"If your life is a dosa, "One and Half" is your benne masala"
- Kavan Kuttappa, Naru Noodle bar
"The hilarious ravings of an old-Bangalore boy, about a way of life that's almost extinct"
- Varun Thomas Mathew, The Black Dwarves of the Good Little Bay
"To understand the Bengaluru that is, one needs to vibe with the Bangalore that came before - the Bangalore where traffic was light, Indiranagar was a nondescript suburb and Whitefield was a picnic spot. This charming, humorous, and deeply nostalgic trip into Bangalore of the 90s is a great way to do just that."
- Sidu Ponnappa, Entrepreneur
Imagine, if you will, a Sunday morning in a leafy part of Bangalore. The breeze hits you as you walk out of the door. You make your way to the neighbourhood Darshini where you order a Masala Dosa and a filter coffee. You ignore the chatter around you as you bend down, close your eyes and take a whiff of the benne melting into your dosa. If there was a book to evoke the same feeling it would be 'One and Half.'
One and Half is a book inspired by Bangalore. And the many communities and cultures that call it home. A milieu that hasn't been captured well on paper. Until now.
It's a light hearted jaunt through three decades in Bangalore as it's morphed from a pensioner's paradise to having the population of a small country at Silkboard signal. And it shows how eccentric family, friends and fellow citizens can give you the best snapshot of a place and time. Part memoir and part Sambhar, One and Half is an attempt to give an increasingly serious urban India, something it desperately needs: something to chuckle about.