A song in a Kannada movie from 19 years ago sparked my love for the Bangalore I call home today
My column Frames and Flashes is my ode to cinema. Part of my dream for this space is to pay homage to the cities I’ve seen and fallen in love with through films. This series, titled Sheher mein, is meant to do just that. I hope for this to be an ongoing series in which the magic and endless possibilities of a city we see on film is captured in words.
For my inaugural column in this series, of course, I chose to write about the city I call home today—Bangalore.
Bangalore has been a constant recurrence in my life. It is a city I’ve entered, exited and returned to many times, for school, college and now, work. I lived here for the first time in 2004. We stayed in Jayanagar 6th Block for nearly two years before I moved to a boarding school near Nandi Hills. My school was far from the city, and every day on my long commutes to and from school, I watched the city pass by from my bus window—colourful posters, rising malls, half-built roads and glittering showrooms that I never entered. My world was small: school, home and the occasional chaat and street shopping at Jayanagar 4th Block.
Back then, life in the city was simple but alienating. I didn’t need to learn its ways or wrestle its chaos. Someone else did that for me. So, despite living in it, the city felt distant to me. But the glimpses of Bangalore I saw in movie about a year in, made me feel like the city could be mine.
Amrithadhare (2005), introduced me to the idea that living and loving in the city was possible. The title translates to “a stream of nectar.” Though I have Kannadiga roots, I didn’t grow up watching much Kannada cinema. But this film was hard to ignore. Everyone, everywhere was talking about it.
The movie was a love story between Amritha (Ramya) and Puru (Dhyan/Sameer Dattani), a married, working couple living in Bangalore. It was a “contemporary” story and created quite the chatter. It had a “hit” album. One song in the movie showed a lip-lock, another hinged on the word “honeymoon.” To top it all, Amitabh Bachchan had a cameo in it.
It wasn’t just a movie, it was a moment.
Briefly, this is the plot: Amrita and Puru are polar opposites. She is a spendthrift, he is a miser. She wants to see the world, he wants to stay in one place. She wants a child and he wants to build a house. But when Amritha is diagnosed with a brain tumor, a shattered Puru decides to take her on a trip around India. They go to Delhi, Mumbai, the Himalayas, Agra, Nainital—every place she has ever wanted to visit, before her time is up.
Puru also surprises Amritha with a meeting with Mr. Bachchan, an actor she has worshipped all her life and refers to as her “first husband.” When they ask him for an autograph with a message on it, he very fittingly writes: “Three days of a meaningful life is far greater than a hundred years of a meaningless existence.” At the end of this trip, Amrita dies on Puru’s lap in front of the Taj Mahal. It is poetic in some ways but left me with a lump in my throat.
I wasn’t allowed to watch this movie back then. It was too dicey and too “modern”. But I caught glimpses of its songs on TV and secretly saw scenes from the movie when the DVD version was released. It was exciting.
Having revisited the movie several times since, I’ve come to accept that it isn’t exactly a masterpiece I had been denied as a child. Many of its plotlines and running gags could pass off as comedy or romance in 2005 but have since aged like sour milk. Today, they are cringe. Problematic even. But this column is not about any of that. It is about the one thing that has stood the test of time for me: the title track, Nee Amrithadhare.
The song is composed by Mano Murthy and is vocalised by Harish Raghavendra and Supriya Acharya. The youth in their voices is hard to miss. Nagathihalli Chandrashekhar, who directed the film, also wrote the lyrics for the song.
In the song, the two leads are reminiscing the milestones of their love, their many firsts. Modala nota (first sight), modala sparsha (first touch), matthanu thanda.. aa modala chumbana (first “intoxicating” kiss). The interludes are not perfect, nor is the choreography. But the lyrics are nostalgic and there is something innocently exciting about the way it captures young love in a young city. “Nee illavaadhare naa…hege baalali?” (How will I live without you?), they sing. What stuck with me the most were the visuals of Bangalore in the background.
It is raining throughout the song and the couple is dancing and “loving” in various parts of the city. Many iconic landmarks of Bangalore feature in it. They kiss in a lush green park—Cubbon, or maybe it is Lalbagh. They dance in what a friend and I agree is Vijayanand bus stop. Even the iconic Cafe Coffee Day makes an appearance.
The city is not flamboyant with its presence. It is an unassuming witness to promising love. But it is captured in a way that feels magical. What also stood out to me was how the song captured life in the city. There are people on the footpaths and cars moving on the roads. There are no digital concealments of its flaws in the rain—the city is not polished or done up for the movie. It is just there. A silent spectator.
Up until then, rain was just rain to me. But seeing Amritha and Puru dance in the city, drenched in rain, inspired that idea that rain can be…romantic. I couldn’t wait to grow up in this city, have a boyfriend and recreate these scenes with him.
Today, almost 20 years since I first left the city, I am back in Bangalore. This time around, the city does not feel alien. Its flaws are more obvious and I have to battle them every day. The roads are bad, the traffic is worse. Cynicism has caught up with age and for the most part, my life in the city is a big blur. My days are consumed by work and commutes to and from work. There is no time to pause and cherish the small things. No time for long morning walks, lazy sunset views or sneaky afternoon naps. A sudden rain in the city isn’t romantic. It is a wet, messy disaster that ruins my day.
But every now and then, during an auto ride home after a long day at work or on one of those rare mornings when I’m awake before the world, I notice the beauty that is Bangalore. I pay attention to its streets and feel its breeze. I let the nostalgia of the city take over and think about how much life has changed for the girl who used to stare at the city’s sparkling showrooms from the window of a crowded bus. She walks through them now.
And then there is the rare occasion when I am at home during a rainy evening. I make myself a filter coffee and play Nee Amrithadhare as I watch stills of the city from my balcony. The cynic in me takes a backseat and I let the romance of the city soak me as well. On those evenings, I’m convinced that I live in the city of love. I breathe big and smile wide knowing that if there’s a city to dance with someone, drenched in the rain, that city is Bangalore, and I live in it!
To my friends P, N, A, G and V. Thank you for helping me finish this column. I love you guys!
Spandana is the writer of the column Frames and Flashes, a space that explores films through personal experiences and unfulfilled fantasies.
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