Water Woes

I opened the newspaper today to news that water supply to the city might be restricted to every alternate day unless the south-west monsoons drop their load on the streets soon. The Met department would like us to believe that it may not rain as much this time around. I cannot be sure though.

Last week saw one heavy burst that brought parts of the city to a standstill before weakening to interspersing showers in between, nothing to bring the city to a halt, a sign that is taken to mean that water woes could be at our doorsteps.

It prompted a north-Indian tea stall owner where I had sheltered from the rains to remark, “Ab tho sab ka dimag thanda hoga.” (Now – that rains have arrived – minds will be at ease). This was last week.

The newspapers announced the coming of the rains to Bombay in large bold letters, a far cry from the months leading up to the monsoons.

“Cannot understand what is happening with our climate,” the taxi driver had reflected as we drove past a water supply truck backing up on a turn on a summer day.


“These days it is difficult to predict anything at all with the world,” he said while we waited, watching as a man directed the truck driver in negotiating the bend.

As March rolls in and temperatures begin to nudge upwards, sightings of trucks supplying water to neighbourhoods across the city are a common sight, more so in the mornings. March and April are crucial months in the city as water sources supplying much needed succour to the city deplete.


In late-April parts of the city, more so the ‘blue collar’ neighbouhoods packed tightly in narrow lanes, see acute water shortages. Bombay is no more a classless city than say Islamic countries are multi-religious. It is common to see high rises separated from ordinary tenements by only a lane, both sitting comfortably and laying an equal claim to the lane.

Supplying water is big business. On the arrival of a water truck the cry goes out to the chawls and in no time men and women, often in their night dress stream out of their homes and queue up at the truck. All manner of utensils and buckets are employed in collecting water as the din pierces the early morning calm. Office-goers step past the din, observant but oblivious to it.


Children thrill in the morning activity that sees residents from the tenements gather at the water supply truck and exchange small talk, swapping stories while they await their turn at the tap.

Over time the morning ritual becomes an inedible part of their lives, like it once did my own in the rural hinterlands of India I traveled to in my vacations from school.

The Painted Day

Kala Ghoda, Bombay. 2009.


When life throws a palette of colours your way
Step away from the wind.
For, if it is too strong as it will likely be,
The colours will blur quickly into one.
And where you could have painted your day brightly
It will now shiver in the bleakness of none!

The Palmist

Mumbai, 2009


The future you trace in the sands of time,
Will tempt the waves into washing over it.
Instead, let the ocean embrace you,
And I will show you how to ride the waves of life itself.

The Masjid-e-Ala in Srirangapatna

I could’ve passed by the open door oblivious to its significance if not for the two towering minarets that rose from behind the high walls along a path hewn from the earth not far from where the Bangalore Gate of Tipu Sultan’s fort in Srirangapatna lay.


From the street the door parted on young children in kurta pajamas, mostly white, and skull caps moving about the open courtyard fronting a covered veranda where low wooden reading platforms and copies of the Koran (Quran) lay in two neat rows on a worn mattress covering the stone floor. A game of cricket was underway in the open courtyard, the students taking a short break from studying the Koran. As the game progressed there was much merriment around, the enclosed space ringing urgently with anxious cries as the bowlers hurled the tennis ball at the batsmen with fielders alert to any catches coming their way .


,
Across the courtyard, opposite the covered veranda, small rooms made up the inside of the outer wall along its entire length, on all sides. I learnt later that the teaching staff stayed there and so did some of the students. Two water taps lay to one side, adjacent to several tombs discoloured by the elements over the years. Two young pupils were quenching their thirst at the tap while a third one looked on, patiently awaiting his turn at the tap.

Middle aged men with trimmed black beards and clad in the same attire as their students were engaged in a game of cricket with their young wards. I saw more smiling faces in the square there than in the time since we arrived in Mysore from Bangalore the previous day.


The Masjid-e-Ala is also known as the Jama Masjid. A tutor, breaking away from the game of cricket with his students, told me that Tipu Sultan used to pray here during his reign. On his ascension to the throne following the death of his father, Hyder Ali, Tipu Sultan built the Masjid-e-Ala in 1784 and is said to have performed the first Imamath himself.


Topped by domes the double-storied, octagonal minarets look over the countryside and the river Cauvery nudging the ramparts a short distance away. The two minarets rise from a high platform and can be reached by a flight of steps said to number two hundred. Pigeon holes open into the sides of the minarets all the way to the top. The platform houses a large prayer hall to the west.

The Masjid-e-Ala was our last stop before heading to the bus-stand at Srirangapatna for the return journey to Mysore city.


I circled the high platform enclosed by verandas and staying quarters across the open passage that ran around the platform.



A large water tank with a row of over eight water taps at knee level and a low seating of cement and bricks fronting each tap lay to one side of the passage circling the main structure. There, nudged by excited cries of the young Muslim students delighting in the fall of the wicket of a fellow student, I paused for a moment to relate the joviality within the high walls to the tumultuous night of May 4, 1799 in the fourth Anglo-Mysore War when Tipu Sultan fell to the advancing British troops led by Captain David Baird, the man the Sultan had imprisoned for four years in Colonel Bailey’s dungeon after the battle of Pollilur in 1780 before releasing him in 1784.

Fate had other ideas for the Sultan as Captain David Baird’s men breached the fortress on the banks of the Cauvery and came marching in only to be met by the Sultan himself. A violent struggle followed before Tipu Sultan fell not far from where I now stood in the masjid’s courtyard watching an innocuous game of cricket.

On our way to the Masjid-e-Ala we had passed the spot where Tipu Sultan made his last stand on May 4, 1799, rather where his body was found once the skirmish was over.

We had started our day by first visiting the Gumbaz where Tipu Sultan is laid to rest alongside his parents, Hyder Ali and Fatima Begum, in an imposing structure well known for its ivory inlaid doors, pillars, and carved stone windows, before heading to the Daria Daulat Bagh that Tipu Sultan built in 1784 to serve as his summer palace and where a museum now showcases the reign of the Sultan in its many details. Murals, paintings, pencil sketches, coins, medals, and arms among other things bring alive the period in its actual setting.

As the Sun traced its path higher with each passing minute it beat down fiercer, helped in no small measure from the fever I was running, and soon enough as if on que a rickshaw materialized and we got into it for a tour of the remaining sites of historical interest within the fortifications of Srirangapatna, namely Colonel Bailey’s dungeon, the square where Tipu Sultan was killed, Tipu’s palace site, the Masjid-e-Ala, and the Ranganathaswamy Temple.


There was no one around as we emerged from the rickshaw, gravitating to the plaque that said simply, ‘The Body of Tipu Sultan Was Found Here’. Enclosed by low walls the plaque stands in the middle of a square, marking the spot where he fell. The square is empty except for the lone plaque as if in its isolation it seeks to remind one of the moment when isolated from the men he led into battle the Sultan fell alone.

To the north the square is lined by coconut palms along the banks of the Cauvery. It is easy to let the swaying fronds lull one into meandering aimlessly at the spot where India’s history took yet another decisive turn, strengthening the British further and paving the way for their conquest and colonisation of India.

Leaves Of Life

In the early hours of the morning before the sky lights up over the horizon the city wakes up to urgent feet scrambling to make their rendezvous with street-side markets in Dadar, and elsewhere.

Fisherwomen hugging baskets of fish board local trains on their way to suburban fish markets along Central and Western railway lines that bisect the city into ‘West’ and ‘East’ sections. They must start early for the markets, accounting for the travel, and be in time for the first customers hurrying to impromptu stalls on the roadside where it is not uncommon to find women sitting together in groups of three or four, their baskets of fish at their feet and choppers at the ready on makeshift wooden boards. Cats, those creatures of habit, will be up and about awaiting their arrival. Like the fisherwomen they’re fixtures of city mornings.


To the south of the city, fishing boats land their catch at Sassoon Docks. Elsewhere, among several other landing points, fishing trawlers bring in their catch at the beach in Vasai, home to the Kolis, a fishing community known to be among the earliest inhabitants of Bombay and liberally portrayed to love their drink and dance in Bollywood films of yore.

In the shadow of the Vasai fort whose ruins add a surreal whisper to the sea off the coast a hundred-odd metres away, and hidden from view by the earthy homes of the Kolis, there is little evidence of the hectic activity along the coast until the narrow lanes zigzagging through the settlement deposits one on the beach.

Excepting the Cuckoo dallying from the trees in the summer months, newspaper vans split the morning silence before all others.

Large stacks of newspapers make their way across the city, offloading at street corners where groups of youths huddle around them and quickly sort them in time for the delivery boys who then fan out to building complexes and drop off newspapers on door mats in time for office goers to have a quick look at them before they take the elevator down and hail a rickshaw for the railway station to board the local train on their way to work.

The milkmen hit the roads about the same time as newspaper delivery boys.

About the same time trucks and tempos from Vashi and surrounding areas bear their load of vegetables into suburban markets where wholesalers take delivery of the produce. Fierce bargaining is not uncommon at the point of delivery. Then the wholesalers sell the produce to retailers who in turn ferry the produce to their shops or vegetable carts operating on the streets.

In the commotion of vehicles ferrying in milk, vegetables, and newspapers, and the brisk haggling at roadside fish markets, invisible are the hands that quickly pick out small green packs from their bags, flowers neatly wrapped in leaves and secured by thread, inserting the small bundle in the door handle before stepping away to the next apartment. There’s rarely a presence to be sensed until the door opens to the fragrance of Jasmine. Flowers are routinely used in early morning prayers and also in adoring the hair.


Villagers, mostly women, from far flung suburbs set out for flower markets in Dadar and elsewhere with bundles of fresh leaves foraged from the woods, supplying street-side vendors with leaves for use in wrapping short lengths of garlands among other uses.

Depending on availability, leaves of the Teak, the Palas, and the Jackfruit are commonly used for the purpose.

Before dawn breaks over Bombay’s cluttered skyline, local trains pulling into Dadar from as far as Karjat, Kasara, Assangaon, and Titwala empty of vendors who quickly get off the train with their produce.

In a single flowing motion the women hoist large bundles of leaves secured with slender lengths of tree bark onto the head and make for the exit in a single file, swaying as they glide up the incline and onto the public footbridge on their way to the phool galli (flower lane) where they will settle to the side of the lane and sort the leaves into smaller bundles for sale.


“We've come from Titwala,” the elderly woman flanked on either side by fellow vendors said as I bent to have a closer look at the leaves they were sorting out.

Titwala lies on the Central Line, 56 kilometres from Dadar. Local trains headed for Kasara, and Asangaon halt at Titwala, a little over ten kilometers from Kalyan in the direction of Nasik, the latter is served by the same line. The three elderly women sat with their bundles of leaves to the side of the path that led under the flyover.

The lady quickly reached into the bundle, and held out a neatly stacked section of the leaves for five rupees.

“How many leaves have you included in the stack?” I ask her.

She turns to look at her fellow vendors before smiling at me. “I don’t count the leaves, no need to. This much is what I sell for five rupees,” she said, drawing my attention to the stack she held in her palm between the thumb and the rest.

I quickly counted the leaves in the stack and said, “About twenty leaves for five rupees?”



Only a few days earlier I was quoted ten rupees for six leaves by a youth on the staircase that leads down to the phool galli by the flyover. He took one quick look at me and decided I knew next to nothing of the rates before quoting his price. I left him standing by his bundles of leaves lying on the steps to the side of the staircase.

She nodded and shrugged her shoulders. “Yes, about twenty leaves.”

“Larger sized leaves will cost more,” she said. “These are the Palas. The same leaves used to make patravali.”


Patravali is a leaf plate made of dried leaves tacked together by pieces of stem. The leaf plates are commonly used in villages to serve meals, and discarded after use, finding their way to garbage dumps where cows and buffaloes gather at noon time and polish them off along with the leftovers of meals.

I mistook her reply for Phanas, the Jackfruit tree.

“No, no. Not Phanas, but Palas,” she corrected me. The Palas is also known as the Flame of the Forest for its dazzling flowers that break the often bleak summer landscapes in deciduous forests of the tropics.

Leaves used in making patravali differ from region to region depending upon the availability of trees.

The Flame of the Forest is not as commonly found in Goa as the Jackfruit, so leaves of the Jackfruit are used to make patravali in the tiny state on the West Coast on India. Jackfruit leaves are not the most ideal of leaves to use in making the leaf plates but considered adequate enough for the purpose. The leaves of the Teak are used for the purpose as well, chosen more for their easy availability in Goa whose climate is conducive to Teak plantations.

Though rare, the use of lotus leaves is not unheard of either.



In North Karnataka leaves of the Muthla tree are used in making patravali. The leaves are dried in the shade until they turn brown, taking over a week or so. The shade helps keep the leaves from curling up.

On my yearly travels to the north of Karnataka during summer vacations from school, I grew accustomed to having my meals on patravalis while visiting my relatives along the route. It took me some time to eat off the leaf plate without swallowing the short stems that held the leaves together.

In time I learnt to make patravali at the home of my ancestors in the village. In the afternoons we would gather in the hall flanked by rooms on either side and sift through heaps of dried Muthla leaves and arrange them in the shape of a circular plate, overlapping the leaves to cover openings to prevent curry from seeping out and messing up the floor.


We took our meals sitting cross-legged on the floor, backs to the wall. The elderly Brahmins, clad in white dhoti held tight at the waist, took their meals bare-chested as is the custom, eating their meals off the leaf plates or patravalis. I used to call them ‘Yogic meals’.

While one of us would fashion Jowar stems into tiny pieces for use in stitching the dried Muthla leaves together, another would sift through the stack of leaves and separate even sized leaves appropriate for the size of the leaf plate.

The rest of us would then fashion the leaves into a circular shape each and stitch them together with small pieces of Jowar stems. I was still at school and oblivious to any cathartic benefits to be had from what is a uniquely rural exercise with few or no exceptions. It was just another exercise I reveled in in addition to helping my aunt milk the cows, and collect dung cakes for fuel while I was not pestering the farm hand into teaching me the art of making ropes from lengths of coir and tree bark. Eventually I learnt the craft well enough to make my own ropes.

Keshava, the farm hand at the time passed away years ago, leaving behind memories of his good natured patience while I struggled to come to grips with the rolling of lengths of raw material into ropes, turning my thighs red where the rope rubbed the skin while I rolled individual strands into rope pattern.

Making patravalis was easier, for Muthla leaves presented far fewer problems except maybe when I had to stitch them together into leaf bowls. Curry and buttermilk are served in the leaf bowls that are fixed to the leaf plate with rice. Occasionally the leaf bowls, if weakly secured with rice at the base, would topple over, spilling curry or buttermilk all over the patravali, drawing disapproving looks from the elders.

The Muthla tree is commonly found in the northern districts of the state, namely Gulbarga, Raichur, and Bidar.

Speaking with my uncle I learnt that Raichur is big on supplies of the Muthla leaves for making patravali. “Alanavar, near Belgaum, is well known for Muthla leaves as well,” my cousin added.

The small stems that tack leaves together into plates are sourced from Jowar stems after the crop is harvested and the hay kept aside for cattle fodder. In the arid regions of North Karnataka typically two crops are harvested in a year. Mungari Jowar sown in the early monsoon months of July and August, and harvested three months later, is preferred for fashioning the stems to tack the leaves, and not so much the Hingari Jowar. The stems of the latter are not known to lend themselves to easy fashioning of short, slender pieces appropriate for stitching leaves together. The Hingari crop (Rabi) is sown in September or October.

Elsewhere the Mungari crop (Kharif) is sown in the months of June-July around the time the first rains come calling, especially along the West Coast where the South-West monsoons make their first landfall. However to the north of Karnataka the first rains strengthen their patterns much later.

Typically 15 Muthla leaves went into the making of a patravali on the average. Now I’m told each patravali costs one rupee, prices having gone up in the village from years ago when I first learnt to stitch leaf plates together. Moreover it is unlikely most villagers will take the trouble now to stitch together a patravali from Muthla leaves, preferring instead to buy them off the market, a set of fifty leaf plates costing fifty rupees ($ 1.00) at one rupee per leaf plate.

Unlike steel plates, leaf plates do not need washing, instead providing fodder for cattle after meal time. They provide employment to poor villagers who set out to gather leaves in the woods while womenfolk stitch them together into leaf plates, in turn empowering women in the village. And unlike steel there is no processing cost involved, including the mining of earth for raw material, in the making of leaf plates. In the end they break down into organic elements that enrich the soil and nourish the many life forms that make the soil fertile.

When we ran out of patravalis banana leaves were brought out at meal time. It is easier to eat off a banana leaf than off a patravali stitched together. In time, like with everything else, practice makes perfect, and leaves cease to matter, receding to the background, giving way to the fragrance of the outdoors rising up from the leaf plate, indulging the appetite for the meal at hand.

Flanking the flyover opposite the Dadar railway station on the Central Line are two narrow lanes that conduct travelers out of the station. Flower vendors run small hole-in-the-wall outlets that line the two narrow lanes on either side of the flyover, crowding the passageway with customers shopping for flowers and office goers hurrying past. Through the day suppliers truck in sacks of flowers, supplying them to vendors in the lanes. The lanes are known locally as phool gallis (flower lanes).


Early mornings see hectic activity in the phool gallis with flower vendors busy stitching flowers into garlands, occasionally calling out to passing travelers to buy garlands and flowers. It is common to see children help their parents with the task at hand, pottering around while their parents stitch the flowers into garlands, using leaves to bunch the flowers together as well as display lengths of garlands for interested customers.


Garlands made of Mogra (Jasmine) flowers and priced at five rupees a length, were neatly laid out for passing travelers. Taxis honked in the narrow lane dodging early morning travelers hurrying to work.

“Will your stock of leaves last until evening,” I ask the lady, pointing to her basket overflowing with Palas leaves.

“No. There’ll be little or nothing left by evening,” she replies, turning her face to acknowledge a fellow vendor who hails her on his way past.


Small time vendors selling garlands, berries, jamuns, and sundry fruits from cane baskets settle down on the railway footbridge that passengers exiting the Dadar railway station take on their way out of the station. Often customers will stop by the vendors and buy jamuns or flowers or other produce on their way home.


