Melting Potluck

People worry quite a bit about social media and its effects upon society, their children and so on, but I must admit that in the limited and rather benign way I use it, I’m enjoying this phase of the Internet enormously. My mother for one would have LOVED Instagram.

Particularly food! Growing up, I think households stuck with their traditional ways of doing things. As a young, inexperienced householder, my mother’s talimpu or chaunk, her mix of spices, even her preferred way of chopping vegetables displayed a certain particularity; a style made up with a few elements – certainly including her caste, her region, her mother’s ways of doing things. She branched out hugely as she went on, loading more variety in a meal than we could possibly eat.

I, who wasted my mother’s presence while I had it by not learning very much, am not very hardwired. My knowledge for whatever I may seek comes from Youtube Akka, the collective sorority on the web. Some searches go back, diving into traditional recipes, some expeditions are made into the brave new world of other cuisines and experimentation.

“Akka, pandu mirchi pachchadi cheyyadam…?”

“Idigomma, ila!”

“HoLige maaDo vidhana?” 

“Yes, yes, sariyagi noDulkoLi…”

“Maami, kozhukattai eppadi…” 

“First outer maavu panDradu kattikonga…”

And then there is the unsought. I had no idea the humble rava coupled with a cup of curd could be so versatile. And then there are combinations that I had not previously considered.

One of my favourite summer recipes has come to be this lovely cold soup, which was described as a kind of gazpacho. It pairs cucumbers and green grapes with yoghurt. I don’t know what Ayurveda has to say about it, but I have decided it’s worth the risk.

In my version, in go a couple of green chillies, some black peppers, four or five bird eye chillies, two pods of garlic, pink salt and a dash of olive oil. The addition of dill makes it fabulous but equally nice are coriander and mint. Blend it all and serve chilled.

Dhanya Ananda Dina

“There he is! Look! Oh my God, illé nintiddare! He’s standing right here!” Shweta and I nudged each other in quick whispers.

Our first ever in-person glimpse of our beloved Guru was of his back. We had entered the open grounds for the launch of five of Sadhguru’s books in Kannada, and he was standing at the back of the venue, facing away from us, speaking to a couple of people. I remembered his shawl, which had snakes going up. In my memory over the years, it had morphed into one large, highly striking snake but alas, the internet’s memory is as good as the elephants’. The video I found gives my remembered image the lie – they were a series of small snakes undulating upwards from the rich border.

Anyhow, there he was and there we were. The start of a love saga of unexpressable sweetness.

+++

In Isha, people are as fond of telling their own stories as they are anywhere else. But if there is one story that everyone will listen to with rapt attention (in fact will poke out of you, if you’re willing to share), it is of how you came to be with Sadhguru. Each story is unique: some are dramatic, some more matter-of-fact, but each is arrestingly interesting to us.

This is our story.

Our mother passed in 2009 and my sister and I dealt with it in different ways. Shweta took up a series of work assignments, I did nothing but stay home and stare at the walls. The sharp grief passed and at one point we looked at each other and wondered what the rest of this life was going to be like. Our spiritual bent was more keenly accented now, and I remember saying, “Rama-Krishna ankonDu iroNa.” Perhaps just turn consciously towards the divine. It would help find guidance in some next life, wouldn’t it?

We were not very learned but this message had rammed home – we needed a Guru. Not someone a little more accomplished, who knew a few more turns on the path, but a full Satguru, the Kaamil Murshid, the Ultimate Guide, the Perfect Master. We were particularly scared of half-baked guidance, having read horror stories of aspirants bogged down at some stage or led disastrously astray by their own accomplishments.  

In November 2010, still unsuspecting, I put up this blog post. 

Early 2011, we were tripping on the Cricket World Cup. And yet, we talked about how to go about this spirituality business. Having heard that world would have five Satgurus at any time, Shweta said somewhat wistfully, “Surely India would have at least one!”

“This person who writes in the Deccan Chronicle occasionally… he calls himself ‘Sadhguru’,” I said.

The problem with that however was that spirituality is no better than any other area when it comes to quacks and dilettantes. Anybody can stick a grand title to their name, and who can tell? Still… the word ‘Satguru’ is not a magniloquent word to be randomly affixed, it is a specific Office. This man didn’t seem dishonest or so stupid as to be unaware of the consequences of such a travesty. What if… he really was a True Master?

So with the excitement of the world cup playing alongside, we started to watch some videos on Youtube. In those days, Isha’s videos had a particular flute drift as their opening signature and that tune played out repeatedly in our home. By the 7^th or 8^th video, we knew we’d found him.

