so far I've lived in a dozen cities/towns, in a lil less than 3 times that many yrs in life, some for merely months; not counting the different locations, apartments and houses within them. the longest continuous stretch being some 7 yrs. some of those places I forget that I ever was in, some feel like vacations, and probably were cos I was visiting my parents on n off while they actually lived there. but there's this one place, I keep squinting at on google maps nowadays, wondering why it feels so alien when it was home to me for a year. bangalore.

so of course, I didn't look at google maps when I lived there, or if I did, I have no recollection of it. I lived in two neighborhoods, a month in benarghatta, and the remaining 11 in koramangala. and I depended solely on local autowallahs (or pillion on the bike of my broker in search of an apartment) for my sense of direction and for my means of navigation. while I was there, it felt like I commuted far and wide, it felt like I knew the place, it felt like I was getting out and about. and now, staring at its map, I lack even a basic sense of east and west. I can't even locate my erstwhile neighborhood on the map, forget my apartment, I have no idea what the distance to work was (only that it took half an hour in an auto), I don't remember street names (I barely remember the names of 3-4 neighborhoods), and to make things worse, the city seems to have changed so much in the last 10 yrs. almost like it underwent puberty, and has a cracked voice, and unrecognizable hairs and curves.

and yet I clearly remember days. in places. the outsides of those places elude my memory. I remember Koshy's and in fact the crowded MG road and Brigade road, our fav restaurant Spiga (that always felt like a house party) and our always getting lost trying to get to it (that was one address the autowallahs never got), loads of other eating holes - chinese, mallu, andhra, even littis, bong, barbecue, ... (blore, even then was eclectic in its food scene). I remember clearly the interior decors of these places, the atmosphere in each, the sense of high I'd get on andhra chilies in one much frequented place, but no idea which side the sun rose from in each, no idea how far and where (except the much frequented andhra place Maharaja, which was just steps away from our apartment, and of course, my daily run route). even the place I most frequented, Forum mall, I can only picture its entrance and the street corner right outside and a lil bit to the left and right, and then suddenly it zones out into blackness. no idea how many and which turns led the auto there. even the old airport which was like a local bus stop then, apparently down a straight airport road after a while on the ring road, but where? why can't I trace my tires back? not even when I spent so much time at the airport, not just flying in and out of the city, but seeing bf off (don't remember receiving his arrival ever though) every time with my fav american cheesecake in my hands (forgotten the place that used to make it, aaaarrrgh) and two lil plastic spoons, the two of us sharing it while we waited to say goodbye. for many yrs after blore, in fact, I couldn't bare to look at cheesecake, let alone eat it, I always felt so overstuffed with it.