I must have been no more than five years old when I first heard the name ‘Domlur'. It was the first syllable ‘dom…dom' that struck me. I remember asking my father if Domlur's father was Dumdum.
A retired Air Force officer, whose name I don't remember today, was our only acquaintance in the area. Like many other ex-servicemen, he had decided to settle down in Domlur, given its proximity to the defence establishments.
Whenever he visited us, he would tell me that one could see aeroplanes taking off from his house. I would throw a tantrum after he left and beg my parents to take me to Domlur.
But from Gangamma Circle, where we lived at the time, Domlur was at least two hours away by bus. Today, people get to Mysore in a little over two hours.
I did not get to see planes take off, but I was completely fascinated by Domlur Park on my first visit to the Air Force uncle's place. It had a small pond with guppies in it and a little wooden bridge over a shallow gully. In time, the Domlur flyover showed the little wooden bridge who the ‘Big Daddy' was.
After we shifted to Jeevanbima Nagar in 1990, visits to Domlur became a weekly affair for me. Every Sunday, our ragtag 11-member gang would cycle up to the Domlur ISRO quarters to take on its mighty cricket team.
Cat-and-mouse game
We had over a hundred pitches to choose from in the endless acres belonging to the Army behind the ISRO quarters. If it was a friendly Army ‘bhaiyya', he would let us play if we allowed him to bat a few overs. But most often, we would play a cat-and-mouse game with the Army guards, who did not take kindly to trespassing.
After our cricket conquests, which always ended in defeat, we would drown our sorrows in soft drinks and puffy apple cakes at the Iyengar Bakery on Old Airport Road. Sometimes, we would cycle through the defence land to get to Koramangala where we would gape at the palatial houses.
I remember the day the A320 crashed at the HAL Airport. My friends, who lived at the ISRO quarters, said that they ran through the Army area and cut across the KGA golf course to get to the crash site at Chelaghatta. That is not possible any more.
The first time I did see a plane taking off was from the top of a little hillock on Army land. The ring road ate up the hillock, which was somewhere near where the Dell office stands today.
The Domlur Shanti Sagar was the closest we could get to vegetarian ‘fine dining' in those days. And Mac Fast Food near Diamond District was one of the few places in Bangalore that served hamburgers.
My first job was with an advertising firm in Domlur. The grand salary of Rs. 2,500 was good enough for at least two executive lunches a week at the then fashionable Paratha Point. During the last few days of the month, we would settle for ‘masala puri' at the pushcart next to the bus depot.
In time, some of the biggest names in the corporate sector set up shop in the area. TGI-Fridays, Royal Orchid and CornerHouse, and Leela Palace imposed their stamp on the landscape of this little settlement.