The vendors use the leaves to arrange berries, often using them to pack the berries as well if the quantity is small. They source the leaves from fellow vendors. Here the vendor was selling berries bunched on leaves for rupees five a 'bunch'.



Some will line their cane baskets with the leaves, sprinkling water every now and then to keep the flowers fresh and inviting.



Others will use them to lay out flowers while they stitch them together into garlands, using the same thread to secure the flowers wrapped in a leaf before handing the 'leaf package' over to the customer.



Where there’re no Palas leaves to be had any will do, even those plucked from the tree under whose shade vendors shelter outside the Virar railway station, by platform One where trains from Virar start for Churchgate.

Vintage and Classic Cars Rally at Nariman Point

In the distance Gopilal Sharma appeared nondescript among the others, featureless in the bright white uniforms of chauffeurs waiting their turn by the vintage cars to the back of the line along the sweep of Marine Drive in South Bombay last week.

Gopilal Sharma had ridden Ajaypat Singhania’s 1956 Mercedes 300 to the rally and reveled in the attention it was drawing from curious onlookers.

Across the street the Trident rose steady in the sky. Resurrected from the Islamist terrorist strikes of November last it overlooked the Arabian Sea along the sweep that turns into a necklace of twinkling lights in the night. Stretching from Nariman Point all the way to Malabar Hill, the Queen’s Necklace is three kilometers long, and constructed from land ‘reclaimed’ from the sea it makes for a natural bay.

The Arabian Sea is mostly calm at this time of the year, a marked change from the monsoons when it rages against the terrapods heaped seaside along the wall enclosing the parapet and the spacious promenade along the road that runs six-lane for much of its length to the north of the city. Among other sights the road passes by the Taraporewala Aquarium, Islam Gymkhaha, Wilson College, and Chowpatty where lakhs of devotees descend on the beach to immerse the deity Ganpati on Anantchaturdashi, the last day of the festival of Ganesh Chaturthi when Bombay comes to a standstill. Heading north the sweep along the sea is to the left.

To the right, set back from the road, Art Deco buildings from the 1920s and the 1930s squat in easy comfort facing the sea. Built by Parsis most of the buildings still retain their original names, offering a peep into the past and the classy touch of a small community that lent the city architecture and the Arts scene its unique flavour and style, cementing the cosmopolitanism of the city with a culture that most still define as Bombay long after Shiv Sena, a local right-wing party feared for its street muscle and violence forced a change in the name to Mumbai, vandalizing establishments that did not.


The setting was apt. Watching the fleet of shiny vintage cars entered for the rally awaiting their turn to be flagged off in a district known for its mix of architectural styles evolving from the early 1900s, one could be pardoned for rewinding time to a gentler era when road rage was unheard of, and language refined to a fault, when dressing confirmed to styles, and rebel was someone you would associate with a guerilla, when people had time to stand and stare, and talk, and ruminate over the day’s events, when smiles were unaffected and came easy and there was nowhere to hurry to, and when it still mattered how others were doing with their lives and small talk cemented the local into a wider worldview.


We landed at Nariman Point opposite the Trident Hotel at half past eight just in time to see the flagging off of the annual Vintage and Classic Car Rally organized by the Vintage and Classic Car Club of India (VCCCI), marking its 90th year of existence. VCCCI teamed up with Western India Automobile Association for the event earlier this month. Last year the Vintage and Classic Car Rally rolled out from Kala Ghoda in February, this year from Nariman Point in early April. The rally is not restricted to Vintage and Classic cars alone, vintage motorcycles make their presence felt in the event as well. Unlike last year I noticed fewer vintage motorcycles this year.

I looked for Sudarshan Chemburkar among the participants gathered around their preening bikes, scanning heads for a floppy hat shielding a ruddy complexion from the heat of an Indian summer, or striding purposefully among the gathered bikers. No one answered to the description. Sudarshan wasn’t around this year. It was while I was admiring a shiny 1956 BSA Goldstar last year at the VCCCI event in Kala Ghoda that I met Sudarshan Chemburkar from Pune.

“She’s from Calcutta,” he said, looking at me from under the hat, his hand rolling over the handle. If he was pleased with the attention ‘she’ was getting he didn’t show it. “Somebody in the 1980s must have raced her lots. I bought her through a friend of mine and restored her from the brink of collapse.”

Sudarshan was getting on in years but as he spoke of the Goldstar his fondness for the bike stripped away the years quickly. We were standing in front of Stylo Tailors and Clothiers, Film Costumers from years ago, best known for the costumes they created for the 1973 Bollywood hit Bobby.


“BSA Goldstars were known for their racing prowess. In the top ten finishers in a race you could count on 5-6 to be Goldstars,” he explained. Standing among Triumphs and Nortons in the row of bikes warming in the early morning Sun I could imagine the generational shift in loyalties from the Triumphs and Nortons to the Goldstars once they began to beat the former at the races.

“They were known as the Immortal Goldies in the racing arena,” Sudarshan said.

He had started out by restoring a 1956 Suprema scooter. Soon the hobby turned into a passion after he acquired a Diploma in Automobile Engineering from St. Joseph’s in Kurla. Patting the 1956 BSA Goldstar, he said, “You feel young at all times when riding these machines. This is my fourth trip to Bombay from Pune on this bike.”

“Want to hear how she sounds?” he had thrown the question at me knowing well I was up for it.

I nodded and held my breath. The crowd behind us went silent as he bent forward on the handle and placed his foot on the kick, and BAM.

The Goldstar reverberated to life, inducing passing people into pausing in their stride to turn to look at us, and the bike. That was last year at Kala Ghoda.

And I wonder why Sudarshan Chemburkar did not ride his Immortal Goldie to the rally this year around!


Maybe he will be back the next year like A. R. Dadachanji, the elderly Parsi priest at the Vatcha Gandhi Fire Temple on Hughes Road, Bombay - 7, returned to the lineup this year with his 1948 Morris 8 after skipping the last edition in 2008.

It was at the 2007 edition of the VCCCI rally two years ago that I first saw A. R. Dadachanji. The vintage cars had returned to the finish line at Flora Fountain when I saw him by his Morris 8 warmly greeting visitors who stopped by to admire his shiny green vintage car. He stood out in the crowd in his traditional Parsi attire that set off his twinkling eyes against the flowing white beard. Watching him from the distance I was struck by his unfailingly polite demeanour in acknowledging visitors curious of his car, and the warmth with which he greeted acquaintances who stopped by the Morris 8 for a quick chat, possibly fellow Parsis regular at the Fire Temple. It was lunch time and the Sun beat down hard, rarely denting his smile in the time I was there.

Two years on little seems to have changed except the Morris 8’s colour, from deep green in 2007 to black this year. And the elderly Parsi priest has barely aged in the time.

“This car is a family member of our family,” he told me. “We went to Sri Lanka in this car in 1981.” At 70 Dadachanji is only ten years older than his 1948 Morris 8.

Two visitors passing by step up to him and wish him well with the rally. He steps forward and bows gently, clasping their hands in his before thanking them, smiling. A light breeze blowing in from the sea stirs his beard.

On the promenade behind us a passing madari (monkey handler) leading two monkeys on a leash pauses to watch the spectacle of vintage beauties. The sky and sea merge in a featureless shade of dull grey. There’re no clouds on the horizon.


Among the vintage cars on display there’ll have been few if any among them that haven’t played their part on Bombay roads, riding the breeze along the Marine Drive, gracing narrow lanes that criss-cross Fort and the heritage precinct of Kala Ghoda in the decades the city came to acquire a character distinct from the one it has been forced to acquiesce to now.

Dadachanji’s 1948 Morris 8 had the Morris family for company – Mahendra Bhagat’s 1935 Morris, Aslam Makandar’s 1937 Morris 8, Fali Patel’s 1938 Morris 12, and Kirti Anand’s 1951 Morris Minor.

However, missing from the lineup this year were several Morris Minors that had participated last year, year of make in brackets – Ajay Khakhar (1932), Sanjay Mistry (1935), Shamun A. Karachiwala (1948), Shree Kishan Joshi (1951), Kishore Shah (1952), and Umesh Rele (1955). Hopefully they’ll make it next year.

Like Dadachanji, the Pandit family is a regular at the Vintage and Classic Car Club of India’s annual event. Initially I failed to recognize them in the royal outfit the family had turned out in, riding their open-top 1930 Ford A into town.

The Pandits are Brahmins. It took me a few moments to place them at the rally for, last year, Dr. Manohar Pandit, had turned out in a Forest Ranger’s uniform though the fake mustache that later shifted in the heat by a bit reminded one more of the dreaded bandit Veerappan than a Forest officer. Dr. Manohar Pandit had espoused protecting wildlife at the rally, a placard reading ‘Save Wildlife’ prominently displayed behind them. A fake gun and an empty cartridge belt left no one in doubt about the message. He had handed out wildlife conservation pamphlets to the effect.

This year the Pandit family was turned out in traditional attire. I cannot be sure if it was royal attire or that of the brahmins from an earlier era. They were parked by the road divider across the road from the Trident Hotel, in the backdrop of flowering bougainvillea and palm trees. Their dress attracted as much attention as their car, both resplendent in the setting. Television cameras came rushing to the 1930 Ford A. First up was a Marathi language television channel. Dr. Manohar Pandit spoke in a Marathi unique to Maharashtrian Brahmins. Like the elderly Parsi priest, Dadachanji, Dr. Pandit stressed how the Ford A is a member of his family having been in their possession since the year of manufacture, 1930.

“There’s more fun to be had riding the old cars than the new,” he told the camera crew.


A cardboard cutout featuring two elephants holding up a logo Jin Ghar Jin Takt hung from the front of the car. Large letters below the two elephants read BARODA. I couldn’t quite make the connection between the two. I wondered if the cutout was the insignia of a royal family from Baroda in Gujarat, and if the attire the Pandit family had turned out in mirrored that of the royal family. I cannot be sure of either.


Elsewhere, Jackie Shroff, sporting dark shades, had joined a few others on the platform to flag off the rally, and the first off the marks was Vijay Mallya’s 1903 Humber Humberette.



The Humber is British, tracing its beginnings to the bicycle company that Thomas Humber founded in 1868, not producing the first car until 1898, a three-wheeled tricar. Though the Humberette has a single-cylinder-engine the first four-wheeled cars to roll out of Humber in 1901 were powered by 2- or 4-cylinder engines. The Humberette is powered by a 611 CC, 5 HP single-cylinder engine that helps the 650 pounds four-wheeler along at a healthy 25 mph.

The 1903 Humberette drew a large number of onlookers as it readied to lead the way out. For a car this light the two-seater took off the blocks fairly briskly, egged on by a cheering crowd. In no time it had disappeared from view.

Jackie Shroff had entered his 1930 Jaguar SS in the rally. At the flag-off he drew curious looks from the gathered crowd, many of whom had grown up on hindi films starring him in lead roles.


We walk to the back of the line of backed up cars awaiting their turn at the flag-off. Some of the cars are parked with their backs to the promenade, drawing surprised looks from joggers on their early morning run past the stretch. A middle-aged man sat in a yoga pose on the platform, facing the sea, his trainers by his side and seemingly oblivious to the rally behind him.

The promenade is popular with visitors on an evening out in the city. To the calls of vendors vending everything from peanuts, lollipops, balloons, mineral water, and potato chips to toys, books, and ice-cream, visitors loll along the promenade while joggers and brisk-walkers dodge them.


It is not uncommon to see maids or family members walk the sick and the elderly from the NCPA high-rise apartments opposite the promenade for a fill of seaside air. Every once in a while cars come to a halt by the promenade and the elderly in wheelchairs or otherwise are chaperoned by family, helped along by a firm grip under the elbow before being commandeered gently to the platform for a bit of rest and activity. Boisterous friends and courting couples from nearby colleges and beyond frequent the promenade in large numbers. Those looking for peace and quiet turn their backs to the world and face the sea, legs dangling from the platform.

With little or no regular traffic early that Sunday morning, and punctuated by a smattering of colourful holiday attires, hats and all, one might as well have been strolling around in a 1950s or 1960s Bombay. Running the names off the list heightened the feeling further – Humberette (1903), Fiat 501 (1919), Steyr II (1922), Rover (1923), Rolls Royce 20 HP (1925), Cadillac (1928), Austin Harley (1933), Packard (1934), Dodge Bros (1935), Buick (1937), Daimler (1939), and Chevrolet (1940) among others, totaling 43 cars in the Vintage Car (1900 – 1940) category.


The Classic Car category (1941 – 1960) had 49 entries, including Buicks, Packards, Bentleys, Austins, Desotos, Daimlers, Wolseleys, Lincolns, Hillmans, Fiats, Volkswagens, Rovers, and the Mercedes among others.

However the Recent Classic Car category spanning the years between 1961 and 2008 had only 14 cars making up the list.

It was a remarkable scene no less, a temporary museum by the sea.

Gopilal Sharma was busy chatting with fellow chauffeurs who had ridden their employers’ cars to the venue. While some waited for the owners to make an appearance and get behind the wheels for the rally others would be doing the honours themselves, accompanied by the owners’ relatives or friends or both. Seeing us approach the 1956 Mercedes 300 I noticed Gopilal Sharma turn his face towards us and smile under his bushy mustache before walking up to us. It was easy to see that Gopilal loved a good chat in the long tradition of genteel souls who’d seen the city’s metamorphoses from a quiet port to the hurly burly of India’s financial center. The Sharmas are Brahmins, largely from North India. Gopilal Sharma told us he’s been in the employ of the Singhanias for a long time now.

Gopilal took immense pride in his bushy mustache, twirling them to good effect when visitors stopping by the 1956 Mercedes 300 shaped up to photograph it. In the gentle light of the morning by the sea it was raining rainbows in the street.

“I drove this car down from the Maharaja of Kutch forty-five years ago,” he said. “It belongs to Ajaypat Singhania but he won’t be coming down to participate in the rally. His brother, Vijaypatji, will.” Vijaypat Singhania, Chairman Emeritus, Raymond Group, is a former Sheriff of Mumbai and a Padma Bhushan awardee.


“Take a picture while I’m twirling my mustache,” Gopilal said with a smile, readily posing in front of the Mercedes 300 and twirling his bushy mustache in the time honoured way of mustache-preening as I prepared to photograph him. I thought it interesting hearing him refer to the Mercedes 300 as his car, more for the bonding between man and machine that inspires such devotion that the issue of ownership blurs with time. In some ways I feel it is in the nature of his generation where loyalty stems in part from attachment that in turn strengthens a sense of responsibility towards one’s charges.

About then Jackie Shroff came into view, trailed by curious hangers-on. Gopilal’s eyes lit up and he walked up to Jackie Shroff with open arms suggesting he knew Jackie well. It didn’t matter in the least if Gopilal Sharma knew Jackie Shroff or not, he could make anyone feel at home anytime of the day. There was no guile about him. Jackie Shroff smiled and let Gopilal put his arms around him, playing along while Gopilal struck a pose for cameras that were following Jackie Shroff.

Sensing Shroff’s unease with the attention the impromptu photo session was beginning to draw, Gopilal was quick to seize the moment, telling the former film star, “Come this way, you must see our car.” Placing his hand around Shroff’s back Gopilal Sharma gently but firmly led Jackie Shroff to where the 1956 Mercedes 300 basked in the morning light. And the procession paused by Gopilal’s car.

From the distance I couldn’t help smiling watching the unlikely scene unfold.

It was a nice day to be out in the Sun and among aficionados who reveled in the atmosphere the vintage and classic cars had turned the day into. No one was in a hurry to get anywhere.

Gopilal’s words describing the Mercedes 300 follow me on the light breeze blowing in from the sea.

“Kings used to go out in the evenings (in these cars).” And turning his hands palm-up he continued, “Yeh bhagnewali gaadi nahin. Aram se chalao. Thandi hawa khao. No radio. No A/C.” (This is not a racing car, more for a leisurely drive, to enjoy cool breeze. No radio (to divert attention). No A/C.)

I turn around to have another look at the cars I've little or no chance of seeing until it's show time again a year from now.

Fleeting moments linger longer, always. It is the way of the world.

The Innocence of an Evening

When I look at this picture now and reflect on the fate that befell the pigeons that used to gather across the road from The Taj Mahal Hotel before the terrorists struck Mumbai the night of November 26 last year, I try not to think of whether this particular pigeon made it through the night of carnage. I like to believe she survived the night.

Early one evening several months before the terrorist strike I found myself, camera in hand, milling in crowds gathered at the Gateway of India. Families on an evening out by the sea off the Gateway crowded along the parapet that looks out to sea while vendors hawked their wares, selling peanuts, ice-creams, lollipops, and grains to feed the pigeons.

Professional photographers, cameras slung from their necks, prompted visitors into having their pictures taken in the backdrop of the Gateway of India or the magnificent Taj Mahal Hotel for a fee. Far too often they were refused.

“With mobile cameras affordable by most we have far fewer visitors needing our services now,” one photographer told me, scanning potential customers even while he spoke with me.



No visiting relatives return from Mumbai without seeing the waterfront landmarks. The Taj Mahal hotel and the Gateway are among the two major landmarks that define the city in terms of its visibility in the media and elsewhere. Couples, families, and friends among others make their way to the waterfront in the evenings, often to do nothing more than look out to sea. Sometimes crows join in.


From the platform that runs on either side of the Gateway of India, the landing area where boats ferrying tourists to the Elephanta caves dock on their return journey is a beehive of activity, with ushers shepherding passengers onto harbour cruises for a half hour spin around the harbour or boats headed for the Elephanta caves. From here the city stretches back by a bit and one can see the ‘lesser’ landmarks in the distance. Guides with spotting scopes will point out the landmarks for a fee. Most however will have their relatives and friends point them out for them.



To my left a bubble-maker wound his way among families knowing well the children would gravitate to him as he blew soap bubbles in the air. While their parents looked on, the children thrilled in the bubbles the bubble-maker blew in the air, chasing them or trying to cup them in their little palms, smiles widening as bubbles landed in their open palms. Then they chased more soap bubbles, thrilling more in their efforts to catch the bubbles than in actually managing to do so.

