ACIDITY

FATHER P K DAMODARAN

PREMA BAKTHAVATSALA AND PRABHA SANKARANARAYANAN AT OUR HOME

SUNIL..SUPRIYA...SHREYA STANDING...SANYA IN ARMS..PREMA BAKTAVATSALA....PRABHA SANKARANARAYANAN....AND MYSELF.

CIRCUS IN BANGALORE

Not many  would appreciate today that the entire  KEMPEGOWDA  BUS TERMINUS in Subash Nagar - Majestic was once an hollow ground and Circus used to take place there for nearly three months every year.Circus....Cinema....and Cricket were the three prominent entertainers of the city all through the 1970.s  and very early 1980.s. BMTC buses used to be parked on the fringes of this hollow ground bearing two digit bus numbers for example 47 was from Majestic to K R Puram and most of the times these buses used to be full and jam packed.

I remember visiting the circus with my Father and brother in 1975 or so and it was a major gala affair that lasted for more than three hours and very entertaining for children.The habit of holding circus in this hollow ground ended somewhere in 1980 after a circus fire that killed nearly hundred people at this location and thereafter Circus at this venue was banned giving way to the BMTC and KSRTC bus stations as we see them and also the Metro station now

Note that this area of Majestic is also called Subash Nagar.

My FATHER P K DAMODARAN

MY  FATHER     P   K   DAMODARAN     PASSED  AWAY  ON 18TH OF MAY 2018 AT BGS HOSPITAL IN  KENGERI  OWING TO RESPIRATORY COMPLICATIONS at 5 :09 AM. HE WAS  84  YEARS  OF  AGE.CREMATED 19TH  AROUND 1:30 MYSORE ROAD CREMATORIUM...ASHES COLLECTED ON 20TH AROUND 11 AM...IMMERSED IN SANGAM   AROUND 10:30AM ON  21 MAY 2018.  SUMIT THE GRAND NEPHEW OF MY FATHER WAS PRESENT IN THE CREMATORIUM  ON CREMATION DAY. RAMESH THE SON OF  MY MOTHERS ELDER SISTER CAME DOWN FROM MUMBAI, SUPRIYA,SANTOSH,SUNITA THE WIFE OF MY BROTHER,MYSELF,SUNIL ALL TRAVELLED TO SANGAM IN SRIRANGAPATTANA. SHREYA  AND  SANYA THE DAUGHTERS OF  SUPRIYA WERE ALSO PRESENT.

I VISIT NAGPUR

In the year 1999 as part of an official visit visited Nagpur.It is interesting to note that the city of Nagpur is almost at the centre of India and also a centre of Gravity.Buses take 24 hours to reach Nagpur from Bangalore which must have come down by few hours now and most trains proceeding towards North India traverse through this city.I had a brush with this city staying there for nearly a day and was a worthwhile exercise. 

The journey I made to Nagpur was not from Bangalore but from Mumbai to meet someone whom I dont fully recollect on Cement Road in Nagpur. I booked a bus ticket on Chintamani travels and was at the bus stand Shrdi Sai Mandir in Chembur at 5:00 PM  and the bus came on time pulling towards Thane and the view from the bus of the world around was one of excitement.

The next major stop was supposed to be Aurangabad which we reached early in the morning with the tyre of the bus going flat almost twice. In the first instance the flat tyre in some forlorn and isolated stretch of the road and I being the inquisitive variety got down from the bus to see the procedure underway.A large tyre dumped from the top of the bus and the fitment taking more than half an hour.On the way to Aurangabad I saw a sign-board en-route pointing towards Nashik.