We must’ve watched 350-400 videos that month. One of the videos had an end slide announcing an Inner Engineering program with Sadhguru in Mysore in April. Our own people came from around Mysore, and it was Sadhguru’s hometown, moreover where he experienced his Liberation. We registered, booked our train tickets, bespoke a hotel room and landed there on 14^th April, a day before the program.

We saw him that very evening at the book launch, sat down and listened as he took questions, and as he left, we followed with folded hands as far as we were allowed. Our first acquaintance with a feeling that was to become very familiar over the years – the wrench that happens in the region of the heart when Sadhguru leaves a space.

15-17 April 2011 changed our lives. We were initiated on Chaitra Poornima. “We didn’t plan it,” Sadhguru chuckled. He never does, but auspiciousness always happens.

12 years (and some ¼-½) is one sun cycle. For sadhakas, this time frame is like a probationary period. Just do what you’re told and stay the course. What crossing it will mean, I have no idea. But it’s a milestone. 

 

Handover

Twelve years since these anguished posts [1] [2] [3].
 
Twelve years since my mother passed. A full solar cycle comes to a close in a few months. It seems just like the other day, and yet it feels like a lifetime or two have passed.

I think I've said before that my mother dealt with the news of imminent death with a rare fortitude and pragmatism. She called for the ‘bank bag’, signed a few blank cheques, made sure the papers were in good order. She roughly planned the menu for the 13th day death rites. She said her goodbyes with love, and kindness almost – she left behind a legion of bereaved people, each of whom had experienced her friendship in their own unique way.

As she lay very fatigued from the aggressive cancer, I remember bringing her a dozen dabbas from the kitchen, ascertaining the precise nature of the myriad unlabelled powders on the shelves. “That is vangi bhaath powder, that is Nagamani aunty’s recipe for curries… that pickle mix is old, throw it away…” A handing over of the kitchen in a manner of speaking.

And I took down a few recipes and ratios the way she made them – the staple idli and dosa, a couple of powders. “For adai,” she told my sister, “just leave it to your father. Only, he tends to make the batter a little too thick, so just add a little water when you make them.” She was so right – my father’s adai hittu ranks among the best in the world.

To mark that sharply-etched time, I have Johana West’s (bitter)sweet haiku.

old family recipe
hoping our hands
are the same size

From a time when recipes weren’t written in cup measures but were an intuitive affair involving a pinch of this, a dollop of that and as my mother said back then, indicating less than a quarter of her hand, ‘ondu ishtu uppu’ (this much salt).

For those who came before us

It is amazing how something can stay hidden in plain sight. How nothing exists perhaps till you turn towards it and shine the light of your attention on it. I have said before that I only first paid any heed to death rituals when my mother passed away. Since then, there has been a further deepening of awareness how meticulous this land, this Bharat has been in dealing with its dead.

The dead are dead, you may say; better to turn our energies towards the living, you may insist. You’re right, but there is no dichotomy. Catering to the dead also takes care of the living. You are both assisting the disembodied as well as giving your own life ample room to maneuver and express itself.

Yesterday was Mahalaya Amavasya – a phrase I have been hearing for most of my life without knowing the significance of. We have so many festivals and special days in our culture, it seemed just one of those things elders made a grand fuss about. Plus, a somewhat morbid concept – a fortnight to address the needs of pitrus… generations of dead ancestors who lived centuries ago. We don’t even remember their names – what then is the need to make such a shoo-sha about offering them balls of rice and sesame? Wasteful symbolisms! Doubtless this must’ve been the frame of mind that prevented me from even observing this rite with the consideration it deserved.

Sadhguru says, “Your body carries trillion times more memory than your conscious mind. Will you remember your great-great-great-grandfather? You don't, but his nose is sitting on your face because your body remembers. Your body remembers how your forefathers were a million years ago.” I now dimly understand that we are a continuum. The latest but not the last in a series of pop-up lives on this planet. Pitru Paksha is a way of paying homage to those who came before us, and it is also a way of distancing the influence of these pitrus over our lives – loosening, in a way, their genetic hold over ourselves, so that we may live free-er and fuller lives.

In recent years, Sadhguru has been paying inordinate attention to this aspect. His book on Death is an explosive one, a revealing treatise on a range of aspects that were hitherto veiled. Also, I have been thinking a lot about Kashi, the maha smashana, where death rituals are a way of life. [Of course, any excuse to remember Kashi will do. When can I go back there, I wonder?]