And the bubble-maker blew even more bubbles in the air. In a bubble or two that caught the glancing blow of the Sun it framed the Gateway of India in its convexity, encasing a moment in history in the transience of the present.

Eventually the children would run back to their parents and tug at their trousers until they bought the bubble-making kit from the bubble-maker, and then the children blew bubbles in the air. Soon there were so many bubbles that it resembled a scene from a Bollywood film set.

But in all the time that I watched the scenes unfold among smiling children, and the childhood transience they chased in the bubbles floating in the air, not once did the bubble-maker smile, not when the children were chasing the soap bubbles, and not when he sold them the bubble making kits.

In the moment a bubble breaks, a child will look forward to the next one. But rarely so an adult.


I made my way to where pigeons had gathered on the pavement at the spot where it turns onto the Apollo Bunder road. The road runs by the Taj Hotel before passing 19th century buildings on its way to the Radio Club at the other end. The parapet that looks out on fishing-boats, yachts, and Harbour Cruises in the harbour by the Gateway of India encloses the Apollo Bunder road on one side while the Taj and other old buildings enclose it on the other.

According to one story, ‘Apollo’ is said to be a derivative of the name that sable-fish found in the waters off the Gateway are known by, Palva. Koli fisherfolk used to land sable-fish in the harbour, so the name Apollo Bunder.


Known as the Victoria earlier, horse carriages on the Apollo Bunder road awaited visitors to the Gateway looking for a joy ride around town. Every once in a while a pigeon would on a carriage before flying off to a window ledge on the Taj from where it watched over the crowd below until it was time to eat grains that visitors were only to happy to feed them.

Camera at the ready I moved around, letting the bonhomie of an evening out by the sea rub on me. It was then that I noticed this young lady patiently enticing pigeons to eat out of her hand, smiling invitingly. Her friend stood behind her while she squatted, grains in her palms, hand outstretched.

I waited.

Then one pigeon responded, coming in from behind me, low and straight to the lady. Surprised at seeing the pigeon respond to her she seemed unsure of how to react except to instinctively stretch her hand out even further, and smile more.

I released the shutter.

In her joyous moment froze the innocence of an evening by the sea, and ever since then whenever I go through the pictures I wonder who she was, from whence she came, and to where she was headed.

And now about the pigeon that came flying in from behind me.


Update: Public voting in the Best Travelogue category in the ongoing Lonely Planet Travel Blog Awards 2009 has ended, and Windy Skies has placed first in the results declared a short while ago. Thank you all for the unstinting faith, support, and encouragement the last few weeks. Public voting constitutes 50% of the overall judging. Next the Lonely Planet judging panel will evaluate the blogs to account for the other 50% and combine the two for the final score.

Butterfly Morning in Mollem

If it wasn’t for the frog that I was chasing across the stream with my camera we might never have discovered the tiny sandbank hidden from view by trees along the turn the stream took before cutting through the wildlife sanctuary at Mollem, 56 kms. off Panaji and bordering Karnataka State to the east. And we wouldn’t have seen the Common Map Butterfly (Cyrestis thyodamas).


Much of the stream along the course it took in the stretch visible to us was shaded by trees lining the banks. In the few patches where sunlight streamed through canopies it lit up stones in the shallow water, a few protruding above the waterline. On one such stone a frog basking in the Sun caught my attention. Sensing my approach it quickly leapt back into the water and swam towards another stone, then yet another as it led me on a merry chase down stream. The water was cool to the skin and I moved carefully lest I slip and land the camera in the water. In the canopies that rose on the banks birdcalls sounded at steady intervals. In the silence of the jungle it is the tiniest creatures that sound the loudest.

I disappeared round the bend, leaving Philip behind scanning the trees for birds with his binoculars.

At 240 sq. kms., the Bhagwan Mahavir Wildlife Sanctuary in the Western Ghats mountain ranges abuts the town of Mollem in Sanguem taluka in the State of Goa, and is the largest of Goa’s wildlife sanctuaries. The National Highway 4A passing through it on its way to Belgaum in Karnataka cuts the wildlife sanctuary into two and poses the most serious threat yet by facilitating transportation of manganese and iron ore from surface mining sites that ring the wildlife sanctuary.


I soon lost the frog. Turning around to retrace my steps I caught sight of the small sandbank to my left. For a moment I was startled to see a perfectly formed sandbank, an uncommon sight in the wildlife sanctuary. Water had splashed upto my knees. I was wearing light trousers and in the October heat it would take less than twenty minutes to dry once we got back on the trail in the Sun. I called out to Philip to come have a look at the sandbank.

The Bhagwan Mahavir Wildlife Sanctuary is home to the leopard, and the bison among other mammals, and to the Cobra, the Krait, and the Vipers – the Russels, and the Saw Scaled, among other species of snakes. Birdlife in the wildlife sanctuary is said to number over 200 species of birds. I’ve logged over 90 species in the sanctuary myself on my treks over the years.

But it was butterflies I was seeking that October morning last year, and anything ‘interesting’ along the way.


As we prepared to make our way across the stream to the other side I paused to photograph shoots sprouting on the trunk of a large tree. A hint of Sun that made it through the canopy lit up the tender green of the sprouting plant in an ethereal glow as if in a halo around a divine event. Much else was hidden in deep shade, and contrasted sharply in the glow of the Sun meeting the tender shoots on the trunk. At times few sights in the jungle can match the interplay of the sun and the shadows.

It was about then that Philip caught the Sun glinting off the back of the frog sunbathing on a stone mid-stream and I went chasing it before eventually losing it downstream.

As Philip made his way to the tiny sandbank I settled down in the sand more for feeling the sand underneath than for resting. We drank water from the bottle and settled down to soak in the quietude. We had walked two hours before coming upon the stream. Our voices will have been carried downstream, alerting the jungle to our presence. Jungle eyes miss nothing, least of all human voices.


At first I didn’t notice the Common Map Butterfly among the stones, not until it shifted position, seeking a stone in a moist patch to bask on before leaving it for a patch of moist sand.

Its wings matched the pale white of the sand, camouflaging it well in its environs. Unlike some butterflies, most notably the Grass Yellow and the Pansy (Lemon, Grey, Blue, and the Peacock) among a few others, the Common Map Butterfly showed little on no inclination to lead me on fruitless chases in the Sun. It barely moved while I photographed it.

Over the years I’ve come to favour butterflies that seek damp places if for nothing else than for the fact that unlike other butterflies that make photographing them a backbreaking effort in the Sun, water-course loving butterflies wouldn’t be bothered much with human presence unless one got very close,

Common Bluebottle (Graphium sarpedon) is the other species I’ve had better luck photographing. I first came upon Common Bluebottles while we were tracking a leopard along a riverbank, following its pugmarks in the sand when we happened upon a delightful group of Common Bluebottles mud-puddling in the sand, their greenish-blue bands running prominently along the length of their wings on the outside and setting off the pale sand in a burst of colour. I went on my knees with my camera and for close to ten minutes they barely moved, engrossed in mud-puddling. The males among the butterflies are known to mud-puddle along riverbanks and are said to ingest dissolved minerals.

The Common Map Butterfly is rarely to be found away from water courses in the forest and belongs to the Nymphalidae, the butterfly family that accounts for most butterfly species found in India.

As we left the sandbank to pick up our original trail a movement in a leafy branch overhanging the path revealed a butterfly that I thought looked like the Common Indian Crow (Euploea core), among the more commonly found butterflies in the wildlife sanctuary. It looks similar to the female of the Great Eggfly (Hypolimnus bolina) and can be mistaken for one. I’ll remember the Common India Crow for a memorable sighting one summer day in the sanctuary a few years ago.

While on our way to Collem through the sanctuary, Philip and I ran into hundreds of Common Crows migrating through the forest, easily numbering over five hundred and pushing on seemingly determinedly. As they flitted across our path we stood in silence watching them move on. Neither of us had a camera on us that day, and never have I needed a camera as badly ever since!

On long trails flowers break the monotony of the landscape. Here they are not to be found in abundance in the lower reaches of the sanctuary, in marked contrast as one ascends the hills in the vicinity. However Ixora (Ixora coccinea) blooms in the sanctuary all round the year, drawing attention with its bright red petals contrasting sharply against the grey of its surroundings in the summer. Ixora belongs to the Coffee family.


When I started out I had expected to see more of Grey Pansy (Junonia atlites) and was surprised with how few there actually were on the trail. I cannot be sure if it was the time of day that was responsible for so few numbers or if it was the time of year. Whatever the case may be I was delighted to have a Grey Pansy fly over to me and settle on my trousers. Trust makes for delightful company on jungle trails, more so when trails goes quiet in the afternoons.


Teak grows aplenty in the wildlife sanctuary and so does Kindal. Silk Cotton and Flame of the Forest blaze away in early summer while Ficus trees attract birds in droves and together they feast on figs in relative peace. And they feast long. Once I spent over an hour watching a pair of Grey Hornbills oblivious to my presence while they feasted on the figs for the entire duration.


As we walked along more flowers graced our trail, a welcome sprinkling of colour and a reason to pause and take them in before moving on.



We dodged Common Grass Yellows (Eurema hecabe) flitting about on the narrow path in the direction of Nandran Mol. Watching pairs of Grass Yellows zig zag along the path it was easy to assume they were courting pairs, it seemed proper to do so, and having done that they acquired a renewed interest in my eyes, and in their every twist and turn I sought a pattern I could then interpret. There was none I could notice though. On occasions the Grass Yellows (Family Pieridae) would feed on flowers before taking off. They added urgency to the quiet afternoon, rarely flying higher than waist level and sticking to the open area of the jungle path. With the Sun beating down on my back one of them eventually perched on a flower long enough for me to release the shutter several times.

In a clearing the forest department had effected along the path not far from where it forks into two directions, one leading to the Vasant Bhandhara, the other up the hill to the highest point in the wildlife sanctuary, a lone male Danaid Eggfly warmed up on the embankment burnt hard by the Sun, closing and opening its wings in slow motion. I crossed over the embankment to get closer to the butterfly.


While returning I was alerted to a rustling in the plants clustered around a tree and which I had brushed on my way back. A menacing looking centipede emerged from the cluster of plants and hurried up the tree at admirable pace.

It was past noon. At a time when one would expect the rarer among the sightings to have retreated into the shade deep inside the jungle, the Grey Count (Tanaecia lepidea) surprised me by making an appearance. Not content with merely making an appearance it flew over to me and settled on my instep and I was loath to move lest it take wings. Moments like these warm the trails in ways that only acceptance by another can. To have it happen to me the second time in a little over an hour and half must mean someone was helping bring things together. I cannot recollect the last time I spotted the Grey Count. Its characteristic white band resembles an upturned mustache. The languorous flight as it took off and settled among low lying vegetation and the easy familiarity it displayed in settling on my instep redeemed the trail in no small measure.


It is never easy to identify the Common Sailor (Neptis hylas) from the Common Sergeant (Athyma perius), more so given how quickly they move about but Common Lascar (Pantoporia hordonia) was easy given their orange markings as against the white of the Sailor and the Sergeant.


Lemon Pansy (Junonia lemonias) matched the Grass Yellow in numbers. Unlike the Grey Pansy, the Lemon Pansy has striking markings on its wings. The two pairs of eye-spots display prominently on the wings. However I was baffled seeing several of the species flying around with broken wings, too many for one trail. I wonder if those eye-spots on the Lemon Pansy had attracted predators into making a grab for their wings. I'll never know.

It’s never easy to overlook a bright and cheerful butterfly with broken wings and move on, and so many!

But I had to!



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A Holy Bath in the Tirumala Hills

On my way to the shrine to Ganga (India’s holiest river) at Papavinasanam I avoided looking in the direction of little Ramu while he pranced around his handler lest I pause and let the little fellow inveigle me with his charms and delay my schedule. I have difficulty in telling the age of a monkey just by looking at its face excepting of course when they’re newly born and only a few days old.


Looking at Ramu’s face, his wrinkles et al, I found very little in his expressions and his turn of nose to suggest how far he must have traveled into this world. It was his tiny frame, and a hint of unsteady movement as he walked around exploring all that triggered his curiosity that indicated that maybe he was a little over a month or two old.

The madari, as the keeper of monkeys is known, had put Ramu to work along the narrow path that led on to Papavinasanam, one of the sacred places that pilgrims while on their pilgrimage to the Venkateswara temple at Tirumala, a little over five kilometers away, take time off to visit for a bath in the holy water.


Papavinasanam means ‘ridding sins’. Here pilgrims opt for a holy bath under one of the seven streams of water descending from high above their heads and conducted through openings set high in the wall. Bathing in the sacred water is believed to rid one of sins accrued in deviating from a life of piety.

Those who’ve been visiting Papavinasanam at Tirumala since long recollect of a time when there were no openings in the wall to conduct the holy water that is said to emanate from the Papavinasanam river. Apparently the water used to stream down the height without any conduit channeling it down. It was only later that outlets were made in the wall to channel the sacred water to the convenience of visiting pilgrims, and seven outlets ensure there’re no long queues at the place.

Adjacent to the bath is a dam that goes by the same name as the bath, Papavinasanam. It is one of the three dams the temple town sources its water requirements from, and is 255 metres in length with a catchment area of 8.44 Sq. Kms. The other two dams are the Akashganga, and the Gogarbham.



In the backdrop of the hills and hidden by vegetation from where I stand, the dam stretches like a stairway to the hills across the valley. Standing there I traced the length of the dam as it seemingly bisected the valley, open skies stretching on either side. There was no context to measure it against except the wide open skies and that gave the dam a feel of an ancient fortress guarding angels in the skies. At 9.14 metres, the width of the dam along its length gave it a feel of a massive gateway to somewhere mysterious, somewhere where mortals are barred from entering.


White clouds rode the blue skies, and as they moved along, their shadows fell on the hills beneath. I looked at the clouds in the skies, watching them drag their shadows with them as if drawing a blanket over the hills beneath, turning them a deep shade of green.


While we were there, pilgrims came visiting Papavinasanam in their hundreds. They came in jeeps, in cars, and in buses. Some had shaved their heads at Tirumala in obeisance to the deity, Venkateswara, before traveling to the holy bath, others came barefoot and bare-chested. Then there were families and children, and the young and the elderly, all heading to the bath for a shower under one of the seven giant mouths conveying the sacred water from considerable height, all hoping to leave behind things they must have regretted doing at some point in their lives.



It must hurt I thought to have a shower nozzle that high up, but there was no sign that the water conducted down in narrow streams hurt anyone. Devotees smiled as they cast their clothes away and made for the baths, turning their faces up to catch the streams on their faces, grimacing as it stung the skin.

However not all devotees will have traveled to Papavinasanam for the purpose of cleansing their sins away, actually most wouldn’t have. Devotees usually make their pilgrimage to the Tirumala hills to seek blessings of the deity, Venkateswara, and depending on the time available to them before they make their way back from Tirumala hills to whence they had traveled from they will schedule a quick trip to Papavinasanam, and Akashganga since they both lie within a radius of five kilometers of the Venkateswara temple.

The holy bath at Papavinasanam finds mention in the puranas, the ancient Hindu texts dating back thousands of years. The display board at the entrance to the bath says, “According to Sri Venkatachala puranam a holy bath in this theertham will purify the sins of the devotees and bless them with peace, prosperity and progress. Sunday combined with Shukla Paksha Sapthami in the month of Aswayuja or Dwadasi with Uttarabhadra star is an auspicious day in the teertham. The prominence of this theertham was also mentioned in Skanda puranam.”

Children gloried in the opportunity the bath provided them to frolic in the water, no doubt egged on by the communal nature of the bath. Then there were other children they could join with and share playful pranks under the water coursing down. Excited squeals rent the air as they splashed water on each other, delighting in the freedom to run free. Before the end of the day many a new friendships will have been forged among them, only to go their separate ways as their families bore them away back to where they came from.

Memories are etched the strongest in the moment of separation!

In the warmth of the morning Sun, with clear skies for a roof, a sense of purpose is often strengthened in the shared nature of faith and so it was watching pilgrims partake joyously of their own experience in the bath as from watching others do likewise.


To one corner of the bath lies a shrine to Ganga, the holiest of Indian rivers, revered and worshipped as a deity. At the shrine pilgrims visiting Papavinasanam make offerings to Goddess Ganga while seeking her blessings. On a low platform the statue of the deity was barely visible amidst the garlands adorning her. Priests were busy offering prayers, chanting sacred hyms while worshipers stood at the entrance, hands folded, deep in prayer.

To the other corner lay changing rooms for women for use before stepping in for the holy bath, and afterwards, to change into dry clothes. There was none for men that I could see.


A little girl held up a mirror to a young woman as she combed her hair after the bath, the girl watching the woman’s face intently while the woman looked into the mirror unwavering, patting each strand back in place.


A family of three stood at the parapet, the father lifting his daughter so she could see the bathers below, then turning her to her mother so she could adjust the little girl’s dress. If he lifted her any higher she would’ve been within reach of a passing cloud. As more pilgrims walked in they first stood at the top peering over the parapet to watch devotees bathing below before themselves walking down the steps and getting under the water streaming from above.

Sometimes it is in participating in a community that one achieves a sense of completion, and at other times, a sense of closure.

We prepared to make our way back to where the jeep we’d hired waited for us to return us to the Venkateswara temple, the reason we’d traveled to Tirumala from Tirupati where we were put up on arriving from Bombay. The previous day we bought tickets for entry to the sacred shrine of Venkateswara to offer prayers to the deity and seek blessings in return, and were allotted the noon slot for entry into the ancient temple dating back centuries. With time on our hands until noon we’d hired the jeep to travel to Akashganga, and Papavinasanam, both within a radius of five kilometers from the Venkateswara temple.


On the way back from the sacred bath we passed vendors on either side of the path. In makeshift stalls items on sale ranged from souvenirs, handicrafts, religious books, incense sticks, combs, hair-bands, to salted mango slices, and pictures of Hindu deities.

At the turn where I had first seen them as we took the path leading to the Papavinasanam bath, Ramu the little monkey and his handler were engaged in engaging passing devotees, collecting money from enthralled passers-by. Ramu watched the madari count the money he received from passers-by.



