KUDLU DAYS

There would be much to tell if it is about kudlu, a small panchayat, in the outskirts of Bangalore, and near to electronic city. I reached Kudlu on an october morning with Anoop, my old pre degree batch mate when both of us joined wipro on a same day. My aquaintance with kudlu starts even before, as my cousin stays there. She too works with wipro and was coz of her that we reached Kudlu for a rented house. Me, Melvin, Binesh, Hari, all class mates at M A college Kothamangalam, have decided to stay together. Now Anoop also with us, we found a house quite near to my cousin's place. House owner's name was Madhuramba, a quite lady who stays alone, her children all settled well and she doesn't want to disturb them. She stayed alone in a single room on the first floor of that newly built house. We were the first tenants, occupied it even before the completion of the work. A house large enough by Bangalore standards, two spacious bed rooms, a dining hall and one living room, kitchen and little space for a store, a well built pooja room and attached baths, we felt it was not meant simply for giving to rent, but built it with so much care and perfection. It was an independent house with car garrage and enclosed by a compound wall.

Our neighbours were a Tamil family, an old man and his wife, on very few occasions we used to see his son, a lean man probably at his mid thirties with a lifeless face which never gave a smile. The Tamil old man, with a policeman moustache, was an interesting character, his living room was visible from our dining. Most days we see him watching fashion channels with great enthusiasm, even early mornings. So we gave him the name 'FTV appooppan'.

No tale of kudlu will be complete without Aniyettan. He is the 'Shabari' bakery owner at kudlu junction. A man with lot of energy and willingness to help others, who talks in the typical Kannur accent, even I'm from kannur,may be that is why we were a bit more close, he came to kudlu some 5 years back, with his brothe-in-law, started a small bakery near Garbhavepalaya, the place better known as 'Garepalya', he now owns couple of bakeries at kudlu and garepalya, and is one of the popular and accepted faces in kudlu. He maintained cool relationships with all, helped most the malayalees who are new to kudlu, his ease of kannada and local contacts helped us a lot. His willingness to help was unmatchable. He employed a kasargode guy there in his bakery, Shekhar, who speaks broken malayalam with a kannada accent.

It was difficult for us initially to cop up with the dusty roads and environ of Kudlu. The very next week we reached there, it rained in Bangalore so heavily and the dusty roads of Kudlu bacame a real tortue for travellers. It became so pasty and slippery and walking through the streets became a nightmare. There were buses in kudlu, all starting from Majestic, they went till kudlu village, some two stops from panchayat, where we stayed. Other means of transportation in kudlu were autos, and the most popular one indeed. None of the autos in Kudlu were bought after 1990 we suppose, all old torrental machines, produced drum like sound, used kerosine instead of petrol, had stickers of kannada matinee idols alongside ganesha and laksmi, made people to sit on both sides of the driver, ferried people from kudlu gate to panchayat amidst the dust and pits and charged 5 rupees per head. But we all enjoyed it.

Two weeks after our arrival Mathai and Raghavan (his name too is Arjun, inorder to avoid confusion he was called Raghavan and I was called Sagar at college, and we used to call him like that only) came. Mathai joined Igate and Raghavan was doing Embedded System course at Cranes. His class was in the evening and when we all go to office (ofcourse to sit in the bench comfortably) he used to be there at home whole day. After one month of training Hari was sent to Cochin, his posting location was there, and Joseph came from Chennai. By this time, Vidhu, Anoop's batch mate at TKM college joined us. Vidhu was a stout figure weighing little more than 100 kg. A born programmer with lot of patience and a bit shy. He never talked too much, but once we became familiar enough, he had his own word on every matter we discussed. He was from Palakkad and was a gifted person when it comes to the matter of cooking. 'Upma' was his master piece, he knew almost all the kerala dishes, there was a time when we felt like 'u-just-name-it-vidhu-will-prepare-it'. We had a gas connection and we were reluctant to go out and have local food, or to be frank we never had much options otherwise.

Joseph was my room mate at college also. His training was in Chennai and the very next day he came to Bangalore, he was put into project and didn't get any chance to enjoy the sweet bench phase of a software guy( which we all tasted a lot) in his life at all. Life in kudlu became so nice and comfortable afterwards. We had nice 'kathiyadi' sessions late night, exactly like in college hostel, bought cricket bat and stumps, played in the yard infront so also the ground nearby, Mathai took initiative to buy cards and he gave master degrees to all except me in that, Vidhu was a quick learner and an expert now in various card games. ( till this date i dont know how to play cards, despite all the efforts of Mathai.!!.)

The character we can never forget at Kudlu is 'sandhyechi', who is responsible for spotting this little village for stay. She is my mother's cousin, as per protocol, my aunt, though we differ just a couple of years by age. When she felt uncomfortable with the reference aunt, I stopped it and followed others calling 'sandhyechi'. She stayed at an apartment some 2 mins walk from our home.She stayed there alone defying all the traditional girlie concepts. A very much mood dependent person, with abnormal and unusual interests, her areas of interests include psychology and Tagore. Even though she pretends to be complicated and reserved at times, emotions were clearly understood and visible to others. She always tried to imitate the 'bold' mask of the modern working woman, and tried to put on a complicated self, though unsuccesful at times. She was of real help when we were new to Bangalore, to have a foot grip at an unfamiliar place, as one to resort for any immediate needs, which she did a lot.

During our early days at Kudlu we used to walk till Singasandra to board our bus to electronic city. The way is wonderful with pleasant meadows, empty roads, couple of shepherds with their herd, vast lands, and the cool Bangalore wether made our walking a nice experience, winter is a happy experience for an outsider, in this Cyber city. On the way to Singasandra is our ground where we play cricket..

