Shimoga Diary … Feeding Nostalgia @ Skanda Canteen, Mandagadde

One road trip is mandatory whenever we go to Shimoga … and Appa and Amma are more than enthusiastic and in fact, Appa has names and details of four or five places ready even before we reach Shimoga … we have visited Keladi, Ikkeri, Jog Falls, Sringeri, Kuppalli, Nagara, on these road trips … and the funny thing is, when we were living in Shimoga, we visited places ‘out of’ Shimoga like Bangalore, Coimbatore, Pune, Salem, etc. … and now we go to Shimoga as visitors … we are now ‘looking in’ … we are tired of ‘looking out’ and ‘living out’ … so, at least for me, there is a lot of nostalgia, desire for unchanged places and structures, small and simple out of way eateries, a gurgling stream, a shady spot, all those arecanut groves, those old village mansions, the list is endless … sigh … sighhhhhhh … whenever I am travelling along these roads, I feel like getting down and camping there, and hiking along those semi-jungle tracks … sitting by the river and reading … Shruti brings me down to terra firma with a resounding thud and says, you won’t last a day there … what about your newspapers, magazines, your books, your laptop, your bathroom (ouch!! she reserves this till the end for a final devastating strike!!) … will you take your house too along with you? Hmmm … reality is not all green and enchanting … yeah, I know all these things … but I still can’t help myself gazing longingly at the green moist water-laden landscape as it breezes past …  

Those desires will always be there … so much for that … anyway, this time we decided to go to Kuppalli again … Kuppalli is the birth place of Kuvempu, the much loved and feted Kannada poet and Kuvempu’s ancestral house in Kuppalli has been made into a wonderful museum … even if you don’t know Kannada or anything about Kuvempu, doesn’t matter, Kuvempu’s house and its surroundings will enchant you like anything … on the way to Kuppalli, we decided to stop at Sakrebailu, the Elephant Camp and look at the those huge creatures as they are brought there in the morning for bath and breakfast (more about this in a couple of days … )

From Sakrebailu we pushed on towards Kuppalli, stopping one more time near Mandagadde, Shimoga’s own small bird sanctuary … the birds come in during the rainy season here, and since this was December here, the birds had left … but I more interested in the small hotel on the other side of the road … Skanda Canteen …

This is the kind of small place that makes my heart glad and eyes gleam … it is just the place … the kind of small eating place that would find a place in a Malenadu novel written in the 1960s or 70s … or would not look out of place in a Malgudi Days sort of serial ... we had visited this canteen the last time too we were at Mandagadde and I remembered the tasty avalakki-mosaru that I had eaten … so, we all went in … it was more than an hour since we had left Shimoga and we were all feeling a bit peckish … the canteen looks exactly like it looked two or three years ago when we last saw it …  the Mangalore-tiled roof with tufts of grass growing between tiles, the sort of concrete bench outside, the fading paint on the wall, the mesh window, the small door …

we all trooped inside through the small door … two big wood tables and bench-chairs … one small table and some chairs around it … and a bench against the wall … calendars on walls … the ubiquitous newspaper … 

and the other side is the open kitchen, one side of which opens out as a small shop … we asked him thindi enenide whatall eatables you have … golibaje, avalakki- mosaru, poori, chakkuli … kaapi, tea … I wanted avalakkki- mosaru, Shruti wanted poori, though I was skeptical about poori … why bother, and we asked for one of everything … golobaje and avalakki-mosaru were delicious … Shubha too ate avalakkki-mosaru I think … poori was cold … Mamoon ate golibaje … Amma ate golibaje I think … in fact, all of us ate a bit of everything … the coffee was really good … I saw Amma relishing it … Shruti savoured her coffee sitting on the stone bench on the outer wall of the canteen … 

Mamoon was curious to know what was there in the shop … we wanted to know why only these few items and he said, only the village people patronize us and we cater to their needs … once in a while visitors like you come … so our clientele is limited and we cannot afford to make more than what we can sell … good only … all in all a satisfying pit stop at Skanda Canteen … more than what I ate, the eating there itself brought out all those latent feelings of imaginary escapes into changelessness … 

Shimoga Diary … Mamoon visits a well!!