I paused so I could photograph little Ramu. No sooner I squatted to draw level with Ramu sitting tightly squeezed under the madari’s arm, he said something to Ramu that I couldn’t quite pick, and in a jiffy Ramu responded to the madari’s instruction and leapt over to me and sat on my lap, running his tiny hands on my stomach as if to say “Hey, you’ve a full belly here, help me fill mine,” his lease trailing from his neck.

I could barely feel his weight. People around me smiled at the picture little Ramu and I made together. I smiled too. I passed Ramu a banana and he made little work of it in no time.

Sometimes the joy of being accepted comes from acceptance by the unexpected.

In time Ramu will learn new tricks. He will learn to salute, to somersault, and many other things so that he can amuse passing devotees. If devotees stopped being amused by Ramu there’s just a chance a baby monkey somewhere will get to stay with its mother!


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A Riverside Inn

Finding no one around to hear her out the old lady turned to me and said, “I asked him for tea. He hasn’t brought it yet.” Then she turned to face the youth she had come with, possibly someone she knew from the village or maybe her relative. He stood near the door talking into the mouthpiece of a yellow coloured coin phone resting on a narrow table that also doubled up as a shelf, and a counter. The light had turned a shade of yellow as it bounced off the folding door painted a bright yellow.

H. N. 35 was marked in clear bold letters on the wooden planks making up the door. I wondered if this place was a home before it was converted into an inn, but I could not remember ever seeing it as anything other than an inn in the decade and half of my intermittent travels to the Volvoi ferry point. Moreover it is not uncommon in Goan villages to find a room in the house converted into a shop, or an inn. Other times the inn becomes the house, the family living in a room to the back.

The folding doors are characteristic of Goan inns. Unlike apartment residences where doors open to admit visitors in before closing behind them, shops need to keep their doors open all times and folding doors take up little or no space.

The inn was beginning to crowd with passengers awaiting the 10:50 a.m. river ferry to take them across the Mandovi to Surla-Maina on the other side of the river, and from there buses awaiting the arrival of the ferry would take them to Bicholim and beyond, to Sanquelim.

I’ve traveled by the Volvoi ferry several times, heading back from Sanquelim, and each time I’ve resolved to avoid the Volvoi ferry if I could, less for the ferry itself than for the road leading to the ferry point at Maina-Surla. Mining trucks making their way back and forth between loading points down river and the open-pit iron ore mines at Surla have turned the roads between Surla-Maina and Sanquelim into dusty bowels, reducing the traveling to bumpy rides.

I had little to worry about this morning, for I wasn’t taking the ferry anywhere. I had come in for a bit of quiet, and a bite of Pao Bhaji for breakfast.

From where I sat, my back to the makeshift kitchen, I could see the door that led into the small inn by the riverfront in Volvoi. The inn was set back from the mud path that led to the river. On the outside two pillars held up the sloping roof fitted with Mangalore tiles. A large window from where the innkeeper conducted his business lay to one side. Beneath the window lay a wooden bench where elderly village folk gather for a casual chat in the evenings, at other times passengers awaiting the ferry rest on the bench in the shade of the roof. The inn faced the approach road to the river, but if one sat by the window to the front of the inn, next to the door, one could see the river and the activities nearby.

Across the approach road from the entrance to the inn, a fishing canoe lay covered in dried coconut fronds. The last time I was here two fishing canoes shining from a vigorous application of cashew oil lay drying in the Sun. I could smell the cashew long before I saw the canoes.

I had scootered down to the narrow riverfront at half past ten for a breakfast of Pao Bhaji, a combination of vegetable preparation and bread, favoured by Goans for a quick bite. The quiet of the riverfront at Volvoi is inviting, though of late sand-dredging in the river has introduced commotion unique to dredging activities.

"Most of the dredgers have been brought in from Orissa," a passenger awaiting the ferry was telling another as they watched workers walk past the inn to their boats in the river. As the boats began to fill with sand dredged from the river, workers on the boat filled baskets with sand and passed them on to other workers who carried them off the boat, walking down the planks leading from the boats to the shore.

“He’s handling the customers all alone,” I replied. The old lady did not seem convinced with my reply.

“He’ll bring you tea. It’s just that he has many passengers to serve, and all are in a hurry like you are to get to the ferry before it sets off,” I explained, smiling. This time she muttered something under her breath, returning my smile. In the noise of passengers stepping into the inn for a cup of tea or a pack of biscuits, or to make a call from the PCO her reply drowned out.

“I have to catch the ferry. What if I miss it?” she asked me in a brief lull in the conversations to the front of the inn. I had no answer to that except an acknowledgement of her concerns.


The old lady sat sideways on the wooden bench constructed from metal angles. Only a little time remained before the ferry would sound its departure. With the clock edging to the time of departure, the elderly lady grew even more irritable and there was still no sign of her tea.

“Tell him you’re getting late,” I said to her, motioning with my thumb behind me where the innkeeper was washing glasses.

“Cha maaglele re (I had asked for tea),” she called out to the innkeeper in Konkani, the local language.

“She’s waiting for tea,” repeated a middle-aged woman who had tuned in to our conversation. Soon it became apparent that the middle-aged woman and the old lady were traveling together.


“I’m yet to make tea,” the innkeeper replied from behind me, before walking up to an old Philips refrigerator to the back of the inn. Meanwhile another lady steps in to ask for a pack of biscuits. Opening the refrigerator he reaches in for a cold drink someone had asked for, then reaches for a pack of biscuits on the shelf of the glass cupboard facing the window.

Seeing the refrigerator open the old lady gets up from her seat. “Maka ek thand di,” she says to the innkeeper. (Give me a cold drink). Tea is now history.

He hands her a bottle of orange drink. Zen sells well in villages in the heart of Goa. Locally manufactured it has caught on among villagers in the last few years, considerably cheaper than Pepsi or Coke. However I find its Cola flavour strange to taste, orange is okay though. The youth has finished calling from the PCO. He turns to see the old lady accept the cold drink from the innkeeper but says nothing.

No sooner she had taken a sip from the bottle she drew her head back as if stunned by the experience. “It’s too cold,” she said to the youth.

“You should’ve have a taken a slightly warmer one,” the youth replied.

The old lady went quiet, and attempted another sip.

“For old people it is difficult to drink something this cold,” the middle-aged woman said to no one in particular. The innkeeper heard her but did not break stride as he moved from customer to customer, each hurrying him into completing their purchases, each worried that the ferry would depart without them.

“Don’t worry,” said the middle-aged woman to the old woman, “you drink it warm. The ferry will wait.”

The old woman is not convinced. She looks out the window to check if the ferry is still around. It is. She turns her attention to the orange drink. It’s still too cold for her. She hands the bottle over to the middle-aged woman and that is that!

The refrigerator opens again. A customer who’s just walked in asks for a cola.

Goa feels the heat in October and sales of cold drinks goes up after the lull in the monsoons. I cannot remember the last time I saw a Philips refrigerator. The innkeeper tells me that he bought it second-hand for Rs. 2000, a year ago. “Somebody I knew bought it from somebody they knew in Margoa, then they sold it to me. It’s running well,” he said.

“I owned a Kelvinator before this one, had it for many, many years. I could not repair it anymore so I let go of it and got this one (Philips make). This one is old too, but has not given me any problems yet.”

Just then a call sounds outside the window. In a matter of few seconds the inn empties out of customers as they hurry out to board the ferry. The innkeeper walks up to the entrance and watches the ferry pull out as its sets off for the other bank. Silence returns to the inn.


The innkeeper walks over to where I sit and says, “Now I will get you your Pao Bhaji.”

“Sure,” I smile.

When I had walked into the inn earlier in the day he had asked me if I had a ferry to catch. When I told him I wasn’t taking the ferry he asked me if it was okay if he attended first to customers who had a ferry to catch. I told him to go right ahead.

He returns to the back of the kitchen to whip up Bhaji. I sit still watching out the window.

I eat the Pao Bhaji in silence. The Pao is fresh. In no time I finish both. Then I ask for another plate of Pao Bhaji, then some tea.


Time passes. The wall clock shows 40 minutes past eleven. Voices of sand dredgers float in to where I sit. If I listened carefully I might be able to hear the water lapping the banks in the distance.

The next ferry is scheduled for 11:50 a.m. Until then I have the silence of the inn to myself. A fly buzzes somewhere in the inn. At times when the ear tunes in to a sound in the silence, the sound, more often than not, ceases to be an irritant.


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Best Travelogue Nomination in the Lonely Planet Travel Blog Awards 2009

Thank you for nominating Windy Skies in the Best Travelogue category in the first ever Lonely Planet Travel Blog Awards 2009.

Lonely Planet released the top five nominees in each of the 14 categories from the nominations received, and I’m thrilled to find this blog listed in the top five nominees in the Best Travelogue category.

Public voting opens today, and will count towards 50% in the judging, the other 50% will be accounted for by a Lonely Planet judging panel.

Windy Skies is two months shy of five years and it’s been a privilege to travel with you on many a long and varied journey, and the discussions that followed.

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A Shrine On The Streetside, Faith On The Inside

It is a warm feeling and it does not come from the early morning sunshine alone.

In a narrow Bombay lane an old lady makes her way across the road from her hut at the break of dawn. Clutching a matchbox, some oil for a lamp, water in a steel utensil to wash the stone slab with, and a damp piece of cloth, she walks uncertainly across the narrow road to the footpath opposite. There, affixed to the compound wall separating the premises within from the bustle of the lane outside is a wall tile with a picture of Sai Baba looking benignly at the world passing by, a garland of marigolds adorning him.

The few times that I’ve seen her she’s been either squatting in front of the small shrine she’s built for Sai Baba on the footpath or bent at the waist wiping the image of Sai Baba with a piece of damp cloth. Other than her I’ve never seen anyone place offerings at the shrine though passersby will pause for a moment, slip out of their footwear and fold their hands in a quick prayer before going their way.


Not too long ago the shrine that you see in the picture was of a more ‘permanent’ structure until the Municipality came calling. Not that it was much of a hurdle to get around on their way, for most people using the footpath did just that, and still do when the old lady prays at the shrine, but rules being rules they took the structure away while leaving the saint’s presence on the wall alone. It did not deter her. She returned to the shrine, now stripped down to a platform (a slab of stone) resting on two carved stone rests that can be moved aside if need be.



After washing the platform with water she had carried in a steel utensil she reaches under the platform to retrieve the steel lamp, then fills it with oil from the plastic bottle and lights it before saying her prayers to the saint. Then she pushes the lamp under the platform where shielded from breeze it burns away through the morning, shining in the faith of an elderly lady.

I see her only occasionally, and cannot remember ever seeing her face, covered as it is on the side by the sari she wraps around her head. Many an elderly woman will cover the head with the pallu of the sari, more in deference to the deity while saying their prayers.

In crossing the street to the shrine on the footpath, while she’s aware of any traffic coming her way, she’ll rarely look anywhere else other than where she’s headed. If the garland has shriveled away in the heat she will replace it with a fresh one, taking her time in tying the ends to the nails in the wall.

I cannot hazard a guess as to why she chose to have a shrine to Sai Baba on a footpath in a narrow street rather than at her home. For all I know she might have one back home. Is it so passersby can seek blessings while on their way past? Or is it that walking to a temple is an act of faith in itself because walking involves an effort, a discipline that mirrors a resolve necessary to any act of faith?

I wouldn’t know.

Looking back I wonder what it is about her bending at the shrine that mellows the morning sunshine so. Does it result from seeing an act of deeply personal faith performed so publicly as to invest the surroundings with reverence reserved for divinity, bringing sanity to the road and invoking in the believers a common call to faith while they go their separate ways?

I wouldn’t know for sure.

Second Chance

A Second Chance in Bombay. 2009.

Lonely Planet Travel Blog Awards 2009

Lonely Planet is closing nominations for its first ever Travel Blog Awards tomorrow, February 18, midday Melbourne time.

For quite sometime now travel blogs have come to inhabit the Social Media space in a niche of their own, bringing stories and images from around the world, and opening up trails less known, and connecting with their readers.

Here’s an opportunity to nominate your favourite travel blogs in the first ever Lonely Planet Travel Blog Awards 2009.

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UPDATE

Nominations are now closed. Thank you to all who voted. Public voting for the finalists in each category is expected to start on Feb 25, and continue till March 20, 2009. The dates might be subject to change.

Saffron Memories

There must be a reason why sadhus prefer to squat if they don’t have to be on their feet. It may be that they’re rarely in a hurry to get anywhere and it does not make sense to stand waiting for a train. The other reason could be that few or no eyebrows are raised on seeing them squat in public places, something that must have to do with their dress, the saffron robes that set them apart from everyone else.

Whatever the reason may be I was surprised to see a group of seven sadhus squatting on the railway platform one morning. When I ran up the short flight of stairs and stopped short on seeing them I noticed that one of the sadhus was holding a photo album in his hand. He wore a jhola the size that would comfortably hold the photo album. In between they exchanged small talk.


The sadhu with the photo album must’ve said something, for the rest of the group soon drew closer and formed a tight circle around him. It only meant they hadn’t traveled together for long else no photo album will stay tucked away inside the jhola for too long on an Indian journey.

As he flipped the leaves, pictures, two to each side of the leaf, came into view. There were pictures of other sadhus (some apparently from the Kumbh Mela), of Hindu deities, of sadhus posing for pictures outside temples, and surprisingly two rupee and five rupee notes tucked away into an empty plastic picture slot or two.

He paused at each picture and said something I could not hear from where I stood. He must have spoken from memory for the pictures appeared to have been taken at different places at different times, probably at destinations he had been to. Seeing me show interest in the pictures he looked up at me and smiled before turning to the album.


As he spoke, his voice occasionally drowned by the announcer announcing train arrivals and departures, the rest listened quietly, looking at each picture as the leaves turned.

The only time they smiled was when they saw a make-believe five hundred rupee note with Goddess Lakshmi gracing one side inserted in a picture slot. Goddess Lakshmi is worshipped as the Goddess of Wealth, and no devout Hindu will shy away from worshipping her, more so on Lakshmi Puja during Diwali.

Then there were pictures of Hindu Gods, deities in temples. Not once did any of them shift their eyes from the album in the time he showed them the pictures, listening in silence. Of the pictures of sadhus he showed them some must have featured him posing with those he made friends with. Given that the photos appeared to be in no recognizable sequence meant whoever took the pictures possibly returned to give him a copy, perhaps a traveler.

I could only imagine what the album must mean to him. Memories of pilgrimages, of fellow sadhus befriended, of temples visited, and rivers worshipped must necessarily define the identity of the pilgrim feet, otherwise what else is tangible.

Once he was done with showing them the pictures he prepared to tuck the album away into his jhola. All around them passengers on their way to the office stepped around the sadhus to get to the train, hurried as much by the need to get through the day as by the compulsion of the need.

An itinerant has his footsteps for a family, and miles for a clock. And he banks memories to sustain him on journeys like others bank money. He accrues interest on his memories when he shares them with others, and he spends the accrued interest on his belief, strengthening his faith in his faith.

About then the horn sounded and I sprinted in the direction of the incoming train, slowing by a bit to ease the pain of a fall from a train months ago.

Indian Copy

I thought it strange that the bookseller would prefer to sit by a drinking-water tap on the railway platform rather than be on his feet selling books now that the Nagercoil Express had come to a halt at the railway station. It was a few minutes past four in the afternoon when it pulled into Pune on its way to Tirupati and beyond, to Nagercoil in Tamilnadu.

The train leaves Mumbai at ten past twelve in the noon. With close to four hours already behind us in the journey and nineteen more to go before it touches Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh at 11.00 a.m. the next morning I stepped to the door to look for a railway bookstall for a book that might keep me company on the long journey ahead.

It was then that I saw Bhole Singh Chauhan sitting listlessly on a platform by a drinking water tap where passengers were quenching their thirst.

Under the khaki ‘working-shirt’ labeled Wheeler after the Wheeler bookshops that dot railway stations around India, Bhole Singh Chauhan wore a full-sleeved shirt. Pune is pleasant in January and it is not until March that the weather turns decidedly warmer.

In the din of vendors calling attention to their wares that ranged from fried savouries and fruits to accessories like combs and safety pins I walked to where Bhole Singh Chauhan sat watching the goings-on around him. The stack by his side held some books and a range of magazines. On the top of the pile lay The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, the novel that won the author the 2008 Man Booker Prize. Born into a Kannadiga Brahmin family from coastal Karnataka and writing about India’s underbelly, Aravind Adiga’s book drew mixed emotions in India for its treatment of the divide between the rich and the poor while charting the travails of Balram Halwai.

Pointing to the pirated copy of The White Tiger that nevertheless had legible print, he said, “This book has been selling well now.”

I pick up the copy and turn it. The price on the back of the book stares back at me. Everything about the pirated copy looks the same as the original with the publishers imprint et al except for the quality of the paper used, and the design that is ‘shaky’ in places.

“Do you sell it for Rs. 395?” I ask him, pointing to Rs. 395 printed on the back.

“No,” he says. “It goes for Rs. 100 or at most Rs. 125. This is an Indian Copy so it is cheap.” Indian Copy is a euphemism for a pirated copy.

Bhole Singh Chauhan and the others who sell books on the platform “deposit Rs. 1000 each day with the seth (boss) to have books issued against the security deposit.” By ‘seth’ I assume he’s referring to the owner of the Wheeler bookstore outlet at the railway station. At the end of the day the seth refunds the security deposit to the vendors after accounting for the sales and adjusting the commission on books sold during the day.

He tells me that they get a commission of 8% on the sales. I refuse to believe him. His colleague who had stopped by to listen to our conversation steps up to back the figure. “He’s right. We get only 8% on the sales.”

“If you were to sell original books and not ‘Indian Copies’ you would be making more money even at 8%,” I remark.

“That’s true. But who will buy books for that price (original) here (railway station and passing trains)? More so those traveling in this,” Bhole Singh Chauhan replies while pointing to the Second Class compartment I had just stepped out of. “Nobody would buy them at those prices. With Indian Copies we at least manage to sell some.”

I counter him with, “I’m sure there’ll be those who will buy the original copies.”