Yesterday, around midnight at the Isha Yoga Center, there was a rather magnificent ceremony – they’ve done it for years but the scale this year was a bit grander. This was in preparation perhaps for the Kala Bhairava deity that my Guru is in the process of consecrating.

Some pictures:

(Pics: LingaBhairavi.org)

Imprint

I hailed one of our street vendors this morning to buy flowers for Krishna Janmashtami today. They were fresh and lovely and I splurged on a bit of everything - chamanti, sanna jaaji, malli, lilies, roses... 

It's been almost ten years since my mother passed away and still he said wistfully, "Amma achche se, chchaav se lete the!" I remember Leelamma specially on festival days too - she would sit in the tiny pooja room, and sing as she weaved garlands. Our neighbours across the back wall still remember pausing in their work to hear her sing. 

Wonderful, isn't it, to be remembered like that, a decade after you've left?

But then what of Krishna? That Glorious One who walked this earth more than 5,000 years ago? And still we talk of his beauty, his feats, his cuteness, his charm, his colour, his clothes, his lovers, his enemies, his wiles, his compassion. Even today, people dress up their young children in his image, tying up peacock feathers in their hair. Even today, songs are sung in longing for him.

Still to remain an intimate experience for millions of people, still tangible... you could close your eyes today, reach out for him, and manage to touch him. 

How truly wonderful to have lived like that! 

 

***

Edited to add:

#HappyJanmashtami pic.twitter.com/yvcxky4Kpg

— Sadhguru (@SadhguruJV) August 11, 2020

Sahib ne bhang pilayi

I said earlier that this year felt like it had been running wild? Well, one of the exciting things we did was to go to a workshop on Kabir. A five-day residential workshop on one of the most hard-hitting raconteurs of the spiritual journey. Readers of this blog will know how much I love this man, and love to quote him: for many years now his utterances have served as clinchers to my primary quandaries as a seeker.

In 2009 – what a year that was! – I happened to go to a Kabir Festival in Delhi. I speak of what happened to me here, and a little more about the festival and its personalities here. 

It seemed extraordinarily important even as I went through the weekend, but what it was doing to me, how it was preparing me and to what end... this became apparent only a few days later. The immersive festival experience happened on 4, 5 and 6 September 2009. Around the same time, my mother was feeling poorly and went through a few medical tests. On 11 Sept, the results came and we learnt that we were going to lose her in a matter of weeks.

Now, this – that my mother might die – had always been one of my worst and very active fears... the stuff of nightmares. As much as I was sure that I would not be able to bear her loss, I had fretted about it for decades. And now it was coming true.

It was my Guru’s compassion, his grace, his love... to prepare me for a blow I had dreaded all my life. Buffered by Kabir, I took the news better than I could ever expect to. The next few months, I was able to live intensely, love intensely and let go gracefully, even joyfully.

Now seven years later, here was a chance to go to a workshop conducted by the inspirational Prahlad Tipaniya himself. It was meant. A chance to express my gratitude – and close a loop.

And another chance to bow low, very low to my Guru.

In Twos and Threes

As always, stuff comes in twos and threes.

Earlier this week, I was reminded of Shiv Kumar Batalvi’s heart-wrenching Maaye ni maaye main shikra yaar banaya. I had read an excerpt from the much-praised H is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald’s account of a goshawk she raised. It sounds fascinating and I can’t wait to read it.

Batalvi, experienced perhaps in loving wild things and having them leave him, is enamoured of the hawk in this poem. He says:

Choori kuTaaN
Te o khaaNda naaheeN
Uhnu dil da maas khavaaiya
Ik uDaari aesi maari
O muR vatani na aaiya

I crushed choori, but he would not eat it.
So I fed him the flesh of my heart...
He took flight, and such a flight it was
That he never turned this way again...
Oh, I befriended a hawk, mother!

Jagjit Singh sings a melancholy version of this poem here:



And while on this, I found something else. Jagjit Singh singing Batalvi again and this one, the utterly pathetic Maaye ni maaye mere geetan ne nainan vich...
I clung to this song for a while, when I was grieving my mother’s death so intensely a few years ago.

Aakh su ni kha laye Tuk
HijaraaN da pahkiya,
LekhaaN de ni puTHaRe tave!
Chat laye tarel looni
GhamaaN de gulaab toN ni,
Kaalaje nu hausala rave!