I had my breakfast in Aurangabad...People here speak Marathi and many dont follow hindi and communicating with the local populace is an effort.This part of India is very beautiful and you see part of the gigantic Vindhya Sathpuri mountains and somewhere in some deep village the bus stops for lunch sidelined by a mammoth single hill fully green glorifying the natural vegetation that India has. I started off at 5 in the evening and was  dumped at a place called Yavatmal  instead of Nagpur at 10 pm the following day..WAH CHINTAMANI TRAVELS...the tyre going flat on one more occasion..and the Conductor told me that another local bus would ferry me from Yavatmal to Nagpur.I was fully asleep on the new bus and only awake when I reached Nagput at 2 AM what a god forsaken time to reach a new place previously unknown. Checking into a hotel room went searching for food and had some fill at a roadside outlet today called street food.NAGPUR did not keep me hungry at 2 in the morning..there was a more than reasonable street joint.

The next day I met the person concerned on Cement road and thereafter went to VNIT Nagpur.Surprisingly I found VNIT in the town limits itself. It used to be called VISHVESHWARIAH REGIONAL ENGINEERING COLLEGE AND NOW CALLED VISHVESHWARIAH NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY.It is nice to know that the Government of Maharashtra reveres statesman Vishveshwariah who actually belongs to Karnataka state.Sir M Vishveshwariah studied engineering in Pune and the credit for grooming him must go to the modern state of Maharashtra.I met a student of VNIT whose name I dont recollect who conducted me through the campus largely pleased to know I was an alumnus of  Calicut NIT.

What happenned next is amusing.I wanted to book a ticket back to Bangalore = but none of the private bus operators have heard the name Bangalore. I was baffled and felt stuck.Someone told me to go to the state bus stand and found some more enlightened people who told me that there is no direct bus from here to Bangalore but one can make way through Hyderabad.I quickly booked a ticket by the 6PM bus to Hyderabad and was at the bus stand half an hour before  and seeing an APSRTC bus in the bus stand gave me a sense of certainty in an otherwise unknown land.It takes 12 hours to reach Hyderabad from Nagpur and another 12 hours from Hyderabad to Bangalore and the journey that started in Mumbai reaching a logical conclusion.

LEG BYE CARTOON

P K Raghavan the elder brother of my Father photo

To the left is P K Raghavan  the elder brother of my Father who lived in Singapore and later in London.

FATHER IN 1959 P K Damodaran photo

Our  Father in 1959 photo taken with friends inside the ITI complex seen here extreme right.

ALLEPPEY (ALAPUZHA) , THEKKADY AND MUNNAR.

Some time back as a part of an office  excursion in 1997 went on a tour of Southern Kerala..and is worth recording and mentioning.It basically covered Alleppey , Thekkadi and Munnar..the latter two places in the Idukki district of Kerala. Ernakulam, Alleppey, Thekkady and Munnar form a circular travel loop.

Allepey also called Alapuzha is on the Arabian coast few hours drive from Ernakulam also called Cochin. Alapuzha translates into a Sack like river..technically it could also mean Big River..but what is seen here is not a big river but a big pond or lake formed by the backwaters from the Arabian Sea.A Back Water is formed due to certain coastal conditions and the pressure of the sea water inward forming a large lake in-land.At high tide the excess sea water drains into this lake with its height increasing a few meters and during  low tide the excess water tends to drain into the sea.The waters in a back water will be very quiet and serene with very less or minimal directional water currents making it safe and ideal for boating. The backwaters at Alapuzha is formed through a large narrow conduit running tens of kilometers upstream from the sea making it even safer.

A boat ride on a small steamer could last more than an hour and would cover a large expanse and many boat houses are permanently anchored in the lake for permanent stay for tourists an interesting phenomenon.

We took a halt for the night at Kottayam and set outfor Thekkadi in the bosom of the Western Ghat mountains a lake formed by the streams of the Western Ghat forests  and part of the Periyar game reserve. The boats used for boating here are smaller in size and the rides are smaller than the one at Alleppey and wild animals like elephants can be spotted on the top of the Ghats near-by. Being the Boss I got to sit on top of the steamer and had a very splendid view of the surroundings for nearly an hour.

Few Hours deep into the Western Ghats towards the Tamil Nadu border is the hill station of Munnar. I just happened to stay in the resort there for the night after  having a stroll through the narrow roads and small townships. Munnar  is a very quiet and eloquent place like say Madikeri in Coorg which I had visited an year before on a similar trip.