Back to the era of Eastman colour

There would have been either big houses, or small houses, relative to the one we lived in. Palaces, museums, big administrative offices were just what they were, a proper noun, defined by a name, like say the Vidhana Soudha or the High Court.

Yet, the grill work on someone’s gate, the mosaic of coloured stones on some wall remain, as part of nostalgia, giving us greater awareness of structures and their lifelines.

When I was told about Indira’s house in Benson Town, belonging to the modern urban architectural period of Bangalore in the late 50s, I thought about my first few Kannada movies at Abhinay, the theatre that had an escalator.

The heroine bouncing off the large stairway, humming, twirling a tennis racket in one hand, two plaits bouncing off the pink chequered back of her trousers, the villain in one reckless move veering his pista green Fiat under the huge sprawling pink and pista coloured ledge of the bungalow, the heroine aghast, reprimanding this audacity of “bleedy naansnese”, and the villain leering with glee, challenging, “shure baby, your sandal on my cheek will look better than on the ground.”

So, I went to see one of the last few remaining modern houses from the Eastman colour movie days of south Indian cinema. Sure enough, the house had shades of terracotta pink, the corner hexagonal windows bent at right angles, the well-kept lawn with flowering plants, and of course, the ledge. Indira explained that the ledge jutting out over the main door for a good ten feet or so, without any pillar support, was one of those advanced design features in those days. Ushering me inside, she also wondered if I would find her place any interesting to take pictures and write about. A place that tells you a story about the journeys of its inhabitants, is always interesting, but I kept this observation to myself. 
 
The masks on the verandah wall, an intricately carved wooden chest from Hong Kong and other knick knacks spoke about a family that has come home to Bangalore after travelling through various periods and cultures around the country and the world.

The living room, with its four walls interrupted continually by doors to other rooms and the kitchen, defined family time, as in, all into one, to sit under the many light bulbs of the oval false ceiling to watch one programme on one channel on one television.

Simplistically arranged, Indira’s home is one where if the walls were not continuous enough to have that playful splash, it was because they were meant to allow for interruptions. I guess families communicated more those days! 

Functional, neat bedrooms, the kitchen renovated to accommodate the gadgets of the day, big windows covered with fresh yellow willowy curtains, paintings and sculptures by family and friends strike a fine balance on the needs and wants of a harmonious life.

The verandah that overlooked the garden  and the huge gulmohar tree on the road, the old-style grill work on the open window that has spanned its entire length tell stories about the long, leisurely chilly Bangalore mornings when the air rented with probably bird calls, households waking up to the aroma wafting from their morning cuppas, people taking their dogs for a walk, a heroine sprinting towards her tennis court, socks pulled up half way over the ankles, some cyclist tipping a hat, an aproned figure calling out from some monkey top window, peddlers with their buns and biscuits.