Tell him, mother, to swallow the bread
Of separation.
He is fated to mourn.
Tell him to lick the salty dew
On the roses of sorrow,
And stay strong.

Although I still love Nusrat’s version best, here is (a very young) Jagjit Singh giving it a shot:



___
Translations are from Suman Kashyap, or based on her translations.

Then and Now

For many years, when my sister was studying at NIFT and then working in Delhi, I was the only child at home, pampered and pandered to.

My grandfather would fast on certain days – ingest only fruit during the day and break the fast with something other than rice, something like a light meal of upma or avvalakki. All of it came under the name ‘phaLahara’. (Literally it means a fruit diet but loosely the word was used to indicate the whole day’s regimen.) I thought it made a nice change and announced to my parents that I was going to do this too. Oh, not fast, not that! But on Saturdays, I would not eat the regular rice-curry-sambhar-rasam-curd dinner. I would have ‘phaLahara’ too – but a treat of some sort. A burger or pizza from the local fast food outlet, or Chinese or Italian or pav bhaji... something exotic.

The burden of arranging this meal invariably fell to my dad. Early evening he would ask me what I wanted, I would enjoyably go over my options and put them down in a list, and he would set out to buy my dinner, or at least the ingredients. And my mother – who usually ruled us with a fairly tight hand – undersigned this arrangement. I remember Shweta clucking her tongue at this self-indulgence, and astonished at the fact that the parents were LETTING me do this, and helping me do it. But they did for years – amused and indulgent of my tweak of an old custom.

I remember this today, this Ekadasi day. Once I admitted to myself a few years ago that I was indeed on the spiritual path, there have been so many lifestyle changes. Some deliberate choices, some that I arrived at without quite knowing how. Some dictated by the energy system, some simply because they made sense. Among those changes is fasting on Ekadasi. I didn’t think I could do it, but given my disordered digestive system, it came to be a no-brainer. After years of indulging the stomach, I have come to the pleasure of resting it.

A time for everything

Hi Momsie!

Links: Missing links and Other Things

I can’t go wrong today, it seems. Every day brings exhortations from my social media timelines – links that lead to news, videos, cat videos, absorbing views, activism, personal photo albums... the lot. Today, link after link led to gold, so I’m just collating it all.

First thing in the morning, my friend Samanth Subramanian’s most excellent and moving essay about his grandfather, whom he says he didn’t question closely enough when he was alive. (I find that shocking – Samanth has at least half a dozen questions for anyone.) But now with the man himself obscured by death, Samanth tries to make ‘forensic guesses’ about his grandfather’s life, to build a sketchy biography, and a tribute.

He says: “There is some complicated guilt here too, lurking in the corner but unavoidable. I have felt as if I am personally responsible for rupturing traditions that run back many generations and that are still alive, to some extent, in the person of my father... under my uncaring stewardship, a certain continuity has snapped, and a vast body of inherited knowledge has suddenly and irreversibly decayed.”

How this resonates with me! Particularly since my mother’s death, I find myself stupidly at a loss – and feel many pangs over this heritage that could have been mine if I had only respected, valued it more. Between my grandmother’s lifestyle and mine is such a world of difference and I know whose is shallower, poorer.

In the same vein allow me to link (although I came across it a few weeks ago) to another fine piece that speaks of a culture, a past we have wantonly let go of.

When Shweta and I discuss this loss, we are agreed that the blame lies with our parents’ generation – our doting parents who loved their parents but didn’t respect them enough, who looked too much to the future, to western educations, to success, to expanding their horizons beyond anything their forefathers had dreamt of. Theirs the blame for not holding on tightly enough, for their lack of conviction, for not insisting that we, their children, learn and carry on some of it, for letting it all sink before we thought to grasp it. Is that too harsh? I am not bitter, only regretful.

====

Another link today led to this wonderful interview with actor Kangana Ranaut. She’s astonishingly poised, impressively mature (she’s 26!) and devoid of artifice or affectation.



===

My Guru talks of knowing rain: “If you walk through the rain with utmost awareness, you will know rain in a certain way. But if you walk through the rain with absolute abandon, you will know rain another way.” Isn’t that like holding on to moon beams? Can one know rain? He says maybe. That’s what I’m after. Which way I still don’t know, but I’ll know in the end. Or it won’t matter.

But let Sadhguru speak for himself.

====

And though I didn’t come across these links today-today, these TED talks enlivened my week, so they go in here too.