“Yes, the shauqeen (passionate about books) will not buy Indian Copies,” he replies. “They will prefer to pay Rs. 395 for the other copy (original).”

A commission of 8% on pirated books sporting original prices meant the platform booksellers will have agreed a base price for the books with the seth for, there’s no way the seth would know how much the platform booksellers actually sell the books for. A pirated copy of The White Tiger could go for as much as Rs. 200 with one customer and for Rs. 150 with another.

“Our seth tells us not to sell it below Rs. 100,” he said.

Rs. 100 is probably the base price the seth fixed for The White Tiger, calculating 8% sales commission on the base price. The vendor would get to keep anything above the base price if he had the skills to sell it for more.

“Do you manage to sell this book for Rs. 175 and over?” I ask him.

“Rarely,” he replies. “Most people who buy these books know that these are Indian Copies, so they bargain hard. Usually we manage to sell them between Rs. 100 to Rs. 125.”

I return my attention to the stack. Robin Sharma’s The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari lies beneath The White Tiger.

Pointing to Robin Sharma’s book he says, “This one sells the most.” It is apparent that he has difficulty pronouncing the title.

I ask him if reading habits of railway passengers have changed now as compared to those a few years ago.


“Yes, they have. Now people have mobile phones. They keep doing things with their mobile phones. Books are meant for timepass on train journeys, so if they can timepass with mobile phones why would they buy these,” he replies, pointing to the stack by his side. “Before, there were no mobile phones, and people bought books.”

Behind me the 6351 / Nagercoil Express stands in silence. The train covers the 1,152 kilometres to Tirupati in 23 hours, and I’m looking forward to the time on the train. The route crosses several states, passing Daund, Solapur, Gulbarga, Yadgir, Raichur, Guntakal, Gooty, Cuddapah, and Renigunta Jn. among others before pulling into Tirupati for a quick stop at 11.00 a.m. tomorrow. Then it continues on to Nagercoil, a further 815 kilometres away, passing Tiruchchirapali, Madurai, and Tirunelveli on the way. We would be getting off at Tirupati.



The changing topography outside the window on a journey by the Indian Railways invariably holds many an interesting sight for an eager traveler, and it was no different on the Nagercoil Express. Looking around I see passengers relishing savouries while others are stretching their legs on the platform, alert to the sounding of the horn announcing the departure of the Nagercoil Express on its onward journey across India. Every once in a while I cast a quick glance behind me at the train for the slightest hint of movement, for in the din on the platform it is easy to miss the horn. Then I turn to the bookseller.

Bhole Singh Chauhan is from Etawah in Uttar Pradesh. I tell him that his surname is similar to ‘Chavan’, natives of Maharashtra. He corrects me.

“No. We are Chauhans. The Chauhan of Prithvi Raj Chauhan,” he said, invoking the name of the legendary Hindu Rajput King who repulsed the early Islamic invasions of India by Muhammad Shahab ud-Din Ghori on several occasions in the 1100s before being defeated and taken to Afganistan where he was blinded. Then Muhammad Ghori went about converting India to Islam by the sword, marking the beginning of a brutal chapter of Muslim conquest of Northern India.


Rajputs take great pride in their exploits on the battlefield over the centuries and it is not uncommon even today to sense their fierce pride in their community and their surnames, and it is a rare Rajput who will not mention he is one to anyone who might confuse the surname for another community.

It is nine years now that Bhole Singh Chauhan has been selling books on the railway platform. He tells me that he manages to sell 2-3 books each day. “Magazines sell more, so my stock of magazines gets sold, but not books,” he says. He left unsaid that selling books on railway platform is a hard life, with measly returns and nine years is a long time in the business.

He rarely smiled in the time we spoke. When he drew an association with the famous Rajput king, Prithvi Raj Chauhan, to distinguish between the Chavans of Maharashtra to the West of India, and the Chauhans, a clan of Rajputs originating in Northern India, I sensed a wistful tone to his remark made casually, “Rajputs used be warriors once.”

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Laburnum Road

After emerging from Mani Bhavan I paused for a moment and looked down the quiet road again. This time around I tried imagining Mahatma Gandhi leaning over the balcony in the year 1917 when it was time for the Carder to pass that way each day. It was the year Mahatma Gandhi first came to live in Mani Bhavan on Laburnum Road in Gamdevi, among the older neighbourhoods in Bombay.

Gandhiji was looking for Carders to card cotton into slivers for use in spinning cotton yarn. Writing in his The Story of my Experiments with Truth he said, “In Bombay, again, the same old problem of obtaining a supply of hand-made sliver presented itself. A carder twanging his bow used to pass daily by Shri. Revashankar’s residence (Mani Bhavan). I sent for him and learnt that he carded cotton for stuffing mattresses. He agreed to card cotton for slivers, but demanded a stiff price for it, which, however, I paid.”

This was the road the carder took each day in 1917 I tell myself, my gaze lingering in the silence of the shade that trees on either side of the quiet street lent this corner of an old city, a silence lent weight by the presence of a man the world would come to know as the Mahatma or the ‘Great Soul’.

Colonial-time bungalows with old-world sounding names on their gates stood in quiet symphony with the weight of pre-independence history. I passed each bungalow, pausing to look up, searching for life I could connect to a bygone era. There was no life I could detect in the stately windows, some of which showed signs of disrepair.


A few houses past Mani Bhavan rises Shireen Villa to my right, its gate rusting in its hinges. I slow down to admire the columns flanking the door. If I were to linger on I wonder if an old lady would materialize at the door to enquire of my presence at the gate. Moments pass but no door opens. None would, at least not at Shireen Villa. At times silence is a continuum for imagination to will a reality that no longer exists, and it is in the hoping and wishing that imagination fashions a moment into reality.



I step to the side of the road to let a car of tourists pass. The Mani Bhavan sees many a European tourist walk through its gates, and Asians as well, Japanese in particular. Many of the villas on Laburnum Road owe their architecture to the firm of Taraporewala and Bharucha.

Suddenly I hear excited shouts from across the road where Gool Villa stands, its sliding windows jarring the façade. I cannot remember seeing the aluminum framed windows from an earlier visit; maybe they had escaped my attention the last time.



I see their colourful kites before I see them, four young boys delighting in their kites as they attempt to ride some wind. There’s none. So they run, trailing their kites behind them, and looking over their shoulders to see the kites rise up by a little only to fall to the ground as the tiny legs tire as much from the running as from dodging the parked cars.

Pappu’s kite is elegant in the only way that a kite costing two rupees, and made of light paper can be. It has a short, pink tail and is bordered by narrow white strips on two sides. Pappu seems the silent sort, hair oiled and combed neatly. He has a shy smile, preferring instead to let Dhiren do all the talking. Dressed in a red t-shirt and pink footwear Pappu’s choice of clothes complement his choice of kite.



Of the four only Dhiren, who stays in one of the buildings in the street, was still in his school uniform. His alert face, apart from his name and quick responses marked him out as a Gujarati, a guess I was prepared to stick with. He said he studies just round the corner. Manish, the youngest of the four was Jayesh’s brother, Dhiren told me excitedly, pointing to Manish first, and then to Jayesh who wore a light pink shirt. I noticed that Manish and Jayesh wore similar looking half pants, and that both wore no footwear.

Dhiren told me that they had bought the kites from a local kite seller in Gamdevi and that Pappu’s kite cost him two rupees. Then opening his hands wide he said, “The kite seller has this big kite for fifty rupees.” Then opening his hands wider Dhiren continued, “And this big for hundred rupees.” He looked to Pappu and Jayesh to confirm the size. They did, nodding their heads. “He even has one for two hundred rupees,” Dhiren continued, his voice rising a notch and hands stretching even wider until they could stretch no more.

There was still a little over ten days to go for Makar Sankranti, an auspicious Hindu festival usually celebrated in the middle of January, marking the beginning of the harvest season for Indian farmers and the transition of the Sun into Capricorn. On Makar Sankranti thousands of kites ascend the sky, particularly in Gujarat.


But for this quartet of enthusiastic kids the festival had already begun. Their exuberance was almost out of character with the quiet street. For a moment I wondered if the skies over Laburnum Road had seen kites on the auspicious day in the decades past, or if the Carder whose name I do not know brought string to give to children so that their kites may rise high.

As I step back on the road I wonder how Gool Villa got its name. I like the mystery my not knowing brings to my experience on the road.


Outside the gates of some of the villas cars are parked to the side of the street. Surely there’ll have been fewer cars in those days I thought, and that the Carder must have called attention to his presence by twanging his bow as Gandhiji wrote in his autobiography, or maybe even called out his services as he passed on the road I now walk along. His voice must have sounded through the mansions, reminding families as much of the Carder as of the time of the day it was. His absence, even for a day, would have been noticed for, at some time or the other each family on Laburnum Road will have needed his services to inject new life into their mattresses, lending a face to the voice that sounded in the street each day. Come to think of it, every fixture is but a constant, a bearing that life aligns to in charting its course for the day.

I can only guess as to the families that lived in these homes then, with nothing to go on but names on gates, names that now morph into faces that my imagination draws from other faces, even if wholly unrelated, but sharing the same surname, and where details escape me I draw my visual frames of reference from communities many of the names seemingly belong to – the Parsis, the Gujaratis.


There’s little or no crowd about. In the late afternoon light I see trees come alive in the shadows they throw on the walls of the villas. It is in the shadows that I sense the life I seek on my walk down Laburnum Road. In the shadows the branches lack features. There’s a certain quiet to the featureless, a certain silence. It is a kind of silence that comes from stillness, the lack of any movement where you might expect some. It is not the silence of the street as much as it is the silence of an empty house. In watching the shadows on the walls it is as if I am watching to see if the wall responds to the caress of the trees.

Like the Carder who once walked down Laburnum Road, his passing a fixture in the daily lives of families that lived on the street. Now, come late afternoon, the shadows the trees cast on the villas are temporary fixtures that at once promise a certainty in their transience.


Note: Over a week ago PBS wrote in to inform me of the launch on January 5 of their six-part Story of India series by Michael Wood, projecting their India effort as “seeking in the present for clues to her past, and in the past for clues to her future.” The show runs on Mondays. For local timings head over to the PBS Engage blog.

Fishing for Some Morning Luck

One early morning recently as I hurried to board a suburban local train I stumbled upon an unlikely scene.

For a place that’s usually abuzz with tea stall owners making brisk business from rickshaw drivers warming to their early morning shifts with a glass of steaming tea, occasionally joined by office goers heading into the railway station for a ride to their destinations around Bombay, the sight of a man squatting to the side of the road, two dogs silently watching him chop fish on a makeshift board was an uncommon sight.


I cannot remember seeing a food stall whipping up fish curry among those serving tea out of makeshift tin shops that crowd the approach to the railway station. The dogs were oblivious to office goers hurrying past them so intent were they on the possibilities the morning held.

It was apparent the fish were not for sale but that did not stop a man from enquiring if they were. In all the time the dogs watched silently. The man paid them scant attention. It is very likely he will have tossed a piece of fish each to reward their patience once he was done with his job.


If you’ve lived in Bombay for some time and are an early riser and have to take a train to work then you’ll have seen fish vendors get off the luggage compartment with baskets of fish that they’ve furiously haggled for at docks where fishing trawlers land their catch in time for the early morning markets. Others source their baskets from fish markets around town before making their way to suburban railway stations for a ride down the Central and Western lines for suburbs to vend their wares in small fish markets there, usually squatting by the side of a road with the basket of fish at their feet.

It is rare that a rickshaw, a three-wheeler transport, will ferry them over to their designated spot in the fish market for, the strong smell of fish left behind in trails of melting ice seeping from the cane basket can render stout hearts queasy at the thought of putting up with it on their journey to their homes or elsewhere. In the morning rush hour every passenger matters to the rickshaw driver and it is unlikely he'll risk the day by ferrying fish in the backseat. So the fisherwomen walk to the fish market, challenged by crows and silent dogs along the way.



Waiting for a train one morning I watched two fisherwomen get off the luggage compartment with a basket of fish each balanced on their heads. As passengers heading out of the station crowded the covered stairway that leads up to the over-bridge they met with another stream of passengers making their way down to the railway platform, a common sight in rush-hour passenger traffic. In the ensuing logjam the two women paused for the stream to move up the steps. They had barely taken three steps up the stairs when a crow swooped in on the basket and made off with a fish through an opening in the covered staircase without breaking ‘stride’. For a while afterwards I was startled at the ingenuity and the speed of the enterprising crow that had made off with the fish in one fell swoop. This could not have been a one off for it must have known before of the opening in the covered staircase that would enable it to fly on without breaking ‘stride’ so to say.

Since then I’ve kept an eye out for enterprising crows that mill about railway platforms but without much luck. I believe it takes as much enterprise to make off with a fish in the uncertain dynamics of suburban railway stations as with retaining the prize fish from competing crows that haven’t been able to pull of a stunner themselves. A few months ago I witnessed just this.

Waiting in the compartment for the train to start on its journey I saw a crow with a fish in its beak land in a tree by the railway tracks. Soon enough three crows followed it to the tree. While two perched on branches on either side of the crow with the morning catch the third one waited on the ground, looking up, and ready to make off with the fish should it drop to the ground in the inevitable struggle for the booty between the three above. The morning Sun lit up the branch. Elsewhere the speakers reverberated with announcements of trains pulling into the station.

However the enterprising crow held the fish firm against the branch while pecking furiously at it. In between fending off opportunistic jabs by the two crows it quickly swallowed a few pieces of fish. Beneath, the third crow remained attentive to the drama unfolding in the branch above, alert for some morning luck to come its way. After fending off more charges by the two crows intent on sharing the spoils even as it swallowed more of the fish, the enterprising crow quickly lifted its beak and with quick bobs of its head regurgitated portions of fish it had gulped down. As pieces of fish covered with saliva fell to the ground, followed by the two crows that had jabbed for a piece of the meal without success, a virtual scramble ensued on the ground between the three.

Sensing an opportunity for some peace the crow in the tree proceeded to finish its breakfast while its pursuers battled it out below.


Note: Last week PBS wrote in to inform me of the launch on January 5 of their six-part Story of India series by Michael Wood, projecting their India effort as “seeking in the present for clues to her past, and in the past for clues to her future.” The show runs on Mondays. For local timings head over to the PBS Engage blog.

Granthayan, A Mobile Book Store

Stepping out of a bookstore recently I came upon a bright glow in the street as we made our way out of the shopping complex. On a closer look it turned out to be Granthayan, a mobile book store on wheels that launched in Bombay this August. Parked to the side of the road, three fans running, it was a winter welcome I couldn’t resist.

Unlike last year there is little chill this time around. Last year the chill lasted for over a month. Bombay usually sees little or no winter so it was a surprise last year to experience a drop in the mercury. Even then it rarely drops enough to force you back home early or think twice before setting off to the market for groceries. It is only in the early mornings and evenings that there’s a nip in the air.

Usually Bombay sees its winter last a little over a week when it gets cold enough to huddle under the blankets a wee bit longer in the mornings. So it was a surprise to find temperatures cooling considerably last year and it was a pleasure to step out and shiver a little when a stiff breeze blew your way.

I had hoped that this year too the winter would last like it did last year but there is little sign it will last beyond a week and even then the temperature hasn’t dropped by all that much. Actually it is pleasant in the evenings.

Monsoons and winters are two seasons made for reading if you’re stuck at home or wish to stay back the evening.

I haven’t lived in Bombay long enough to know if reading habits have changed over the last two decades. I believe they’ll have. I do see people read in the trains, mostly the local newspapers, and occasionally books. Unless you manage to get a seat in the train in the morning rush hour it is well neigh impossible to read anything at all but office goers have adopted novel methods to scan newspaper inches. Reading a book in the crowded local trains is no less difficult even though they’re handy to carry and read.


Entering the mobile book store I had the space to myself except for an elderly gentleman scanning the shelves for Marathi language books. Granthayan runs out of a modified TATA mini-truck. On the street outside sodium-vapour lamps lit up the roads.



At a computer terminal in a corner by the entrance Avinash Rane sits on a small stool, barcode scanner in hand. Behind him traffic zooms past, disappearing into the Christmas night. Occasionally a horn sounds, slicing the steady hum of fans whirring in the parked book store. There're hundreds of titles in the shelves awaiting discovery, titles new and old, some familiar, some not. Avinash rarely steps away from the computer terminal. Every once in a while his assistant, a silent youth in a blue t-shirt with Granthayan emblazoned in bold orange letters hands him books that customers selected for purchase. He quickly scans the books and prints out receipts before collecting payment. There's hardly a word uttered in all the time. It is as if they're answering to a purpose beyond selling books. It may well be so.

In Sanskrit, among the oldest and the most formidable of ancient Indian languages, Grantha is variously a book, a treatise, and a composition. Granthayan can be loosely understood to be a book movement of sorts, or may be a book journey.


Avinash tells me that they have ten such mobile book stores operational in Maharashtra State. “One is in Kudal at the moment, another is in Raigad. There is one in Vidharba as well. They drive to where they feel they’ve takers for the books.”

Kudal is in the Konkan to the West of Maharashtra, along the coast. Granthayan apparently aims to take the reading habit to far flung areas in the State of Maharashtra where book stores are not easily accessible, like villages and small towns for instance. For a moment I picture this initiative on wheels trundle along quiet country roads, drawing curious attention along the way as it stops from place to place. And dusty villages where village centres are typically a smattering of shops selling basic provisions while village folk gather under trees or on platforms around a Banyan or a Neem tree must present an interesting challenge in spreading the reading habit, more so if reading has been largely restricted to school textbooks.

Even as I think of rural scenes I smile to myself, warming to the idea. A bookstore on wheels is just what the doctor ordered.


Looking around I’m surprised at the number and variety of book titles stacked in neat rows on book shelves that line the three walls of the truck. A book rack in the middle partitions the space into two sections. The shelves are a mix of popular and business titles. The titles are most likely selected keeping in mind the localities they drive to, for I cannot imagine these titles finding many takers in say, Kudal.

“The Marathi books are costlier than the English ones,” the elderly browser I first saw on entering the back of the truck tells me, shaking his head at the thought.

