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 …
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