Iwan Baan on how people carve out homes in unexpected places and ways:



This unexpectedly moving lecture on muses by Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love:

Gorgeousness 2

It's been a 'nada yoga' kind of week. A dhrupad recital by Pt Uday Bhawalkar yesterday - he started with a gliding Madhuvanti, roused us all with 'Shiva, Shiva, Shiva' in Adana, went on to a soul-felt Rageshri and concluded with Behag (I think!). Mesmerising!

 

Gorgeousness

#nowlistening to L Subramaniam playing Raga Sivapriya. What sweetness it is!
It sounds like Shivaranjani but not quite, and I don't have the expertise to put my finger on the difference. But it is enough to be able to listen.

The link is here.
 

Dil garden garden ho gaya

Midlife navel gazing having passed, it is time for this to come down. 

midlife...
my car radio
on scan
--Christopher Patchel

But, in its stead, I have nothing to say.
My days fall into a pattern these days. At about five in the afternoon, the day has cooled enough and I rush to gather the jasmines that are blooming a riot on our creepers. The 'sanna jaaji' buds in particular tend to open by 5.45 and if I must weave* them into a small garland, I must get there early, or I get the half-opened flowers which are not so easy to handle.

Then with two baskets of flowers, I sit making these strands.The fat mallis take well to being strung by the needle but the juhis I must tie by hand: their stalks are too tender for the needle I have.

There is no way I can reach all the flowers. The bushes tell the tale conspicuously by wearing a cloak of white in the areas just beyond my grasp. As night falls, the air is redolent. As I eat my dinner, and as I follow the travails of Anandi, the Balika Vadhu, or the feisty Madhubala, these perfumes of Arabian jasmine waft in. But of that, as I said, there is nothing to say.

scent of
night-blooming jasmine
words get
in the way
--Thomas Martin
___________________
*does one weave garlands? what is the right verb? It is poNsodu in Kannada.

It's your birthday

I was cleaning a cupboard today (yes, I'm good that way, once in a decade) and unearthed a considerable bundle of Archie's and Hallmark cards. If only I could get half-price for the lot, I'd have a fortune. Birthday cards, 'do well in your exams' cards, notes... cards exchanged between ourselves, wishes from cousins, friends, neighbours, parents, one from Bapa (my grandfather) and three from a dog. A few are straight, sweetly sentimental but mostly the pile yields 'insult' cards that were all the rage at one time.

I found several wishing me on my 21st birthday - sigh, already they had started insulting about my age and at least two friends, I discover, urge me to be wild and drive Porsches. Err... note from the future: that would be a Nano, and no, I haven't gathered the guts to drive it around the colony at midnight yet.

I don't know how it started but no birthday card was ever, EVER complete without the adjuration to 'FREAK OUT'. It became a joke with us, and we never did fail to have that golden phrase figure somewhere. From Shweta to me, me to Shweta, cards from Nitya, Priya and Sriram... all bearing the famous words.

When she was here and cleaning her cupboard, Shweta uncovered a set of unused cards - no doubt purchased so to be handy when a dear close friend sprang an unexpected birthday. They are ALL age cards. She showed them to me and I chuckled over them. Then, she said, "No one gives anybody cards these days, so I'll just give them to you." But alas, I had seen them all. Never mind, she tells me bracingly, you'll never know WHICH one you're getting. That just makes me feel warm all over. 

Death rites

Krishna Mutt, Mahendra Hills, Secunderabad

11am

It is my mother's thithi today. But the arrangements have gone awry: the purohit who was to have conducted the ceremony has gone to Saroor Nagar instead and there is no one here to do the shraadha. The alternative was to come back on amavasya and do it, and we were almost resigned to it but an alternative had been arranged quite fortuitously. I'm glad.

The pains we take to set the dead to rest, across cultures... Energy, resources and propulsion for the journey forward, good vibes and a plea to let go of us as we let go of them.

My mother's funeral was the first time I looked at death rites with any attention. Since then I have become better informed about what happens to the body and spirit as they part, why these rituals are done, what they mean. The ceremony today is bound to be a cursory one, truncated perhaps, a 'sankshipta' affair in keeping with our modern tendency to have done. I don't know enough to judge, but let's see if we can compensate the haste of the ritual with intention.

 

1.30pm

It turned out ok in the end. The replacement acharya was conscientious and my father did what was needed with as much devotion as he could manage - he doesn't really have much patience with this sort of thing, although his sense of responsibility is bolstered a bit by the earnestness with which my sister and I approach it. The mutt's kitchen managed, at short notice, to feed us as well.

