Bangalore and the Lie!

‘One Saturday evening, Anjan suggested, “How about going to the pub and having some chilled beer? The treat is on me”.

But that evening Rohit was not enthusiastic, “I would have loved to Anjan, but it is a colleague’s birthday and I need to attend the party”.

 Anjan with a few other friends decided to go for Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park which was being screened at Rex Theatre on Brigade Road. Being a night show, getting tickets was not a problem and the group soon sank back into the plush seats in air-conditioned comfort, each with a tub of popcorn. The lights were still on. As Anjan looked around, he got a shock. A few rows ahead, he saw Rohit sitting with a girl, their heads leaning towards each other. Anjan could hardly believe his eyes.  Rohit, his closest friend, his buddy, had lied to him!’

Snippet: The name “Bangalore” was given by the British as an anglicized version of the original Kannada name Bengaluru. As the legend goes, Veera Ballala II, the most famous king of the Hoysala dynasty (twelfth century), while on a hunting expedition, lost his way in the forest. Tired and hungry, he came across a poor old woman who served him boiled beans. The grateful king named the place “bend-kaal-uru” (literally, “town of boiled beans”), which eventually evolved into Bengaluru.

 Bangalore is widely regarded as the “Silicon Valley of India”. A cosmopolitan city, it  is the second fastest-growing major metropolis in India. The iconic Rex Theatre on Brigade Road downed its shutters for good on first January 2019 after entertaining Bangalore folks for seventy eight years.

The city of Bangalore and Rex Theatre feature in the story Fault Lines, a part of my forthcoming book, ‘The Chronicler of the Hooghly and other stories ’. www.shaktighosal.com

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