Mamoon came back from school one day and said she wanted to see a well … hein … where did this come from … her request stumped me … I searched around in my mind map ... to see if I could locate a well somewhere near where we live … couldn’t remember … we thought we’d ask Lakshmiamma … she is Mamoon’s caretaker and a sort of living directory of names and places … she said something and then we began to plan our Shimoga trip and I told Mamoon that there are lots of wells near our house in Shimoga and we’d see one there … the house that we lived in in Mangalore (Chilimbi) had a huge deep well behind it … and we used to draw water from it during ‘low pressure’ crises … and I vaguely remember a well that was there in the ‘compound’ in Pandeshwar (Late Sri Venkappanna’s Compound) where I lived my very very early life … there were a number of houses with wells in Shimoga too … Manja’s house had one, I think … I never thought a day would come when I’d have to scramble around looking for a well … well!

So, in Shimoga, after the initial couple of days of general lazing around, I remembered the promise I made Mamoon … I asked my mother if there are any wells around … she said her friend’s house had one … I went there, the well was there, but it was not a ‘well’ well … know what I mean … it looked like a sort of underground water tank with a motor, pipes, andall … it didn’t have the ‘well’y paraphernalia … the ‘moss covered’ round wall, the pulley, iron beam, ropes, metal pot … the sort of things that make a well ‘well’ … I was not enthused … I wanted to show Mamoon a well that looks like a well …

A day after this, Mamoon and I went on a recce mission after dinner … we walked along the lanes around our house looking for houses with wells … the wonderful part was we saw so many different types of houses … what we call now as “individual houses” … some houses came and hugged the road, almost … some stood back, allowing space for some plants and trees, space for people to sit around, children to run around … we started looking around for those ‘laid back’ houses and soon enough we espied a well in one … and then in another … and two more … among them, three were ‘modern’ sort of wells … only one fit ‘my’ bill of a well … and Mamoon was thrilled … but we didn’t want to disturb anyone at  night, so we decided to come back in the morning and see the well properly in daylight …

When Mamoon and I went there in the morning, a lady was washing utensils near the well … I said that my daughter wanted to see a well and could we open the gate and come in … she welcomed us effusively … she was smiling and had an amused look on her face all through … she wanted to speak with Mamoon, but Mamoon turned all shy andall … but Mamoon gladly posed for a photo with the well …

 See … it is a really sweet little well, isn’t it?  All nice and crumbly looking … suitably patchy round wall, side pillars, the beam, the rope, the pulley … and you can see the water in the well … the reflection in the water ... it is almost up to the brim … you don’t need a pulley and rope … see that white plastic bucket there … haan … just dip the bucket in the well and pull it out … cool na … 

Shimoga Diary … Our house, the Last Resort …

The last week of last year was spent in Shimoga as a sort of very short vacation … my brother calls our house there as a resort … not during summer, of course, but during monsoon and winter, it is really pleasant at home … whenever we go there half the time is spent on the verandah, generally looking at the world go by … or reading newspapers … or chewing the air … or in mathu-kathe … the verandah watch begins right after breakfast and goes on till lunch time … sometimes the makkaLa party has their breakfast on the verandah itself … cutting vegetables, shelling peas, shelling avarekai, putting out the washing, tea and snacks, all sorts of arguments, decisions – all happen on the verandah from time to time and sometimes simultaneously … from our verandah we can see the community park and the park is ringed by all sorts of trees … and throughout the day we can hear the chirping of birds, the scurrying of squirrels and sometimes chameleons, the gentle sway of falling leaves, the rustle of leaves as birds and squirrels hurry and dash … not to say the scooters and cars … and when schools are open, the chatter of young and older kids, as they pass by … 

and the cows are always there looking for green patches, just a call away … Appa and Amma give them bananas and other fruit and vegetables, and sometimes rice, and rice water and whatever is generally available and if nothing is, then a generous piece of jaggery would do nicely too … and if you’ve forgotten to latch the gate, they just walk in to the house … and Mamoon witnessed one such uninvited bovine entry around three years back … she was stunned but had wits enough to run inside shouting “mamma, gomata eshe gache …!!”