Gadbad, Gadbad!

I mentioned recently my travel to the coast of Karnataka? It was for this story, published in Outlook Traveller, December 2012.

Incidentally I was supposed to go to the other coast but Cyclone Nilam had her say and suddenly altered plans saw me doing this wonderful jaunt. All good.

 

=========== 

All Pretty On The Western Front

 

Apart from the wonderful Udupi food and the marvellous array of seafood that the western coast of India is known for, there is another kind of culinary offering – one that had escaped my notice till I actually landed there. It mystified me at first. If an ice cream proclaimed itself to be ‘Gadbad’ Ice Cream, what might it do to my insides? With a six-day trip ahead of me, I let it go in Mangalore (regret!), eyed it again on Kaup Beach and then gave in to sample it in Karwar.

This is a vertical sundae, a concoction invented in Mangalore. In a tall glass, they lay a bed of fruit salad, pile up three scoops of ice cream in any flavours you fancy, sprinkle it with dry fruits and tutti-frutti and, to finish up, pour some honey and vividly coloured syrup all around. A bit of everything. It occurred as I was eating it that it wasn’t a half-bad description of my own jaunt up the coast of Karnataka. With Mangalore at the base, a dollop each of Udupi, Murudeshwara and Gokarna, garnished with beaches and temples, flavoured everywhere with the salt of sea breeze. It was very gadbad.

Mangalore was full of contrasts. Wearing the look of a blasé city but a scratch or two reveals the town – and its history. First we decided to be obeisance to Goddess Mangala Devi, who gives the city its name. An old temple (some say 9^th, some say 10^th century) still half-wearing its Dussehra finery – festivities this temple is famous for. Then a visit to Lord Kadri Manjunatha was called for. This is an 11^th century temple built over in several layers. On the side, through the slats in the window, I peeped at a truly magnificent bronze idol of Trilokeshwara. Should it be in a museum, lit and well displayed, or better thus, viewed through a narrow aperture, preserving a quaint mystery and installed in a consecrated space?

The sun dipped and we headed to the shores at Panambur beach, where the Mangalore Port is located. Children squealed in delight, young men thundered up and down the sand on hired ponies, and gaggles of girls dunked each other in the water. I bought myself a cone of bhel puri and saw the sun off.

The next day was devoted to the temple town of Udupi, the history and lore of which are steeped with references to Madhvacharya, the 13^th century philosopher-saint who propounded the Dvaita school of Indian philosophy. This was hallowed turf for me; a veritable Mecca for the community I hail from, and I’d never been. So basking under what I hoped was the benign approval of now-deceased grandparents, I went.

Car Street Road is where it’s all at. In a close cluster – amidst a bustling market selling everything from flowers to cool drinks, puja essentials to curios – the temples. The ancient Chandramoulishwara temple and the Ananteshwara temples are traditionally understood to have first dibs on your attention – you must visit these before you visit the main Krishna temple. There are stories and legends told about everything, and there is the curious case of the west-facing idol. The story goes that the poet-saint Kanakadasa was not allowed entry into the shrine by the upper-class priests and so stood outside singing songs of praise. Pleased with his devotion, Krishna turned west to face him even as the wall developed a crack. So darshan here is sought through a small window called Kanakana kindi. A rather splendid view it is too: a small idol adorned with a ‘vajra kavacha’, armour studded with diamonds.  Around the temples stand the eight muttas – temple administrative systems, if you will – that take care of the Krishna temple in turn. The whole street is redolent with a culture that is now shrinking.

Free lunch is offered at the temple and I found my way to the large dining room at lunch time. Long rows of people seated on the floor for a lovely meal of rice, chutney, sambhar, saaru and buttermilk. A massive container of rice came pushed in a trolley, huge vats of liquid carried up and down the line by two men, efficiently dispensing the broth. “Yellinda ma neevu?” I got asked again and again, “where are you from?” The curiosity deepened to friendliness every time I responded in Kannada. My neighbours guided me through the meal, assuring me there was saaru to come when I wondered how to allocate my rice, and graciously took their leave as I still lingered over my plate.

The temples visited, we headed to the sea at Malpe Beach. At the entrance, a large statue of Mahatma Gandhi loomed on the horizon. In the afternoon light, the Mahatma looked forlorn – but no doubt I was letting my own pessimism about the state of the nation carry me away. Sufficient numbers of enthusiastic locals gambolled in the water but we left them to take a ferry 6km across to St Mary’s Island, one of four small uninhabited islands that are geologically very significant. Huge columns of basaltic lava are strewn across the island and are stunning indeed. Vasco da Gama is supposed to have stopped here on his way from Portugal to Kozhikode and given it its name.