After a few days at Electronic City Melvin was sent to Pune for a Mercury Project, all on a sudden our home became so silent and dull, he was the one who made all the noises, did most the scoldings, made the life alive, he was sent to distant. It was then that Shankaran and Sooraj came to Kudlu. Both of them were my batchmates at Wipro and, by the time when they came, were with me in free pool enjoying it. Shankaran, a Tamil pattar born and bought up at Thrishur, with a typical interesting way of Thrishur language and Sooraj from Kozhikode soon became the part of our Kudlu gang. There was a guy who worked in the soldering unit of GE staying infront of our home in a small cottage, Mohan. He was from Tamil Nadu, but language was never a barrier in communicating with him, his smile talked for him, with lot of positive energy and his unending love for cricket, soon he became friendly with our team. On sundays we played cricket together, he introduced his roommates and friends to us, slowly we were gaining relations in the neighbourhood, cool!!

It was then that Bosch came to Kudlu. to introduce him, he is Rajesh, basically from Alappuzha, a Konkani by roots and speaks that 'Chineese-like' language at home,works with Bosch, was in Germany for quite some time with an assignment, one fine morning he appeared there with his family, his wife and two lovely kids. We called him Robert Bosch, his wife Mico Bosch, kids milli and micro Boschs respectively.

Eating out was always a real problem in Kudlu, the only reason why we took a gas connection immediately. There were lot of restaurants( if u can call them so) to name in Kudlu, all like our 'thattukadas', prominent among them was 'Andhra Mess'. There was a hotel boy there, we never knew his name, but called him Jafar. It was Mathai who gave that name, Mathai's usual practice is to call waiters either Jafar or Gopalakrishnan irrespective of the hotel. So we had one Jafar and one Gopalakrishnan at Andhra mess, just 13 or 14 years old, both school dropouts, they presented a hearty smile whenever we called them so.

One day while coming back after a tiring cricket match, we got our 'burfy'. He was our puppy, we found two of them new born, just opened their eyes, Mathai took one of them home. We put him inside our garage, gave him utmost care, provided milk and other eatables, soon it became 'unda'. We tried to give maximum publicity for 'burfy' at wipro, we took its photos and showed them to all, we gave another name java to him and he came to be known as burfy alias java. But our house owner, Madhuramba didnt like it she asked us to set him free, she doesn't like any pets and one day even without our consent she let it out. It never came back.

To have malayalee food was not possible during weekdays, so we resorted to 'Ammachi' mess at Madiwala. Me, Joseph and Anoop will start at 6'0 clk shuttle from electronic city even though none of us had proper bus pass, Binesh and Vidhu join us there at Madiwala. It was at 'ammachi' that we take nice kerala food. We took so much pain in going there and coming back late night all for the 'ammachi' food. Our other eat outs were 'Tharavadu' at Bommanahalli and Kairali or Mas at Madiwala. First priority was given to food in all the occassions, and we went to any extend to have nice food, Bangalore never disappoints a foodie guy.

During february we went a trip to Courg, my first and last trip with Kudlu guys. We hired a Sumo and ten of us including Shankaran, Avinash and Sebastian set out for the two day trip. Mathai, Raghavan, Binesh, Vidhu, Joseph, me and Anoop were there. Kushal nagar, Madikeri, Nisargadama, Abbey falls, the trip was awsome, i bought an 'aanavaal' from Nisargadaama, where we went for an elephant safari.

On march 10 mathai had a bike accident, he and one our friend skid fall from a bike and mathai got seriously injured. It was the tough time for all at kudlu, his stage was critical for more than one week and he underwent couple of surgeries at Manipal Hospital. Somehow he recovered and he went back home after that.

On april 1 our old class mate rohit was with us. The previous night we handlifted Bosch's bike and locked inside our garrage. We eagerly waited to watch his response, the moment he realised that bike was missing. It was so funny, he went upstairs, called his wife and parents, came down, they all were shocked and desperately started searching for it. The tamil aunty in their ground floor started shouting aloud and before things going out of control we told them the truth. They couldn't believe it..he told he was never fooled in his life like that before.

Vishu was celebrated at kudlu, none of us went home. Rajkumar's death coincided with vishu sankramam and we got a public holiday for that. We prepared vishu sadya, with Sandyechi's help, set 'Vishu kani' the next day, for another auspicious year ahead. We couldn't buy crackers no shops were open thanks to Raj Kumar's death. Our Payyanur friends Abhilash and Sandeep were there on the Vishu day.

By this time Sandeep joined us, he was the neighbour of Bosch at Alapuzha. He works with Satyam, we could not put down Bosch's request to let him stay with us. He was a driving force and stout supporter of our initiative to clean the premises and make our surroundings plastic free. That was a great initiative, Bosch and one his colleague were willing to help. Even some local kids who use to play cricket with us joined and we removed plastic bags from the surroundings. Creating awareness among people and cleaning the road side, that was a wonderful experience, most the people wanted some change, but doesn't know how to. Our tamil neighbour was so happy with this move, she provided us with 'majjika' and later we started calling her 'majjika rani'.

'Mulaku bajji' and 'bonda' of Kudlu are worth mentioning, taste any of them we cannot just stop with one.

After Vishu me and Joseph bought two cycles and we started going to Wipro on cycle. Initially people laughed at us, but the comfort was unmatchable. We took the way through Singasandra and it lead to Hosa Road, from there it is only a small stretch through Hosur road till the HP avenue, where EC begins. It was the most comfortable means of transport considering the Hosur road traffic and the new construction works there.

I got transfered to Hyderabad later but Kudlu presented me memories to cherish for a long time.