Kirtana Kumar’s first book titled ‘Bangalore Blues’ (A Little Jasmine Imprint) is a collection of thirty-three imaginatively funny short stories.
Free-flowing with ample splashes of humour, satire and mocking cynicism, Kirtana’s sharp and telescopic eye penetrates through the daily life of many lived and believed characters of her beloved city. Fact and fiction come together as the actor, director, and filmmaker embraces both attractions and absurdities of a once-sleepy city transforming itself into a bustling metropolis.
Hilarious characters and incidents dot every single page of Kirtana’s stories. Self-destructing men and selfish women (or is it the other way round?), stray dogs and underdogs come under the spotlight especially when they take wrong turns and commit messy mistakes in what-could-have-been a simple peaceful city. Kirtana’s pen effortlessly takes on these old, bold, beautiful and bizarre people before transforming them into hilarious, heroic and anti-heroic protagonists.
Interestingly, the reader has more than a passing familiarity with many of the characters (some in flesh and blood, others in gossip columns). Oldtimers, for instance, would easily recognise and recall the ‘Liberty Begum, the flamboyant wife of the owner of that old movie theatre… who looked, dressed, and behaved like Queen Victoria — what with her blue Chevy Impala, her bodyguards, and her coterie of ‘lady-boy friends.’ Or Mr Shanbhag, the genial owner of Premier Bookshop, who makes a cameo appearance when his opinion is sought of a light-skinned young man with a mole on his left nostril who has handcuffed himself to a window grill inset into a stone arch and swallowed the key.
Other delightful characters include Sami, the auto driver, who has his WhatsApp number tattooed on the forearm with rose curlicues on either end; the exquisite hijra in orange track pants and a blonde wig with Instagram page
@ardhanareeshwari69 who is marrying Afzal on Sunday, and you are invited! And there is Mani, who having secretly lost his virginity to his high school English miss, proceeds to fall for a girl with curly hair and wearing red lipstick he spotted at the Shivajinagar bus stop. It is the same Shivajinagar where three boys steal a Ramzan camel from, before being chased and caught on M G Road by a group of the fasting and enraged devout.
Kirtana’s tales pass through many other iconic areas of this once-upon-a-time ‘small-town village provinciality...’. Like the chaotic and buzzing shops in Russell Market; the collegiate world of Koramangala, with its momo stalls frequented by girls in skinny jeans, kurtis and jangly earrings; the freaks of Jayamahal Extension who actually like the concrete elephants and the Japanese bridge in the park… they all come alive to illustrate Bengaluru as it once was and partially is. Speaking about nimble feet, Annabel (now Annabel Sharada) who came to Bengaluru via the Ramakrishna Mission, now alternates between the Mythic Society and the Central Library (for her research on Huliyurdurga in Tumakuru district) before promptly heading for her mutton samosas at Zum Zum bakery.
Part-comedy, part-history, part-mystery, Kirtana’s stories paint the brighter and darker shades of Bengaluru, its quirky opulence, playful farcicality and comedic eccentricities. Dive into the book for a good laugh — at others, at oneself. Kirtana Kumar, of course, is no Woody Allen but then, Bengaluru is no Brooklyn either.
There is also a poignant essay on how lives were disrupted by the pandemic. Kirtana wrote the book in faraway Germany at Villa Waldberta in March-April 2020.
She says, “The pandemic was raging in India and, in Germany too, we were not without rules, stipulations, and fears. Villa Waldberta, in modern history, was previously Hohenberg Villa and, in 1945, at the war’s end, had housed displaced persons. It felt just right to be there, at this moment in time.”
*Book launch on February 11, 5.30 pm, Blossom Book House, Prestige Commercial Complex, Church Street.