Back at Malpe, I called for a chai and a fortifying sandwich, and we also made time for one other stop – the extremely beautiful Kaup beach. I don’t know if the beach coloured the mood or if it was the mood that enriched the beach – but it seems now to be painted in my memories with hues of gold, blue and purple. There is a noble lighthouse here that was built in 1901 and it carries layers of memory. On the rocks, young people sat quietly appreciative, talking in low tones and walked down the rough stairs before it became too dark to see.

We were doing a longish haul the following day and heading all the way to Murudeshwara, 165km from Mangalore. The erstwhile NH 17 is now called NH 66 – not quite the legend its American counterpart is but an interesting enough road. The highway goes from Kochi to Mumbai and serves the entire coast of Karnataka. Scenic mostly… dotted by a series of bridges over canals formed by the backwaters, lined with coconut trees, paddy fields and broad leaved sal. The road does not, for the most part, hug the coast – although the tang of the sea is never far away.

But a little beyond halfway, suddenly the blue comes into view and you know you’re in the very beautiful Maravanthe stretch. We stopped for lunch at a resort here, which gave us the advantages of open views of the water along as well as a thatched roof over our heads. A little further, fisherfolk busied themselves with their nets, their colourful boats lined up high on the sand. I was squinting in the hot afternoon sun, feeling a little sorry that we should not have come upon this peaceful spot when it was a bit cooler. But that was only till I hitched up my trousers and let the waves come to me, caressing as they retreated. The sea has that quality, I find, of altering your perspective. It was no longer too hot, and with thousands of crabs milling about their hidey holes and sandpipers roosting in the rocks, it was absolutely the perfect time to be in Maravanthe.

Along the road, we came upon a dramatic picture frame – the waves crashed to the left and to the right, winding her way in languorous bends, the Souparnika river. An auspicious river that supposedly absorbs the goodness of 64 medicinal plants and herbs as it flows – a dip in these waters, therefore, is believed to be marvellously curative. I remember my mother insisting that her skin turned a beautiful golden when she bathed in the Souparnika… but there was no easy access to the water at this point and I regretfully gave up the idea of bringing home one bottle of its magic.

Soon we were at the bustling temple town of Murudeshwara. Dozens of buses at the local bus stop, taxi stands in the narrow main street, shops, tourists, eateries, lodges. The beach isn’t the cleanest by any means – the tourists keep to one side and the fisherfolk occupy the other. However, there are two features that tower over the town – one, the 20-storied raja gopuram to the Murudeshwara temple, about 237ft tall that needs you to crane your neck all the way if you’re standing at the entrance; and two, a 123ft sculpture of Shiva that dominates the landscape from miles away. The Murudeshwara shrine itself is old, linked to the convoluted legend of Ravana and the atma linga, but the temple has been constructed over the past decades through the efforts of local businessman and philanthropist R.N. Shetty; the sculpture, one of the tallest in India, is his vision as well.

There is a wonderful opportunity for underwater adventure at Murudeshwara. The lovely dive site of Netrani is 20km off the coast from here – and the lure was irresistible. The next morning saw us chugging along in the motor boat listening to a basic primer on scuba diving. The coral island of Netrani is a beautiful spot with a visibility of 15-20m and I was excited. Soon I was kitted out with the cylinder fastened to my back and I learned to my dismay that I was expected to fall into the water with a back flip – oddly enough, the aspect that scared me the most. Still, that was accomplished without a hiccup, and my instructor and I descended slowly. It didn’t seem so drastically different from snorkelling at first but the pressure started building in my ears and I knew I was definitely under water. We went down to about 12m. Vast schools of fish, fascinatingly coloured, marine life along the floor, corals, anemone… I saw other divers, hand-signalled ok for the underwater cameras and looked about avidly. A mere half-hour in a completely different element. I loved it but it did make me appreciate air and the fact that I was designed for it.

We moved up north to Gokarna next – which seemed to be the point where, culturally,  Karnataka melded into Goa. The beach shacks were more geared to the European palate, the beach shops had an eye firmly on the foreign tourist market. We stayed at an interesting little place called Namasta Yoga Farm, which is run by German Oliver Miguel. My cottage had a gorgeous yoga deck framed by orange curtains and I succumbed at once to the temptation of twelve rounds of Surya Namaskars.