“Maybe it is difficult for Marathi language book publishers to keep the costs down. There isn’t as much sales volume to Marathi books as there is for English books,” I offer as an explanation, unsure if that indeed is the reason. However in reality Marathi books are cheaper than the English titles. It is likely he was referring to certain Marathi titles.

“Of the remaining seven Granthayan mobile book stores, four are in Mumbai, of which one is doing rounds at Tilaknagar in Chembur. Outside of Mumbai there is one operational in Airoli, and one in Palgar,” Avinash remarks as I hand him a Gerald Durell title I’ve chosen to take home, Rosy Is My Relative. The blurb reads thus: What does a young man bequeathed Pounds Sterling 500 and an elephant with a taste for liquor do? Adrian Rookwhistle thought he had the answer - he'd give her to a circus. But it wasn't so easy. As Avinash makes a receipt for my purchase I notice a family of three passing by the truck pause by the open door on seeing book shelves reflected in bright tubelight.

There’s a ‘What on Earth is a book store doing in a truck on the side of a road this late at night’ look on their faces. A mobile book store is not a common sight on city roads. Curiosity gets the better of them and they take the short flight of retractable stairs up before venturing to the back of the truck, scanning book titles as they move along the shelves.

I ask Avinash if the venture is drawing enthusiastic response from the public.

“Yes, yes. It is,” he replies. “I’ve had many people asking me if I can bring the vehicle to where they stay. I told them that if their Housing Society permits me to bring the vehicle into their complex I will readily drive it over.”


Over five hundred books were sold the day I chanced upon the 'Books on Wheels' truck. I’m not sure if Avinash Rane sold the five hundred off his stock of books in the truck or if it was aggregated across all ten trucks. Whatever the case may be I thought five hundred is an encouraging number for a mobile book store aiming to bring books to your door.


Note: Granthayan operates a toll free number (1800-209-8074) that you can use to order books to be delivered free to your home anywhere in Maharashtra with payment to be made in cash on delivery. Only orders above Rs. 250/- are accepted for home delivery, the delivery taking between 1-10 days.

Black, Yellow, and Shades of White

Passing me the change he owed me, the taxi driver smiled as he said, “Janglala aag laglyavar sukhya barobar oley pan jaltey.” Hearing him use the Marathi proverb I broke into a smile as I prepared to open the door to step out of his taxi. Translated from the Marathi it reads, “Once the jungle catches fire, even the wet burns away with the dry.”

I opened the rear door, thanked him and got out before pushing the door shut. It was the morning of the 26th of November, a little over three weeks ago. Behind me cars honked on their way past vehicles parked to the side of the road, narrowing it further to a point where only one vehicle could pass at a time. The impatient among the drivers honked to warn oncoming vehicles of their right to way.

Set back from the narrow lane the corner tea stall operating out of a makeshift shop was up and running while women in nightgowns swept the floor clean in front of their doorways. At a turn in the road behind me taxi drivers stood talking by their taxis even as they kept an eye out for potential passengers.

Early mornings are languid affairs in the many bylanes that section off city’s neighbourhoods. Long before residents descend from their apartments a working underclass comprising vegetable vendors, milkmen, sweepers, newspaper vendors, and taxi drivers among others rouse the city to life even as black and yellow taxis, their engines warming to life from the slumber of the night before, rumble the morning stillness as people ready for office. A quick cup of tea prepares taxi drivers for the long day ahead. The sight of a taxi driver in khakis leaning against the bonnet of his taxi awaiting passengers is a trademark Bombay morning scene.

Behind me an elderly man in a worn banian (cotton vest) wiped the windshield clean before bending over the bonnet of the sturdy Premier Padmini, the preferred choice of Bombay taxi drivers. Dipping the cloth rag in a bucket of water he reached over the roof and gave it quick swipes, back and forth. Then he emptied the bucket to the side of the lane.

While the taxi got a scrub the taxi driver settled in for an early morning read on the pavement, his back to a tree.

A product of PAL (Premier Automobiles Limited) formerly owned by the Walchand Hirachand Group that used to assemble Fiat’s Fiat 1100 series of cars beginning 1950s, the Premier Padmini, also known as Padmini Premier, debuted in India in the year 1962 as the Fiat 1100-D, and barring some modifications in the years that followed it came to be known as the Padmini Premier, in time becoming as much an icon of the city of Bombay as the Taj. The last of the Padmini Premiers rolled out in 1998 and like with many things in the city time moved firmly to overtake this black and yellow identity of the city.

The reassuring sound of the taxi door settling back on its hinges is an event by itself, signaling as it does the start of a working day. Unlike most days spent in the silence of the backseat today was different. Though there was no foreboding of the event that was to kick the city in its teeth later that night, none in the air and none in the gentle demeanour of the Maharashtrian cab driver, there must have been much on his mind as he left me chewing on the Marathi proverb he flung my way like a boxer might throw a punch at the stroke of the bell.

As I crossed the road I reflected on his feelings for many of his fellow cabbies who were slated to lose their taxis to the rule the city had passed to ‘phase out’ taxis older than 25 years. Only a little over a week remained for the rule to come into force. But little did we know that morning that in a little over a week from now the city of Bombay would begin to lose more than just a few thousands of Premier Padminis.

From the time I had stepped into his taxi, a Premier Padmini 1992 Model, the Maharashtrian taxi driver, originally from Kolhapur, quickly spelt out his stand on the rule. “If the taxi is functioning well and also now that almost all of them have converted to CNG, why should they be banned from the roads?” A rolled-up copy of Maharashtra Times lay wedged between the rearview mirror and the roof.

Drawing an analogy with the human body, he said, “If one is not keeping well then only the affected part is treated, isn’t it?” I nodded. Then he told me of how “only the papers go for passing” while the taxis merrily criss cross the city instead of showing up at the Road Transport Office. “Often the taxis are not even checked for their (driving) ‘condition’ before issuing their ‘passing’, only the papers reach the RTO, not the taxis.” He had one eye on the road as he spoke of how some cabbies wouldn’t be bothered to present their taxis for the yearly ‘passing’ at the RTO if they knew it is easier to pass the papers along by making available some ‘consideration’ to the officials. He reserved his ire and curses for the ‘three star’ officers who wouldn’t be bothered so long as they ‘earned’ their keep from the taxi drivers.

“If the door doesn’t close properly, or if the headlights are poor, the body is rusted, or the engine smokes then don’t pass the vehicle na. Let the driver get it fixed before allowing it back on the road,” he continued. “Even I would love to have a Skoda instead of driving this one. But where is the money. To go for a new vehicle now will cost a lot of money and most drivers can’t afford to feed their family well.”

I sat listening quietly as we passed traffic on our way, slowing down to let early morning shoppers at the vegetable market cross the road. He spoke in Marathi. As he shifted gears to take a turn into one of the lanes he said, “Why should age be a factor, and not performance? So now they (government) think nothing of dumping all vehicles older than 25 years even if they’re running on CNG and functioning smoothly. They’re throwing everything away, the good and the bad.”

Once the jungle catches fire, even the wet burns away with the dry.

Later that night the terrorists struck Bombay in a coordinated assault aimed at killing as many innocents as they could get hold of.

Then the news anchors announced that the terrorists were Muslim, and that they came from Pakistan.

I stayed home the next day, Thursday. Much of Mumbai did. I doubt if it was because the city was afraid of the terrorists. If I know the city well it had to be because no one wanted to get stuck in the middle of nowhere should the terrorist strikes throw the public transport haywire, leaving people stranded with no way to get home.

On Friday I left for the office early in the morning passing an elderly Muslim woman selling sundry items on the railway foot-bridge. Spread on a blue plastic sheet were colourful combs, safety pins, and envelopes. The last of the terrorists were still engaged in a battle with the security forces that morning at the Taj. The presence of hundreds of hostages had made the entire operation arduous. The religious dimension the terrorists brought to the attack turned the mood in the city palpably.

I hailed a passing taxi sporting an old registration number plate. This is an old taxi I thought, probably older than twenty five years and its days on the city roads must be numbered. It is funny how the seemingly inconsequential occupies the mind when there’re pressing matters forcing the conscious to take note of and reflect on. Thoughts tend to localize when demands made of them are global in nature. In the moment I took to slide into the backseat of the taxi the morning Sun kicked up a ruckus in Usman’s hennaed beard, turning it into an angry fluff of deep orange and setting off his wrinkles.

Usman, the elderly Muslim taxi driver, came to Bombay from Gujarat in 1957 when he was “still young”, working odd jobs before taking to driving a taxi. “It’s been years now that I have been driving this taxi,” he was to tell me later that morning.

Usman backed up his taxi before turning onto the highway. There were only a few people on the streets and it was not difficult to imagine why. Since the night of 26/11 television channels were falling over each other to beam live ‘exclusive’ footage of the unfolding attacks and even as I got into Usman’s old taxi that Friday morning television was beaming live the counter-terrorism effort underway at the Taj. It was in it final stages.

“Bahut bura ho raha hai, bahut bura hua,” I said to him. (What is happening is bad, and what happened was bad). It was more an intonation within earshot as in exhaling a knot of emotion than directed at anyone in particular, driven more by the need to share a feeling with another than to start a conversation around the comment.

“Yeh koi insaniyat hai,” he shot back at me (Is this humanity?) before continuing, “Nirdoshon ne kya bhigada tha kisika?” (What had the innocent victims harmed anything of anyone). A palpable disgust took hold of Usman as he flailed his arms in the little space the taxi afforded him, venting his anger at the terrorists who shared his religion, his voice shaking, and eyes wide open. With old age the voice can quiver when rage takes hold of it. A quivering voice even if an angry one can project little menace, compensating instead with flailing arms projecting the anger in the arc the hand describes. Usman looked to be nearing seventy.

Usman was probably aware of the intense scrutiny the Muslim community is undergoing, reinforced as much by similar fanaticism countries across the world have faced from the community as by the slew of terrorist attacks emanating from elements within their brotherhood in India, for he declared forcefully, “We (Muslims) ourselves say that they (the Islamist terrorists who attacked Mumbai) must be shot,” mimicking the pulling of the trigger as he spat the words with vehemence before continuing, “They should be hunted down.” A tubelight holder affixed to the roof of his taxi sported colours of the Indian flag. As the taxi hit a pothole the Koranic notation that hung from the rear view mirror jumped and swayed before steadying.

I ask him if the elders in his community have any say in what is preached in Mosques and taught in Madrassas. He lowered his voice, turning to look at me even as he kept his attention on the road, and said, “Talim bahar se milta hai. Bahar se,” (They receive their education – indoctrination here – outside, as in from beyond Indian borders), before repeating, “Bahar se. Bahar jaatey hai, talim wahan milta hai.” (They – the students – travel abroad, and they get their education – indoctrination in this context – there).

“They (those terrorizing in the name of Islam) bring us (Muslims) a bad name,” Usman said. I kept silent in the time he spoke. In the confines of an old taxi the warm air came to acquire a purple welt from the lashing an outraged Muslim man meted out on the morning the death toll in the waterfront attack inflicted by terrorists from Pakistan climbed steadily towards 200.

Watching Usman negotiate the crowd from the backseat and the quiet dignity he brought to the ethos of the street I could well imagine the ‘going away’ of a certain stolidity his generation brought to the city, bringing their ‘shades of grey’ to populate the black and white.

The average Bombay cabbie, especially the one who has lived in the city for a long time, is not easily hassled. He will not talk much, listening quietly while you speak, occasionally nodding, and other times silent, rarely acknowledging what you might have to say. And when he speaks it will be to nod in agreement with your assertion whatever it maybe, while keeping an eye out for jaywalkers on the busy road. Chances are he will own an old taxi and know every lane that goes anywhere in Bombay. Elderly cabbies are more likely to own the older of the Padmini Premiers. The ubiquitous yellow and black taxis and their elderly drivers are an underlying narrative of the lanes that intersect and connect city lives. In phasing out Padmini Premiers older than twenty five years a certain dignity the elder among the generation of Bombay cabbies brought to the city street could soon be a thing of the past.

I listened to Usman in silence. Another time we might have discussed the impending deadline issued to city cabs on the wrong side of 25 years. Another time I might have asked Usman if his taxi would be affected by the ruling as most likely it was. But these were extraordinary times. Another time Usman along with fellow taxi drivers might have organized himself for relief from the ruling. In all probability it must have been on the cards. But the terrorist strike will have changed all that. There was little else that occupied the mind, including Usman’s as I soon found out.

“They (the terrorists) don’t think of their parents? Their relatives, and all those left behind?” Usman said, his voice rising, exasperated at the thought of how the parents must feel to lose their children thus, at least some parents if not most.

Then he spoke of the brotherhood his community shared with other communities (notably the Hindus) in the city over the years, priding in their ability to afford ‘protection’ to the relatively ‘less prone to using violence, meeker, and god-fearing’ Hindus.

“In the neighbourhood we (Muslims) used to tell them (Hindus) to tell us if anyone gave them trouble and we would deal with it,” Usman said, his voice expanding even as he lamented, “and look what it has come to now (suspicion against his whole community). Every one of us is now lumped with the terrorists!”

Everyone! Yes, everyone!

Once the jungle catches fire, even the wet burns away with the dry.

Riverside in Panjim

Spanning time as much with their longevity as they do the road between the Secretariat and Miramar with their lush canopy, the Rain trees that line the Dayanand Bandodkar Marg make traveling along the riverfront one of the highlights on entering the city of Panaji on the West Coast of India. Panaji is the capital of Goa. I have walked the promenade along the Mandovi often, taking in river ferries as they make lazy crossings between Panjim jetty and Betim that lies across the river in the direction of Mapusa.

It is not uncommon to find large barges ferrying iron ore from open cast mines to loading points downstream of the river where it meets the Arabian Sea. Sometimes I have paused to watch the evening Sun glint off the river. From the road snatches of water rippling gently are visible through the balustrade that fences off the promenade from the river, and every once in a while tourists visiting Panjim walk along the promenade and take in views of the Mandovi. The locals mostly hurry past. Many Government offices are located along the stretch to the other side of the road.


Occasionally a lonely soul or two can be found perched on the riverfront parapet gazing into the distance. I have found expanses of water inviting such gazing, as if in the stillness that flatness of any kind induces there is to be found an evenness to steady the turbulence within. Not all who come here do so to gaze at the Mandovi lapping the promenade. Couples whiling away time can be seen sitting on cement benches lining the promenade, their attention divided between their companionship and the placid waters. Lamps punctuate the line of benches. As the Sun goes down they soothe the stretch with a familial glow bringing comfort to wandering souls far away from home.


Early this month I passed the Military Headquarters HQ 2 Signal Training Centre on D. B. Marg, casting a quick glance at the arched porch centered in the facade before crossing the road to the promenade. I had time on my hands as I made my way along the river. In the far distance spans of the bridge over the Mandovi connecting Panaji to Mapusa were visible. The Portuguese had based their military headquarters in this building before they were driven out by the Indian Army, ending their centuries’ old occupation of Goa. The Portuguese Generals must have enjoyed a quiet evening view of the Mandovi in happier times.

Casting my eye into the distance I noticed a lone figure wielding a net attached to the end of a long bamboo pole peer intently into the waters. In the backdrop lay a large floating casino, almost obscuring a stretch of the river. Casinos have been brought in to cater to affluent western tourists, beating back local protests fighting the spread of casino culture in the tiny state.

He waded into the waters, the large pole balanced against the back of his neck, the net attached to one end of the pole. A few of his friends sat on the parapet talking even as they kept an eye on him. On the face of it they appeared to be regulars at this time of the day, most probably workers at the end of their working day come looking for some banter and a catch to take home for dinner.

The fisherman lowered the net in the river and in a sweeping movement traced an arc in the waters. Lifting the net out of the water he checked it for catch. There was none.

He waded further out until his knees were well under the water. There he lowered the net again and in a sweeping movement he traced an arc from left to right, only pausing on facing resistance to the sweep. Apparently the net had snagged on some debris in the water that he couldn’t quite see. He took a few steps further out to avoid the obstruction before lowering the net again. This time the sweep yielded a catch. Cheers went up on the parapet where his friends sat following his progress. By now his effort had attracted a few passers-by as well.

The catch was by no means large but the bulge in the net as he lifted it out of the water indicated a catch worthy of a dinner for two, sufficient enough to satisfy a few minutes of exertion on an evening stroll with friends. He had landed Prawns (Sungto in Konkani, the local language).

The Sun licked the length of the promenade golden, casting shadows that loped along as people walked its length. Across the road to my right lay the Institute Menezes Braganca. Adjoining it was the Police Headquarters, formerly known as the Quartel da Policia do Estado da India, established during the rule of Dom Manoel de Portugal e Castro in the late 1920s during the erstwhile Portuguese regime.

Now that he had his catch I waited for the fisherman to make his way back to the promenade. I expected him to empty his catch before heading out again. Instead I saw him hesitate and look closely at the spot where his sweep had encountered resistance in the water. A few moments later he beckoned one of his friends sitting on the parapet to where he stood and passed him the long pole, the fishing net weighed down by the catch at one end.

Then he stepped back into the water and felt the spot with his hands until he located the obstruction. Standing there, my elbows on the parapet, I had a feeling he knew what the obstruction was. Soon enough I saw a tyre emerge from the waters as he rolled it upright. There was no knowing how long it had lain in the waters before he had found it that evening. Fishermen are known to leave tyres in the shallow of rivers.

He ran his hand along the inside of the tyre, searching no doubt for crabs that seek shelter in such opportunities. Sure enough he found one crab. Excited cheers went up on the parapet as he extricated the reluctant crab from its home before heading back to where his friends sat.


One of them expertly emptied the young prawns on a piece of cardboard box, picking off stragglers left behind in the net. The prawns shone silver in the evening light, catching the Sun as they wriggled desperately, surprised by the unfamiliarity of their situation.

In contrast the crab seemed resigned to its fate, barely moving as one of the men held it firm under his thumb as I took its picture.

Behind me the river showed no trace of the little drama it had just witnessed. Like with other instances before this moment too passed into history no sooner it had taken place, swallowed by the stillness of the waters.

