Of Saappaadu and Songs

BasYaadein Yaadein..Yaadein reh jaa thee hain..
Kuch Choti Choti..Baathain reh jaa thee hain..

I stumbled on this song by Aryans (of Puraani jeans fame) while updating my playlist. True to its theme, it took me on a nostalgic visit on how i ended up with this song :) There used to be a Andhra style restaurant called Madhuri, right near the entrance to Wind Tunnel Road in Murugeshpalaya (Bangalore). It was exactly 800 meteres from our office entrance, atleast thats what the digital meter autorickshaw's showed, consistently !! Me and two of my colleagues will catch an auto during lunch. We used to order full meals. But even if we walked all the way back for digesting the umpteen platefuls that we gobbled, adichi poatta mathiri thookam varum. Will sleep walk through the rest of the day in office. Weekends mean, getting up at around 12 noon, thothify any friend on his bike, round katti adichify food in Madhuri and veetuku vanthu continue sleeping till late in the evening. If too lazy to go till madhuri, there was one kerala bakery nearby our house...Venus bakery i guess. Shucks..i forgot the name :( Anga poitu puff, samosa or enna veg item irukko ellam onnu onnu saaptutu..will take some biscuit packets back home. You wont believe the number of good day bisuits and double treats, had they been arranged one over other, might have turned out taller than Qutub minar!! If we felt any more "energetic" will call a punjabi dhaba called Kitchen, which was strategically positioned right in between the bakery and Madhuri, for every single item on their menu card. That guy developed his one room kitchen plus dining hall into 3 separate stalls and guess our room would've been major contributors hands down. If all of us ordered, one single order would come nothing short 200 rupees. Food was considerably cheap in that dhaba. For 200 bucks, 7 of us used to eat till our heart content and still there will be left overs for round two.

Coming back to the song, Madhuri restaurant, used to play all hindi pop songs and I always used to be fascinated by their collection. The challenge would be to identify the song and locate it on a then famous website called "Cool Toad". I even had an account on that site and would search every day till i get that song. Else will ping my friend who was in Japan then, to find out the song for me and mail it :D Avlo crazy over those songs. Each of them were a gem of their own. Right opposite to Diamond district there was a TGIF, Ashoka(?) and Indi Joe restaurant. When our office shifted there, we shifted our lunch spot to Ashoka. Since the food there was way too costly and not of good quality, we located another Andhra style restaurant at walking distance called Nandini palace (??). Eppo paaru pei gumbal there used to be. Kodumais of Koramangala ennana...vara gumbal paathi familya irukum. Kalayanam pannikitu kudumbathoda vanthu 4 chair tablea occupy pannikarathuku ungalukellam ethukuda marriagenu manasaara thitikkittay will wait in queue. Apdiye develop aagi, month beginningla konjam jollya selavu panna mood iruntha..will go to Southindies. Amazing amazing restaurant. Semmma costly. But kaasuku etha paniyaram na anga thaan. Saatharana paruppu saatham kooda pakkava irukkum. Weekendsla will try out Roomali with a view, pasanga treatna Mainland China/Gateway to India (antha renduthula the veggie one) apdi illati will go to Arasappar. Anga majority Karaikudi style non veg item thaannalum, anga south indian full mealsla thara Vathakuzhambukku sothaiye ezhuthi vaikalam. Vadamlaam poattu ultimatea irukkum. Very rarely had been to Nagarjuna. Aana anga full meals oru round mudikarathukullaye moochu muttidum. Quantity will be too much. Right next to office there was a Cafe coffee day. Anga vara crowdukaagavay avanga ticket poatu kaasu paakalam. Ahem!! But naan porathu anga kedaikkara chocolate fantasy cake saapdrathukaaga mattumay matummay mattumay. Moonu thadava sonna nambiye aaganum. Cake mela suda suda chocolate syrup vittu tharuvan paarunga. Chappu kotti saapdalam. And officeku ethirthaapola Corner house ice cream parlor was there. Oru scoop ice cream 25 rupees nenakren. Each one will order one scoop and kadisila ellar cuplayum ella flavorum irukkum.

Ithu poga office treatna, will go the other way towards Marathahalli. Main reason, thirumbi varathku late aana traffic mela pazhiya potrulam :D and the restaurants on the other side of outer ring road were, Big FM Balaji stylela solanumna awesomatic of the aaromale always. Semma costly. Kai kaasu poatulam saapda mudiathu. So office treat punniyathula, team lunch sollitu will go there. Golconda chimney was my favorite. Anga thara starterslaye vairu rombidum. Avlo varities there used to be. My damager's favorite was Raaga. Guess it was in Indhira nagar. CMH road sidela Adyar Anantha Bavan had opened newly then. Eppo paaru kootamo kootam irukum. We rarely went there. Aana Jeevan bheema nagarla there was a Pongal restaurant. Hotel peray Pongal thaan :) oru 20 varieties of dosai vachirupanga..kothu paratha..athu ithu nu semma kattu. Tiffen mattumay egapatta rounds ulla pogum :D and saaptathu jerikka walkingla return varachay vachla Kolkatta chaatla silapal jilebis and dinner parceluku Grilled panneer sandwich and daaga shanthiku oru date milkshake adichitu varapo irukay...aanantham paramaanantham thaan.

Kaalangaathala radio cityla Route 91 kekarathkagavay 7 am ku alarm vachu ezhunthupom. Was crazy over the voice of Sunaina lal. Times of Indiala foto nerla paathapo tension aanathennamo nejam :) Route 91 la vara songs ellamay top classa irukum and most of them would figure in that years top ten. December month poora there would count down. Top 100 songs of that year or decade or some kind of countdown will be there. Ellamay supera irukkum. Somehow i feel the first half of previous decade was hindi music at its peak. Every year they had chart busters after another and though the indi pop sensation  lost steam towards the end, some of the songs still are pleasure to listen. I had a pretty decent collection then and my system used to be the office juke box. Everyone of my friend contributed to the collection and since it was a shared folder on network, many friends from other departments also used to listen to them. When the network admin became strict and removed all shared folder access, I couldnt recollect the number of dvd's we wrote :)) On a 20 GB hard disk we had close to 16 GB of songs :))

Ippo most of that gang is spread across Banglore and Singapore. Aana eppo meet pannalum or message pannikitaalum the discussion topic will always feature the chartbuster at that time :) One unbeliavable matter ennana...ivlo round katti saaptum, i lost around 14 kilos when i was in Banglore :) and was probably at my fittest best my entire life. Nambara maathir irukka? Nambikkai thaan vaazhkkai..so please. Nambidunga. Innum 15 daysla olagam azhiyaama iruntha appalika meetalam..varta.