The beaches here are beautiful: Om, with its undulating shape, and Kudle, so popular with the foreign tourists. Perhaps the name bestows a certain quietude to people who visit Om, because towards evening even the gambollers sauntered over to the rocks and fell to quiet meditation. Journey’s end but I fear it’s given me a taste for the sea that my land-locked city will struggle to assuage.

 

=====

 

The story, with additional information, is also up here.

Request

kaShTadallirali utkruShTadallirali eShTadaru matigeTTu irali

krushNa kruShNa endu shishTaru pELuva ashTAkshara mahAmantrada nAmada

nArAyaNa ninna nAmada smaraNeya sArAmrutavu enna nAligege barali...
-Purandara Dasa

Whether I be in trouble, or in a perfect state, be my mind ever so disordered,
Let me utter 'Krishna, Krishna', the eight-syllabled mahamantra that the learned chant
Narayana, let my tongue taste the nectar that the remembrance of your name brings

Mere hanjroon de toofan*

I dusted off an old, much-loved music album today with songs by Anup Jalota. And re-found this sher with a very short behr:

baithe baithe rone ki,
rut hai paagal hone ki

बैठे बैठे रोने की
रुत है पागल होने की 

And it seemed to fit my mood (and so goes on the header). You see, somehow this November (1, 2) is here again. It has always been a vivid month for me. Everything darkens... you begin to prize what light there is. This year, the month has begun with a piercing drizzle as well. Everything inexplicably turns a little more profound, more meaningful -- also a little melancholy. I cannot say why.

Fittingly, this ghazal has another sher that I like:

marne wala mitti ka
arthi chaandi-sone ki

मरने वाला मिट्ठी का
अर्थी चांदी सोने की

That's it! How did the shayar manage to pack so much comment into eight words? These poets, I tell you...

__________
*The blog title is from Farid's Meda ishq vi toon, in which he says, among other things, 'Mere hanjroon de toofan vi tu...': you are (also) my stormy tears.

Phool khile hain...

The rains are here again, everything is beautiful and our jasmines are flowering. We have four plants around the house and mercy be, they’re all putting out buds.

One of these is a particularly insane giver. Once spring arrives, it kicks gears all the way up. No holding back, no spacing out… just whooooosh. For a week or ten days, the whole creeper turns white with abundance. My mother – grateful and dismayed at this bounty – would need several pairs of helping hands to haul them in. Then she would sit and laboriously try to string as many as humanly possible into garlands.

I’ve always enjoyed gathering these flowers, which I found a bit surprising. I used to have a very low boredom threshold and surely this is boring, repetitive work? But I think now there is a meditative quality about the activity. Giving, taking, loving, thanking… a sweet transaction.

I was so pleased yesterday to have samples from all four shrubs, I took the trouble to document it. For whiteness and fragrance, I do believe our big ones could rival the mallis of Madurai.

And here, simply because the malli is the recipient of the hero’s confidences, being asked to bear witness to the woes that beset his life, this song. Also because I love Ghantasala’s extra long caress of the phrase “mounamuga unnaaaa…ra?” The song actually begins at 4.28 so jump ahead please – this was only video I found.

The listener, who listens in the snow

Moving from the eternal:

sab dharti kaagaj karun, lekhni sab banrai
saath samudra ki masih karun, Guru gun likha na jaaye
- Kabir

to the seasonal again. Haiku poet David Caruso saying:

snowflakes . . .
no two winters
quite the same

I have held this poem close to my heart for a couple of years now. That we don’t actually get any snow here is quite beside the point; the reputation of the snow flake precedes it, the very word brings up a fragile, ephemeral pattern of irreplicable beauty.

Snowflakes. The poet throws in the word – and the world of the poem. Then as you settle into a generic mind of winter, he reminds us that no two are quite the same. He is very right. I can remember the winters of at least four years past, and I fancifully find myself in a tableau. In something like a snow globe, perhaps. Standing stock still in the middle of winter, and the events drifting around me – one year’s events nothing like another’s. And I, filmed in gentle time-lapse, every time caught up in new insights, losing and gaining, dissolving and building, changing, changing, changing.  

The winter of 2009 comes to mind again, brings not quite pain but the memory of pain:

a nursing home blanket
over all her sharp edges —
midwinter

- Jennifer Gomoll Popolis

This winter is going to be different too – it may even be beyond words.