I walk down the promenade in the direction of the Panaji Ferry point that connects ferry passengers to Betim on the other side of the river. A Cross abuts the promenade near the Ferry point. Resting in the shade of sloping sheets it reminds passing people of passengers who died in an accident on the river when the ferry they were traveling in capsized some years ago. The Cross was built in their memory by locals living nearby.


A man stops by to ask a bicycle-borne ice cream vendor for directions about town as I make my way past them to where local buses headed for the Kadamba bus-stand halt for passengers. The days are short and the shadows lengthen quickly. I can see the Mandovi hotel from the promenade. The traffic on the road is light. I turn to see if any buses are headed my way.


Soon enough a mini-bus comes to a halt by the promenade and even as I release the shutter I make a run for the white and blue bus, the conductor waiting at the door. Barely have I made it up the landing and the bus lurches forward and we are on our way.

A Day Out in Divar

Each time I take the ferry from Piedade to Divar and disembark on the island I stay close to the Mandovi, hearing her waffle lazily beyond the thick wall of mangroves that hides a narrow bund hewn from the earth and baked hard by an unrelenting Sun.

The bund keeps the river at bay, separating the paddy fields inland from the estuary where the Mandovi empties into the Arabian Sea. Were the river to breach the bund at high tide and flood the fields inland it would leave salt deposits behind and render the fields unfit for cultivation for a long time.


On the stretch of bund I now take in the direction of Chorao there’s little or no sign of an opening in it though I’m hard pressed to account for the still water on the other side of the bund, in the direction of paddy fields that lie in the backdrop of churches of Old Goa. I can see faint outlines of the churches in the distance. From where I now stand, straining for a glimpse of the churches above the head-high vegetation lining the bund it is difficult to imagine I’m on an island. In the distance haze blurs their outlines. Behind me slapping sounds emerge from the mangroves as the Mandovi laps it on the outside. Up in the sky Kites circle lazily, riding invisible thermals.

In wide open spaces a sense of silence is had from a lack of movement, accentuated by the stillness of the landscape. There the distance between the wandering eye and a life form insulates each from the other. It is as if an invisible blanket separates the two, letting you look in but hiding movements in the distance separating the two. But in enclosed spaces like I’m in, hemmed in by mangroves on either side of the bund, silence makes itself felt in the small noises one cannot easily trace. Not knowing the source from whence the noises emanate makes me acutely aware of the silence separating instances of repeating noises as I count the moments before I hear the noise again. It is in the interludes between signs of life that I live the silence. And nowhere have I experienced it as acutely as when walking on the bund in the middle of the mangroves at Chorao and Divar. And it is only in the breaks in the vegetation where the Mandovi glints silver from the Sun glancing off its surface that one feels there’s life beyond the confines of space one is currently navigating.

When the ferry deposited us on Divar where a small Holy Cross sheltering under a corrugated sheet welcomes visitors to the island I cast a longing glance at the ribbon of a road that winds its way between paddy fields on its way to Piedade, passing picture postcard pretty houses along the way. There’s something about sultry weather on an island with pretty houses set back from the narrow road that winds its way about the place – it keeps people indoors much of time else how does one explain the empty streets. Some homes have fallen to time, others soldier on, and yet others burst with life as if untouched by time, and they make the trip across the Mandovi worthwhile.


“When you come over I’ll take you to show my house in Divar,” Percival Noronha said over the phone. Apparently he meant ‘or what is left of it’ for, it collapsed in 1993, weighed down by want of care. It wasn’t so in the decades leading up to its demise. “Who was there to take care of it,” he said before continuing, “most of them (relatives) migrated to America and elsewhere and it fell into disrepair.”

Percival Noronha returned to India from Uganda when he was all of six years old and went to live in Divar where his maternal grandfather, Joao Silveira-Vital, had a home in Sao Mathias, ‘one of the wards making up the island of Divar’. Piedade and Malar are the other. “Later Piedade was split into Navelim and Goltim. The Goltecars are from Goltim, now they use ‘k’ instead of ‘c’ and spell it Goltekar,” he explained. Divar has come to be known for the Bonderam festival. Celebrated on the fourth Saturday of August, the Divar Bonderam festival is said to trace its roots to the pre-Portuguese era. A harvest festival it commences with the cutting of the first sheaf of paddy.

“My ancestor converted to Christianity in the 1580s,” Percival recollected of the period in Goa’s history marked with much strife in the face of repressive conversions the Portuguese carried out largely under the threat of force. “On converting he was given the surname ‘Silveira’. In time impressed by his knowledge and abilities the Portuguese conferred him with ‘Vital’ and the surname changed to ‘Silveira-Vital. Among all the Silveiras he was the only one accorded this honour,” he recalled with pride. ‘Vital’ is ‘essencial, indispensavel, de importancia vital’ in Portuguese.

In 1930 Percival Noronha left Divar for good, his mother having shifted base to Panjim so he could school further. Remembering the home they left behind in Sao Mathias on the island of Divar, he said, “It was a typical bhatkar’s family home. A stately staircase opened into an imposing balcony. Inside were a large sized drawing room and an equally large dining hall, richly furnished. An attractive machila (means of transportation for two or more in olden days) added a graceful, aristocratic feel to the atmosphere in the house. Both the manorial halls were sided with bedrooms, and so was the long corridor leading to the kitchen. Then there was the nursery with 3-4 nannies in attendance while 7-8 servants looked after the stable of cows and buffaloes in the area adjoining the house. The nearest neighbour was far away.”


Later in the day we were to pass many a stately home on our way to Piedade. Piedade lay only a short distance from where we had stopped on our way to watch students from the Our Lady of Divar High School practice football in an empty paddy field under the supervision of a coach who would call out urgently at the lads learning the moves. “Go now, quick,” he shouted. “Get the ball here, get it.” Behind us a dead bat hung from electricity wires that ran parallel to the narrow ribbon of a road bisecting the empty paddy field into two.


To our left stretched the other portion of the paddy field, ending in mangroves to the West. The field was covered with ash, and as I walked through it black soot rose and stung my nostrils. In the backdrop of undulating hills a leafless tree stood alone in the distance. Kites took off and landed in the tree.


We parked the car in the shade of a tree by the road where the previous day a group of four men from the village lazed with beer and sandwiches, their scooters parked to the side in the shade of the tree. On the wires overhead Roller Jays paused for breath while Bee-eaters somersaulted in the air, picking insects as they dived sharply. Every once in a while Black Drongos landed on the wires. It was that time of the day, approaching evening when birds go looking for prey.

To the West where mangroves bordered the rice field an occasional Sandpiper, head bent to the earth, foraged in the shallow waters, taking wings as I approached it with my camera. Other species of water birds followed. A breeze blew in from behind me, cooling my neck. Bird calls dissected the late afternoon even as the coach called out instructions to his wards as they practiced on the field, dribbling the football past defenders. It was a setting reminiscent of ‘village life’ that city dwellers occasionally dream of, peaceable and purposeful without being rushed. In the retreating noise of an occasional motorbike passing on the road, the only other activity, other than the schoolboys kicking the football around was that of myriad birds frolicking on the electricity wires.

Speaking of birdlife on Divar, Ajay recalled seeing Asian Openbilled Stork, Osprey, White Ibis, Redshank, Large Egret, Median Egret, Small Blue Kingfisher, Purple Heron, Common Sandpiper, Shikra, Pipits, Drongo, and Roller Jay on the island. “There’re bound to be more species out there that I haven’t seen,” he conceded. Most of the species were to be found in and around the mangroves. Only the Shikra, the Pipit, the Drongo, and the Roller Jay stayed inland. Since Chorao adjoins Divar it is only natural for them to share the number of bird species to be seen in those parts.

I walk back the length of road I had taken to photograph the Sandpiper. A Maruti car, apparently belonging to the coach is parked to the side of the road. A lanky young boy in a blue t-shirt sat with his back against the rear door, watching the others practice. He had cream-coloured capris on. Joel Correa was the captain of his school’s under-14 football team.

“Why aren’t you joining them to practice,” I asked him, pointing to his schoolmates practicing hard under the watchful eye of their coach. He went silent for a moment before answering, “The coach kept me out for not turning up in shoes.”

I kept quiet. I knew better than to comment given the embarrassment he must surely feel to be ordered out of practice, more so given his responsibility to the team as their captain. It was their first day at practice after they had broken for exams. They had a match coming up shortly against ‘a team from Panjim’. There wasn’t much time between now and match-day. Surely it must hurt him I thought.


Time and again the coach, Mario Aguiar, would abruptly stop issuing instructions and sit on his haunches before calling the boys over to explain strategy with a stick, patiently drawing positions in the mud. Then he would straighten up and exhort them with a stinging, “START,” “GO, GO, GO-GO-GO.”

“Does he coach at your school?” I ask Joel.

“Yes, and also at the St. Esteves Sports Club.”

A large cement pipe lay to the edge of the road. Propped against it were several bicycles the boys had ridden to the ground. The older (under-16) among those who had turned up for the practice sat on the pipe watching the younger lot (under-14) being put through their paces by the coach. An extra set of footballs held together in loose netting lay on the ground not far from where the boys sat on the large cement pipe. A couple of them circled tightly on their bicycles, passing time, waiting to be called in to practice. Another bounced the ball on his instep. Whatever else they might’ve put up with; ‘waiting’ was not among them. One of them intoned to his friend who sat alongside him on the cement pipe, complaining about the coach. “Why did he call us for practice if he was only going to engage the under-14s?” he asked his mate. I did not catch the reply, my attention having been diverted by a Kingfisher calling loudly as it took off from its perch over my head.

Dull thuds sounded regularly as the boys made contact with the ball. “Block it. See the body position,” the coach called out instructions, never once tiring in the heat. Evidently there was a lot at stake in the upcoming match-up with a team from the city across the Mandovi.

“How’re you blocking it (ball),” he shouted at a student, displeased with the way he was moving. Then he called out to him with, “Give him the ball,” pointing to another student, before repeating, “look at your body position. Look at it.”


I sit there with the boys, taking in the simplicity of it all. Out there, away from everywhere, you could be a wandering soul and yet belong in ways that makes you one of them. It is hardly surprising for, when you have time to stand and share, and the space to do so, you get to share their passion for life that becomes momentarily yours. The late afternoon is beginning to give way to early evening. Shadows inch across the road as I walk back to where they wait under the tree by the car that’ll take us home.

Goddess Durga Rides Tiger on Dussehra

The rickshaw paused for a moment to let a jeep pass before taking the turn and accelerating down the slope. To our right, set back from the road lay residential housing societies, their gates opening into short driveways that led to squat buildings arranged around a central space where children played in the evenings. At each of the gates a lone security guard or two sat on makeshift stools by the gatepost or lolled around, watching traffic and people on the road, their uniforms having dulled from long hours in the heat.

Before long the Sun would begin its descent behind the hills and Dussehra, having marked the end of nine days and nine nights of Navratri, would now draw to a close. Devotees who had installed the idol of Goddess Durga in their homes or in a community pandal on the sixth day of Navratri would now bear her away in a colourful procession for immersion in a river or a stream, marking the end of Dussehra, the tenth day that had concluded the nine-day long Navratri festival the day before.


As the rickshaw gathered speed on the slope faint drumbeats from a few moments ago grew louder and in the time it took me to realize what the commotion was about the rickshaw had passed a small procession in the opposite direction bearing Goddess Durga for immersion.

“Stop, stop, stop,” I half-shouted, tapping the driver on his shoulder. It took him a moment or two to register my urgent plea before he slowed down to the side of the road. Leaping out I half-sprinted back to where the procession was making its way up the gentle incline. By now pedestrians had slowed down to keep pace with the procession. Security guards stood outside the gates they guarded, watching the three drummers coax beats out of their drums.

Behind them in a wooden cart that street vendors use to hawk varied wares on regular days an idol of Goddess Durga astride a tiger was placed in the centre with religious paraphernalia arranged around her; coconuts, incense sticks, vermillion powder, and holy water (tirtha) among other things. Unlike the ferocious image of the deity one would normally see in the various representations of Goddess Durga, here her face exuded a serenity that contrasted with the occasion. It was on the tenth day, after nine days and nine nights of titanic struggle, that she vanquished the demon, Mahishasura. So the nine days and nine nights came to be celebrated as Navratri, and the tenth day as Dussehra (Dussera) or Vijayadashami, marking the triumph of good over evil. It is considered an auspicious day in the Hindu calendar for beginning new ventures.

Garlanded with flowers she sat on the tiger, a trident in the left hand while the right was raised in blessing. The men who accompanied the procession pushed the cart along while women and children in bright clothes walked behind the cart. Celebratory colours marked their shirts, and faces. Having taken a few pictures I offered a quick prayer to the deity and was handed prasad (offerings blessed by the deity), usually sugar based. Behind me the drummers sounded their drums, drowning the sound of garlanded vehicles plying on the road.

From as far back as I can remember I’ve always looked forward to Dussehra. There was a time when I would wait for Navaratri to end so that on Dussehra day, a school holiday, I could garland my bicycle, say a small prayer and ride it all day with my friends. At first when I was too young to understand why folks cleaned their vehicles and garlanded it on Dussehra I used to derive a sense of anticipation and purpose from seeing brightly coloured garlands, usually marigolds strung together with twine, adorning vehicles, working implements and other items of household utility. Needless to say they lent the environs a festive air and I was more than happy to rejoice in it.

It was only later that I came to learn the significance of the day and so also the ‘why’ behind the ritual.

On Dussehra day (October 9) I woke up to the Sun slanting rays through cracks in the curtain. Looking out the window on a footpath across the street from where we stay I saw a lady ensconced against the retaining wall with a basketful of marigolds, coloured a deep saffron and yellow, resting at her feet where she sat on the footpath. Even as early morning customers, folks who hadn’t got around to purchasing flowers the previous day, began trickling in she continued stitching the flowers into garlands of varying sizes, only pausing to effect a sale. Her young daughter, not older than eight, sat alongside and helped her with stitching the flowers into garlands. Sales were brisk, and before I got ready to venture out after a quick bath and prayers she had shifted from the footpath to the side of the road shaded by a tree. The Sun was gathering strength.

The road outside was awash with shiny vehicles, helped no doubt from early morning washing, followed by puja (a hindu ritual) before being adorned with colourful garlands. Stepping out of the building I saw in a corner of the parking space a small bicycle with a tiny garland adorning the handle bar. I could imagine the surprise awaiting the kid on discovering the garland gracing his bicycle. A few feet away a car was decorated similarly. There was no one about.


Most of the rickshaws on the road had garlands affixed to the front. So when we got into a rickshaw that didn’t have one it almost seemed odd. The driver, a Hindu, who had rented the rickshaw for a daily fee told me that it belonged to a Muslim. “That’s why there’s no garland on it.” Though it made eminent sense not to garland the rickshaw I knew how it must feel not to for, all implements of daily use, particularly those which help earn a living, are considered sacred and treated as such. In celebrating them as in offering prayers and decorating them on Dussera they’re elevated from being mere implements to that which sustains life. It matters little if they belong to you or not so long as you use them to earn your livelihood.

So a municipality worker will garland his broom and the hand cart like the one I came upon on Dussera day. Worn from use on the streets the broom might as well have been invested with life as it lay in the hand cart, flowers adorning the two extremities. It’s a humbling experience to see a rusting hand cart and a broom accorded respect and worshipped not so much for its utility on the streets as for its significance to the person wielding them. It is a matter of livelihood. Sometimes it is difficult to understand the importance that the seemingly ‘unimportant’ holds in the overall scheme of things unless confronted with the evidence like I was that day.


Stopping by a newspaper vendor to buy a newspaper I took care not to brush my knees against the garland adorning the wooden platform he had fashioned out to display newspapers.

To my right a motorcyclist stopped by a handcart to buy a length of garland for his motorcycle even as a little girl, her skirt mirroring the colours of flowers in the garland that the vendor held up for the motorcyclist to see, passed by. For a moment I wondered if her choice of dress was deliberate, celebrating the marigolds that abound on Dussehra. It could have been a coincidence for all I know, more so considering that India, for the most part, is as much a land of coincidences as it is a land of colours, flowers or otherwise.

Flowers must necessarily invest life in all that they grace, and nothing is so insignificant as to be unimportant to flowers.


Returning from work on the last day of the nine-day Navratri festival I ran into a thick wall of people in the small flower market in Dadar where tiny hole-in-the-wall shops line one side of the walking path that exits the station in the direction of Parel. To the other side, vendors sit with their backs to the bridge, their baskets of flowers in front, narrowing the path even further. Between these two rows commuters exiting the station in the direction of Parel have to make their way past a steady stream of customers come to buy flowers.

On normal days a bit of twisting and turning gets me through. But this was not a normal day. The next day was Dussehra and demand for flowers as well as the number of people come to buy them was large. Squeezed for space in the best of times, the passage now seemed more like a dam near bursting.


Men, women and children crowded the space. Above the din rose voices from hole-in-the-wall shops with vendors calling out prices for their wares. I’ve rarely seen so many flowers in so small a space. Wherever they could make some space women spread out worn jute sacks and set about stitching flowers into garlands while their children looked on.


“Ten rupees for a metre (of garland),” one lady called out to me when I turned to look in her direction. Across from where she sat with two other women helping with her task a man caught my attention and pointing to garlands he had hung from a makeshift wooden T, he said, “Thirty rupees a metre.” I moved on, dazzled in part from seeing the riot of colours and delighting in the activity occasioned by the festive occasion.


On the retaining wall of the bridge that enclosed the path at one end, vendors had stuck various posters of Hindu deities, depending on the gods they worshipped and under whose benign eye they carried out their business. So posters of Goddess Durga riding the Tiger, of Lord Shiva, of Lord Krishna and others from the famed pantheon of Hindu gods graced the wall.

I was barely making a metre a minute along the path, such was the pre-Dussera rush. A youth stopped by to check a pretty garland of flowers. A rucksack hung from his back. The shopkeeper emerged from the hole-in-the-wall room and said, “Eighty-five for it.” Two men sat to the side stitching more garlands. I seriously doubted if they could supply the demand. Some vendors were selling loose marigolds at rupees thirty a kilo. In the rush it was difficult to pin a voice to the basket, voices floating like erratic moths around a bright flame.

