisted of only meat and its spare-parts, cooked as delicacies from all over India!
All firsts…all in namma-ooru. I like it!
