The Bangalore Palace

 

‘Guided Tour?’

‘Photos?’

‘Extra Charge’

 

A palace. Empty. Barren. People once lived here.

Now filled with Paying Guests. Headphones and handsets.

Listening to the history of rulers gone.

 

The Architecture a rehash of gothic and Neo-classism. Blended together to make something strangely yet uniquely Indian.

 The Moorish influence of fallen European rulers.

Gifts offered as signs of alliance and opulence.

In a country where a lot was had by a few.

 

And yet the images alone –

Each romantic and calming.

Textured and Peaceful. Deceptive

 

Rewrite.

 

An exotic building where, although now empty, one still feels the remnants of family. As if it were not too long ago that people ate here, Slept here, walked here and waited here.

 

Waited.

 

And perhaps nothing arrived.

 

Or perhaps a new world where they were flung out of these protective walls to fend for them selves. Cracked open to the harshness of the world where others flourish from the failures of others. Where everyone is desperately sacrificing each other to save them selves. The fear so ingrained in us that we don’t pause to consider that others are just versions of ourselves.

 

And so we carry on waiting.

Without realizing that maybe we have already arrived.