Photo Story: Belgaum, KA, India
Visiting a special city for the first time, autos and dilly-dallying around lakes.
Hello, good friends! I hope September will have a soothing effect on you — gently bringing you to the last quarter of the year. This time, I have a story to tell you about my recent trip to a special place. Enjoy reading!
I had been told this was a city but I couldn’t help but think of it as a big town — with a brown tint that’s so unmistakeable that it made itself clear in the undulation of the landscape. Earlier that day was the first time I had visited the place. At the arrivals section of the airport, there were barely three auto/cab drivers and one of them quoted to me three times the fare that would have been charged, had I not been a non-local or at least that’s what it seemed like. No wonder auto-wale in India are deemed to be dishonest. Usually, this is how a bargain plays out — as you’re walking. I have to observe that the rate the auto-wala quotes is inversely proportional to the distance you walk away and that’s only until you’re still within the threshold. You take a step out of it and you’re in the territory of another.
Eventually, one of them agreed to take me to my destination — ‘New Grand Family Restaurant’ in the sweet city of Belgaum, attributed to be the second capital of the southern-Indian state of Karnataka — for what he said was a chintzy fare. Fine, I agreed and made my way into a ginormous bright-yellow auto with pink curtains separating the driver from the passengers.
My thoughts wandered off to the innumerable autos I have sat in before, with each of them having their own unique character so much so that I felt a meticulous survey of the same revealed clear distinctive personalities of their decorators. For instance, consider the auto I took recently to commute to my office that had two plastic plant pots glued to the dashboard. I couldn’t help but imagine the driver to be a simple minded introvert who needed green to feel at peace. Maybe his conditions and work prevented him from taking care of an actual plant (and where would you keep an actual plant in the tiny dashboard) so he had to sigh and settle for plastic plants.
Then came the auto with the in-your-face, statement-making interiors. Would this man have been a shikari, a fearsome hunter, had he been born some seventy years ago? It’s surprising how little I remember any details of the actual people driving these particular autos. I guess I don’t pay much attention to them, me being engrossed in the stories I’m making up in my head about them.
And this last person (I’m mentioning here) is probably someone who goes home to kids that run to him and he sweeps them off the floor, hurls them up in the air playfully before landing them back on the floor.
I digress. Back to the original story now.
The cool air sneaked in through the gaps in the screen doors of the gigantic, pink-curtained auto. After about half an hour, the auto-wala dropped me off at my destination. The place looked humble, the kind you know has been around for a while and is everyone’s favourite but is resistant to get a makeover. It was rustic and the spectacled owner, a gentleman over fifty with his white shirt neatly steamed, an old grandfather-looking watch and neatly combed grey hair welcomed me with a smile —me in my top and jeans and a single backpack with my hair tied in a bun.
I ordered Poori Bhaji, an Indian fried bread and a vegetable stew of sorts and mentioned that I heard it was famous. He seemed quietly self-assured and asked me to take a seat. I whipped out my charger to alleviate my phone’s battery drainage and a paperback I was reading then — The Outline by Rachel Cusk — but before I could read a few lines, an old (and by old, I mean really old) but agile waiter slid my order onto the table to my surprise without any spillage whatsoever.
The pooris had such a lightness to them that I gobbled up more than I usually can stomach, given how the pooris I’ve eaten elsewhere often left me feeling like I’d consumed a litre of oil.
I took my own sweet time relaxing over there and reading my book afterwards until I felt the need to pack my bag and start walking. I walked around two kilometres, taking the city in, one footstep at a time. A significant part of Belgaum is a cantonment area and hence the architecture had a military-like appearance — some areas with dwellings low to the ground hinting that they were built ages ago and the roads next to them were laid over and over again.
The place had a charm to it that I can best describe as being of the quality captured by a film camera. With a grainy texture and browns overly present, the main roads I was trudging along were rustic. They boasted of long unbroken footpaths and a well connected bus system frequented by swarms of students. As I walked, I came across some cars stationed outside a vintage standalone building with stone-walled compounds — a juxtaposition of the old versus the new.
The moss-like green cover was particularly eye-catching to me. Everywhere I looked, I could spot an old building with its clay tiles atop the gable roofs, slanting into stray greenery growing everywhere, welcome and unwelcome.
Later that day, I whiled away a peaceful chunk of my time dawdling by the lake with its gaggle of ducks, read, sketched and jot down my silly little thoughts on the scruffy piece of paper I shuffled in my bag to find. I also got to try this amazing one-of-a-kind snack that I had never heard of before called a ‘donade’ (excuse me if the spelling’s wrong). It’s supposed to be a solenoid equivalent to the toroid of a donut. With its sweet cream filling enclosed in a chewy mildly-sweet bread, it was the perfect afternoon snack for the lakeside.
The boating and the island exploration that followed will stay in my special memories for a long time to come. I bought a few clothes too in Belgaum at a factory surplus sale for a fraction of their original price, one of which I had later changed into. This was after getting drenched to the waist among water-weeds while trying to anchor the boat and jump into the landmass of the island. I got bitten by a lot of mosquitoes as well but thankfully I had disinfectant wipes on hand. I should mention here about the giant flying-dinosaur-looking bird that we spotted on the island. By god, its wingspan had us shook. As long as I’m tall and perhaps longer and I stand fully at a little more than 5’6”. It might have been an adjutant (which, I googled, has a wingspan of 8’2’’!) but it surely didn’t linger for us to get a closer look.
I made other core memories too, which I’m refraining from writing about here, for they would be more special being personal. After dusk, I had a light dinner and took the train back to Bangalore, thinking about my eventful day, Belgaum and its many forts and lakes. You know how they say you should do things for the first time every so often to get the full experience of being alive-and-breathing? Belgaum was that breath of fresh air, both literally and metaphorically, to me. With history oozing out of its fort walls, looking down and wondering about the crocodiles that probably inhabited the black waters surrounding the fort for security, the kingdom that existed there decades ago led by a royal Rani and her subjects, the wars they stayed ready for and the lives they led — so different from ours, yet tied by the same thread of time piercing us now. I wonder if a century later, someone will have a similar experience by the stone walls and think about me… About us.
I will write to you again.
ವಿದಾಯ (goodbye) for now,
Naya
A Note from Naya
Thank you for reading! Many a time, I receive messages from some of you on how you liked what I wrote — it always fills up my heart. If you are one of them or if you simply liked what I shared over here, I would love it if you considered hitting the share button below and sending it to a dear one you would love to go on a trip with, soon.
I deeply appreciate your inbox space!
So lovely to read about my hometown :)
Loved the writing style! Your blog inspired me to write one of my own in a similar style. Thanks!