Monsoon Activities - a Rainy Sunday in Bangalore

First of all, for all of you who have heard about recent events in India: we are both fine, and although we were in the city last Friday when a series of low intensity explosions went off, we were not in the vicinity.

We came to Bangalore originally because we were a bit behind schedule and needed to axe a few other places from our overly-optimistic itinerary, and while we only planned to stay for two days, we forgot how much we love this city and have now been here 5 days. don't ask what we have done - somehow the days just went flying by. Staying at home and having a nice home cooked meal was one of the things we were really looking forward to after a couple of weeks on the road. We were very lucky in this respect, as we managed to get TWO home cooked meals, one from Gayatri's Aunt Keerti, and the other from Keerti's friend, Vidyullala. Both were "normal everyday meals" according to the claim of the hostesses, but to us they were an elaborate affairs that involved lots of veggies and other tasty tidbits. We wish our "everyday meals" back home tasted like this! Kim got some of the recipes, so we are looking forward to re-creating it back at home.

This also the first place were we really noticed that we are in the Monsoon season: there have been many power cuts (up to 8 hours a day) due to a lack of rain and to the fact that the state mostly runs on hydro-electric power. Then there was diesel shortage, because everyone runs a private generator, and then, finally, the rains finally started to come, solving some of these problems.

So, what does one do in the Monsoon? There are many things to do, and we did many of the typical ones yesterday. To start with, as the weather was still dry, we headed to the Lalbagh, or local botanical gardens, for a bit of fresh air and a light breakfast al fresco. We walked around the gardens and observed many families doing the same thing. It seemed to be just the thing for people to do with their elderly relatives. Unfortunately, the weather didn't hold up, and it began to intermittently shower, so we decided to look for shelter. A good opportunity presented itself in the form for the Marvalli Tiffin Rooms, also apparently just the thing to do with those elderly relatives of yours. The MTR as it is commonly known, is a local institution - a "restaurant" would be too humble of a word to describe this phenomena. It is literally a series of "rooms" - about four of them, each seating about 50 people. They have got quite the system going at the MTR: first you pay for your "meal" (there is nothing else on the menu between noon and two) then you head upstairs, to find out that all of the people you have seen in the Lalbagh gardens have made it there before you, and are all sitting on benches in a waiting room. From the photo below, you can think that this is a local doctor's office, or a waiting area at the train station, but no, this is the "waiting area" of the MTR. The system: you wait for about one hour, exchanging pleasantries and personal details with everyone else in the room, until one of the four dining rooms is completely empty. Then they call out the numbers of about 50 people and everyone files into that room. Following this, everyone is served exactly the same thing at the same time, by a gaggle of waiters, carrying the food in large buckets. The woman who waited next to us promised that there will be 25 items in the meal but we counted about 22: grape juice, water, coconut chutney, kosimbari salad, cabbage bhaji, potato curry, puris, gulab jamum, rice pudding, deep fried snacks, tomato rice with cashews, regular rice with sambar and rasam, raita, mini-pappadums, yoghurt rice, fruit with ice cream, and of course, paan to digest everything well. This was an amazing meal, all the more so, because it was eaten in under 20 minutes. Everyone had to "stay with the tour", and there could be no lingering and chatting, as the next shift was waiting in the wings. Thus satisfied, we headed back for a nap at the hotel and a bit of recovering before our evening's activities. (below: making enough coconut chutney to feed a small hoard of elephants at the MTR)


Originally we bought tickets to a special concert dedicated to Monsoon Ragas. A Raga is like a mode in Western music, only there are many more of them, and they are dedicated to various times of the day and seasons in the year. We thought this concert sounded very special, and prolonged our stay by two days so we could hear it, and we were therefore very disappointed when we read in the paper that it had been postponed by two weeks because of the situation here. However, we still managed to hear a different concert of Karnatic music, and with all the windows open and the scent of rain floating through the auditorium it certainly qualified as an excellent monsoon activity.

No evening was complete without walking home in the rain. There are always lots of puddles to splash through on the way home, and while it is one thing to walk in the rain and have wet feet, it is quite another to have wet feet when you walk through a place reeking of pee or sewer....your imagination starts to work overtime, and I think we are the first people to alco-gel their feet!

BARFI: You don't get a new BARFI because you haven't solved the last one yet. However, tgber(Boaz's parents) were the ones came the closest. Obviously, a "Takla teli nupolo" is Tagliatelle Napoli. Don't ask us what this gourmet rendition entails in touristic Hampi, but we suspect it is pasta with canned tomato sauce.