On Club House Road, the tired, the hungry, the bored and the huddled masses yearning to breathe free head for Rajendran’s tea kada.
A few years ago, after we became regulars, we decided that the place needed a more handy handle; everybody was getting tired of…“coming to Rajendran’s tea kada?”, “he’s at Rajendran’s tea kada” and “why do you spend so much time at Rajendran’s tea kada?”. BN suggested RT, Brahmaji modified it to GRT, yours truly provided the expansion, ‘G Rajendran’s Tea kada’ and the rest is…all over the papers.
Bonus track. Brahmaji had this habit of punctuating his speech with mane (ma-ney), the bong equivalent of, you know, like. Once when Brahmaji, Sajeev, Balaji and I were in Bangalore, Brahmaji noticed that the word ‘halli’ appeared very frequently on signboards – Devanahalli, Jalahalli, Uttarahalli…He asked Balaji the meaning of the word ‘halli’ and the long-suffering Balaji deadpanned, “It is the Kannada for mane”.
Now check out Halli Mane, a rural restaurant in Malleswaram…Brahmaji’s revenge?
’80s – Maharaja’s, REC
Babu Kuriakose 