Bangalore eighteen years ago

Bangalore, 18 years ago was like a hill station. It was an upheaval of sorts - moving from Udupi to Bangalore. Being teased a little about our accent and way of speaking in school, staring wide-eyed at mothers who came to drop their kids off to school in nighties with a little shawl or dupatta or even towel for modesty purposes! I have seen that only in Bangalore. The number of bakeries and hot chips all across the streets! And the free-handed way in which my classmates spent money to buy snacks or some Bombay mittai (Candy made out of sugar that can be shaped) that they sold in fluorescent colors on cycles outside the school.  The seller would nimbly shape the mittai into an animal or a doll while a bunch of noisy students would hang around, jostling each other and waiting their turn. Another nostalgic favorite was something they called 'coffee beeja' but for the life of me, I can't figure out what that was ( possibly tamarind seeds?) If anyone knows what that is, please tell me! I have hunted far and wide for it. I have asked a lot of sweetmeat shops and they just give me puzzled looks. It's a 90s thing, I think and it makes me feel ancient.

Bangalore was laid back, there was a feeling that one could just go out and watch the seasons go by and not feel the crushing regret people feel these days about 'loss of productivity'. Recently a friend of mine told me he quit jogging to do a little gardening and farming work in the plot next to his because he found it more 'productive' to use his labour to grow food and be fit instead of just running and being fit. Admirable sentiments, but do we need to consciously think about which is more productive? It is like all our actions need qualifiers now.

 Bangalore has caught it too. The peculiar restlessness of its citizens. It has expanded and eaten away at the villages, still eating away, discontented, gobbling up all the taluks and hoblis until they are part of the madness. The trees, our last bastions of sanity, are the first casualties. Bangalore has none of the tree cover it had eighteen years ago. And we are so much the poorer for it.