Just opposite the park is the Ganapati temple … in the mornings and evenings the temple is busy with people going in and out and pealing bells and sounds of sloka and bhajane … and when there are special pooje-s during specific auspicious days like sankashti and festivals … and satyanarayana pooje, ganapati homa … then the activity increases, especially in the evenings … and at the end, the delicious prasada … always a delight … 

it all reads very romantic, no? … yes and no, actually … sometimes it does get a tad bit boring … and that’s when you go out of the house and see if Hema Condiments is open … if it is open, then it is open season for mandakki (Teju’s favourite), menasu bajji, etc. … then there is also Nyamti mandakki … not to forget the dustilicious 'gobi manchuri' (Mamoon suddenly wanted Shimoga-wala 'gobi manchuri' in Hyderabad after we came back!!) and massal poori … ummmm mouth is watering only …

And one day as we were generally shooting the air in the verandah, we saw horses … and the whole gang walked and clipped away at the grassy patches … we could hear the charrak charrak as they went about trimming the grass … and as suddenly as they came, they left … and we didn’t see them again till we were there … 

Despondency in the New Year ... Imagined and Real ...

It is now more than two months ago that I wrote my last post on my blog.  I went to Shimoga soon after that for a brief year-end visit with Shruti and Mamoon.  We visited a number of familiar places and I enjoyed these drives along familiar roads.  I took a lot of photographs and wanted to do a write-up with pictures once I returned to Hyderabad.  I usually come back from Shimoga slightly perked up.  It is the one time in the year that I meet my teachers and they usually tell me about new books, and make suggestions about translations and so on.  They indulge me and encourage me, so that feels good.  We returned to Hyderabad late in the evening on the last day of the year.   

The new year did not begin well for me … not that it should have … there was this strange despondency fuelled by monumental lethargy or maybe it was the other way … the thought of going back to the regular ‘college’ grind might have brought the dark clouds on … and then there is this back pain … pain and despondency is a bad cocktail … and so I got to experience the worst possible hangover and it goes on … have never woken up the mornings feeling fresh in the last few months … the moment I leave home, I am thinking of the time I would return … the college sucks the life out of me … it is like those dementors hovering cloudily above … it takes the pith out of me … I have repeatedly made my efforts to get out of that godforsaken place, but I somehow allowed myself to be persuaded to stay back by the highest-up … maybe I am a glutton for punishment … masochist … maybe I deserve it … maybe I am scared of change … known devil, unknown angel sort of thing … who knows … karma and all that … 

The upshot of all this that I inflicted more punishment on myself … sort of self-flagellation … I discontinued my drum classes, telling myself half-heartedly that I would be going back once the clouds cleared … I cut my hair, grown with great perseverance for over 6 months … he he he … my teenage dream come true in late middle age … that was the easiest and most harmless physically … and it grows back … and the thing is, I didn’t want my hair to go … it is gone now … I stopped going to Abids … haven’t met Vinod and gang for more than two months now … my home was my refuge … who was I hiding from … my own incompetence, I think … my own feelings of inadequacy … I stopped writing on my blog … I thought I’d announce a full closure, then a sort of short-term stop … I kept vacillating … I didn’t want to let go of my blog that I have been looking after since 2008 … so many words and stories that I had written over these years … I wanted to announce the closure of this blog in January this year … this blog would have completed 8 years of its existence … I don’t know … all this feeling of wretchedness … I shut down the blog for almost two and half months … all silly questions like the world will move on, who would notice, nobody would mourn and all that … I don’t know whether there is a turn-around now, but the fact that I am writing this disjointed account of my feelings of misery, maybe of my own failure to tackle things with firmness, some sort of fear and guilt, all sorts of complexes, sort of hints that I need to pull myself up by my bootstraps and that this is one such attempt … I owe this much at least to my loved ones … and a little bit to my own self …