On the bridge passing overhead, a cameraman, most likely from a local news channel, rested his camera on the parapet of the bridge and aimed it at the crowd of festive shoppers below. Behind him trucks and taxis made their way in the direction of Parel.


As I took the steps up the public footbridge to make my way to the railway platform the rush of similar activity on the bridge overtook the one I had just passed in the narrow lane (gulli). Vendors lined the bridge on either side, and unlike on other days when they call out to passing commuters to press their sales they had little or no time today.

Heaps of leaves from the Shami tree (Prosopis spicigera) were going at five rupees a bunch. Commuters on their way home stopped by the vendors to buy them for use on Dussera the next day when Hindus exchange Shami leaves (known as Banni in Kannada) to wish each other ‘victory’ with their ventures and the like.

The leaves of the Shami tree have come to symbolize success and wealth, drawing their significance from the Mahabharata thousands of years ago. Exiled for fourteen years from their kingdom and in disguise for one year when they had to travel incognito, the Pandavas hid their divine weapons in a Shami tree as they went their way. On returning after a year of traveling incognito they found their weapons intact. In gratitude they offered their prayers and thanksgiving to the Shami (Banni) tree and to Goddess Durga for strength and victory as they prepared to battle the Kauravas. In the ensuing battle they emerged victorious (‘Vijaya’ in Sanskrit) and made a triumphant return from their exile. Since then the leaves of the Shami (known as Banni in Kannada) are exchanged between worshippers on Vijayadashami (Dussera), wishing each other ‘victory’ in their efforts with their ventures, not necessarily business ventures.

The heaps of Banni leaves on the bridge brought a welter of memories rushing in, for, exchanging leaves of the Banni is among my earliest Dussera memories. On Dussehra day Dad would send me along to our neighbours to wish them well and exchange Banni leaves with them. What made it even more memorable was the fact that exchanging Banni leaves was not restricted to people we knew, we exchanged them with strangers as well, in turn spreading good wishes around even as we partook of it ourselves, in large quantities I must add.

As I descended the steps to the platform and waited for the train that would take me home I watched trains pass adjoining platforms, delighting in the colourful garlands adorning the massive engines on the eve of Dussehra. Some trains had their windows garlanded, in effect framing passengers as they looked out the windows.


In a coach of an Asangaon-bound train I found a garlanded poster of Goddess Durga riding a tiger, and the day she destroyed the demon Mahishasura came to be celebrated as Dussehra, marking the triumph of good over evil. While posters advertising sundry services crowded Goddess Durga her image radiated strongly the symbolism marking the celebrations. Standing there I could not help but reflect on the deadly Bombay train bombings carried out by Islamic extremists in July 2006 that left over 200 dead and scores injured. On that fateful day I was delayed at the office by an impending delivery, and chances are I probably missed being on one of the seven trains that was bombed that day.

There’s much evil that still exists and maybe that’s one reason why some of India’s festivals bring alive the context even though the events they celebrate occurred thousands of years ago.

Related Post

Welcoming Navratri

The Colour of Glass

A Bangle Seller.

Jodhpur. India. 2007.

Welcoming Navratri

I stopped to one side of the railway footbridge and squatting in front of the empty plastic bag that once held ‘Watana’ (lentil) flour and which the old lady had now laid out on the floor I pointed to one of the seven small piles of grains she had arranged in two neat rows on the plastic before asking her, “How much is this for?”

She looked at me before answering, “Five rupees,” smiling and arranging her sari over her head. The Sun had broken through the Dadar skyline, bathing early morning travelers in warm sunshine. After months of rain I luxuriated in the warmth of the September Sun.

Ganesh Chaturthi had drawn to a close a fortnight ago and the city after sending off the elephant-headed god in a tumultuous wave of celebrations spanning twelve devout days now prepared to welcome the next festival in the Hindu calendar, Navratri, literally meaning ‘nine nights’.


And it was on the first day of Navratri, 30th September that I chanced upon Kadubai Borade on the railway footbridge selling an assortment of grains for use in the festival rituals. She sat with other women vendors hawking varied wares.

Actually I was surprised to find her that day because being the opening day of the festival I reckoned households celebrating the auspicious day would have already made preparations a day before the start of the festival, buying handful of grains and scooping mud from flowerbeds in the neighbourhood to fill small clay pots usually placed beside a representation of Goddess Durga. And the next day after sowing grains of jowar in the clay pots on the morning of the festival, followed by religious rituals marking the start of Navratri, they would’ve gone their merry way.

Much traditional dancing and festivities marks Navratri and people turn out in large numbers to dance the night away, night after night until the tenth day, Dussehra (Dasara), marking the day Goddess Durga vanquishes the demon Mahishasura. Until then, dancers in traditional dresses swirl night after night to the beats of traditional music featuring the dhol and the dholak and tabla among others. The dance forms Garba and Dandiya have come to symbolize the fervour of Navratri.

Navratri or ‘Nine Nights’ is a celebration of the nine avatars (forms) the Goddess took to vanquish the evil. On each of the ‘Nine Nights’ devotees worship one of her nine avatars (forms), namely Shailputri, Brahmacharini, Chandraghanta, Kushmanda, Skanda Mata, Katyayani, Kalratri, Maha Gauri, and Siddhidatri. In her Kushmanda form she is depicted with eight arms and riding a tiger. The number of arms varies with the forms she took.


Posters of political parties wishing people on Navratri have come up all over the city and adjoining suburbs. Typically the posters depict an image of Goddess Durga astride a tiger and pictures of political functionaries arranged around the deity.

Kadubai was alone in her choice of wares that Navratri day. It was hardly surprising because I found it unlikely anyone would’ve waited to buy grains and a bed of soil until the opening day of Navratri. So I doubted if Kadubai would’ve any takers for the assortment of grains she was hawking and as also the mound of mud she had stacked to one side unless someone had missed preparing for the festival until the morning of Navratri and came hurrying over looking for grains and soil in which to sow them before it got too late. Most Hindu religious rituals need to be completed before the clock strikes noon on the day of the festival, the understanding being all rituals need to be completed in the morning, preferably early morning and 11.59 am is technically still a morning. It was only half past nine on the festival day when I stopped by her side. The Sun was just about beginning to warm up the day.

“And how much is the soil for,” I asked her, pointing to the small mound of soil the colour of coffee.

“Five rupees,” she answered, cupping her palms together to indicate the quantity I can expect for five rupees.

I gathered a handful of grains in my palm and tried identifying the grain varieties, asking her of the varieties she had mixed together in each lot on display on the empty plastic sack. Sifting through the mixture Kadubai Borade pointed to each grain type and identified it for me in a Marathi dialect peculiar to Solapur, the district bordering the state of Karnataka. Solapur is known for Sugarcane barons and the influence they wield in political circles in the state of Maharashtra.

The other day when he was talking of state subsidies for sugarcane factories that the Govt. of Maharashtra passes on to ‘those of their own kind’ (read caste) my uncle happened to mention that come weekend it is almost impossible to get bookings for AC Three Tier seats on the Siddeshwar Express connecting Mumbai to Solapur unless booked well in advance. Apparently the sugarcane factory lobby, largely made up of the politically powerful Marathas, the caste that dominates Maharashtra’s political scene, travels to Solapur on weekends. Since I mostly travel by Second Class with few exceptions I haven’t had much difficulty in getting tickets for the run to Solapur on the Siddeshwar Express. It leaves Mumbai in the night and reaches Solapur fairly early in the morning, at the break of dawn. I take the Udyan Express for the return journey from Solapur.


The grains (seeds) Kadubai sold were an assortment of corn, wheat, jowar, rice, and one other variety that I could not identify positively. Husk covered the rice seeds in the lot. Initially I had expected to find only jowar seeds since traditionally it is jowar seeds that are planted in an earthen pot and placed beside a representation of the Goddess, the seeds then bear shoots over the duration of the festival. The tender jowar shoots having sprouted by a few inches over nine days are then given away to devotees on the tenth day after performing puja (a religious ritual). The seedlings are symbolically considered to be blessings of the goddess, Durga.

“Pack this lot for me,” I tell Kadubai, pointing to two piles of assorted grains.

“I’ll give you one for free,” she said. I nodded as I reached for money to pay her.

Back home we had already planted jowar seeds early that morning, marking the start of the festival and had no need for grains anymore but I went ahead and bought the lot from Kadubai, just in case the jowar seeds that we had planted in the tulsi vrindavan (a clay construction with images of deities on its four sides and used to plant tulsi. Tulsi is Indian for basil) fail to sprout. As I was to find out later, my fears were unfounded and the jowar seeds have sprouted a robust growth, considered to be a good omen for the family. The picture adjacent shows the growth as of today, the sixth day of the festival. There are three more days to go.


We used the tulsi vrindavan to plant the jowar seeds because I failed to bring home a clay pot for the purpose though I came upon a youth selling small clay pots and mud on the railway footbridge at Dadar the day before Navratri kicked off.


The same day several women too sat to the side of the railings selling assorted grains piled neatly on plastic. Like Kadubai they too had piled up soil in small mounds. They had many takers that day as devotees went about preparing for Navratri the next day. I had hurried past the vendors to be in time for the office and ended up without a clay pot on the morning of the festival. The tulsi vrindavan came to our rescue.

It helped that the vrindavan, filled with soil, was lying unused around the house since the time sparrows repeatedly frustrated our efforts in planting tulsi (basil), stripping the plant of its leaves when no one was looking. Tulsi has medicinal value though it is another story how the sparrows came around to discovering its healing powers.

I’d preferred an alternative to planting jowar in a tulsi vrindavan and I blame the elephant that I came upon for forgetting to get a clay pot home on the eve of Navratri. My spirits had lifted on seeing the elephant again. The last time I saw the elephant I blogged about it in my previous post. I believe it is a ‘he’ for there’s just a hint of a tusk to be seen.


This time around a youth who was taking bananas home stopped by the elephant and fed it the entire lot one by one. I’m not sure if he bought more bananas to take home now that the elephant had gratefully accepted the whole lot. I doubt if elephants ever refuse any offerings, moreover there’s a certain pleasure to be had in feeding animals. I wonder if it because that’s the only way we can get the animal to accept us.


Unlike the last time I had a five rupee coin ready this time around as the trunk came seeking money at my shirt pocket. People stopped by to offer more money that the elephant expertly accepted where the snout curved by a wee bit before curling its trunk up and handing it to the mahout riding on its back.

Note: My follow-up post will feature more on Navratri.

The Last Journey of the Elephant-headed God

Two days ago I thought I would make my way to either Girgaum Chowpatty or Juhu on Anant Chaturdashi today, the last day of Ganeshotsav, usually the tenth or the eleventh day of the festival but this year it was the twelth day, to watch brightly painted Ganapatis converge on the beach by their hundreds, maybe by their thousands. No one has ever dared count how many. The numbers, like Mumbai, continue to swell each year.


Later that night images from two years ago reeled out in a slide show, transporting me amidst legions of devotees as they cried out hoarse, ‘Ganapati Bappa Moraya, Phudchya Varshi Lavkar Ya’, exhorting the elephant-headed god to return soon next year as they prepared to immerse him in the seas off Juhu in Andheri.

That monsoon day garlanded idols of the elephant-headed god in all conceivable sizes came from near and far, in auto-rickshaws, in cars, in tempos, in trucks, on bicycles, on hand carts, and on foot. Emotional at the send off families wiped their tears away as male members of the family waded into the sea to immerse the deity who having been given the pride of place in the house graced their lives for eleven days while festivities centered around him. Under overcast skies as competing cries of ‘Ganapati Bappa Moraya, Phudchya Varshi Lavkar Ya’ rent the air I found it difficult not to be overcome by emotion watching scores of families send off the deity into the seas off Juhu in 2006, and off Girgaum Chowpatty in 2005, the latter a sight without parallel for the sheer drama of the festive canvas.

It was at Girgaum that I first saw the Lalbaug cha Raja make his way to the beach late in the evening. I was in the thick of it those two years, hanging onto my camera as I jostled through dense crowds for vantage points. To be swallowed by the multitudes thronging the approach is to be released from the present for a foray into the future as chants rise with the breeze ‘Phudchya Varshi Lavkar Ya’ (Return Soon the Next Year).

The next year, 2007, I could not make it to the seas on the last day of the Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations much as I wanted to. The year came and went and I stayed home on Anant Chaturdashi, the day when offices close early to enable employees to reach their homes before festival crowds bring vehicular traffic to a standstill. There were urgent matters that needed sorting out in those uncertain days when I wondered if the overcast skies would ever part anytime soon to let some sunshine in. They did, coinciding with the end of the monsoons in late September.

This year was no different for I didn’t make it to the seas today either, the last day of Ganesh Chaturthi, to watch animated throngs of devotees as they wind down the approach to the beach in their hundreds and thousands, carrying idols of the elephant-headed god decked in flowers. It was pouring outside so I stayed back home.

However I’ve had my share of the atmosphere each day the past eleven days on my way to work and back, passing pandal after pandal at various street corners, home to the elephant-headed god. Put up by political parties these street-corner pandals are public affairs, more an expression of political presence than religious but they serve an additional purpose as well. Everyday folks with no access to private installations of the god and not having installed one themselves back home, step up to these Sarvajanik Ganapati pandals and pay obeisance at his feet for wisdom, good fortune, and prosperity.

Large hoardings plastered with faces of political functionaries graced street corners by the pandal. With street corners awash with hoardings of competing political parties no one was quite sure who had organized the street-corner installation of Ganapati. It mattered little to passing folks who paused for a quick prayer before going their way. Most street-corner installations last until Anant Chaturdashi, the last day of the festival, usually the eleventh day. However, this is not so with many private installations of Lord Ganesha.

Many families immerse the idol in nearby water bodies after one and half days. The duration varies between one and half, five, seven, ten, eleven, twelve, and “even twenty-two days,” a taxi driver informed me the other day as he bypassed an inside lane to avoid groups of festive revelers. “I avoid driving much during the festival week,” he said. “There’re too many traffic jams caused by revelers.”

Passing Matunga he pointed out a Ganapati pandal set back from the road and said, “That’s Nana Patekar’s,” before continuing, “flowers worth 5,000 – 6,000 rupees are delivered to the pandal each day for use in prayers and decorating the pandal.”

“Does he live here?” I asked him, curious to find out if the Bollywood star, known for the temperamental roles he’s essayed over the years, felt at home in the bustle of the street away from tinsel town.

“No, but during Ganesh Chaturthi he is said to come here for the duration of the festival to the Sarvajanik Ganesh pandal he organises, after all this is where he used to live before he became a star,” the taxi driver replied.


I’ve fond memories of the festival growing up in Goa. Schools broke for vacations on the eve of the festival, lasting the entire duration. It was a time to make merry, visiting as many Ganapatis as one could and accompanying an equal number on the days they were immersed in wells. We kept a count of the Ganapatis we saw. But it was in Mumbai that I saw the festival at a scale I had not previously imagined, down to an actual elephant making rounds of the town outside the local railway station this weekend.


Within moments it drew the attention of commuters, one of whom thought nothing of feeding it the lot of apples he must have purchased only a little while earlier.

Children gathered to watch the elephant bless those who sought its blessings, raising its trunk and touching them lightly on the head.

Still others offered the elephant coins which it expertly deposited into the hands of the mahout riding it. As I reached for my shirt pocket to see if I had some change it followed me with its trunk, knowing pockets to hold money. Alarmed as much by the unexpected proximity of the trunk as by its ‘understanding’ of where people carry money I drew the first note I could reach. It turned out to be ten rupees. No sooner had I drawn the note I deposited it in the offered trunk and watched as it expertly steadied the note before curving the trunk up and depositing it in the mahout's outstretched palm.

A Ganesh pandal lay only a few metres away, to one side of the entrance to the local railway station. The significance of the presence of the elephant during the festival celebrating the elephant-god was not lost on passers-by as they folded their hands in prayer to the pachyderm.

Public installations of the deity, also know as Sarvajanik Ganapati, are not restricted to street corners alone. They are also to be found in housing societies.

Members of individual housing societies in Mumbai and outlying suburbs usually come together and install Ganapati in their housing complex, holding collections within their housing society to finance the effort, with members contributing to it. Last week we chanced upon one such housing society on the second day of the festival.

We were in time for, within fifteen minutes of our paying obeisance to the deity, the society members distributed saffron bandanas to everyone in the backdrop of drummers at full tilt before carrying the idol of the deity from the platform where it was installed only a day before, to the back of a tempo carrier where women from the society had gathered to prepare the deity for immersion, having chosen to host the deity for one and half days. There after lighting lamps and placing offerings on either side of the deity society members broke into a celebratory dance to the beat of hired drummers attired in the uniform of their band, their names printed in bold letters to the back. The drummers were local Maharashtrian lads.


In the days leading up to the Ganesh festival this year it was not uncommon to find groups of local youths by railway tracks practicing drumming for the impending festival. I kept a watch for them as the train neared where they were usually to be found. They rarely missed a practice session. They were to be found on city roads as well, going their way. On one such ‘immersion day’ in Dadar, the fifth day of the festival if I recollect well, a taxi laden with drums ferrying drummers to their designated spot pulled up alongside at a traffic signal. I’m not aware of the price they charge to accompany the deity to where it is immersed.

Night had fallen by the time the tempo carrier inched its way forward. We followed behind to the sounds of firecrackers going off and youngsters from the housing society dancing merrily in the lights of the vehicle. The band of drummers would change their beat, speeding up as the dancers caught on to the rhythm, and slowing down to give the dancers some respite before upping the beats again. It would be some time in the night before they reached the spot where they would immerse the deity before returning home. A light drizzle fell outside.

Every now and then on the road outside cars made their way past us. Through the window we saw colourful idols of Ganapati resting in the arms of family members in the bucket seat. Others carried the deity in the open boot of the car, the door raised up. In the days that followed, Mumbai and the adjoining suburbs reverberated to festivities until today, the day of the last journey of the elephant-headed god.

As I sit at my desk keying in this post fairly late in the night, I can still hear the last lot of firecrackers marking the last journey of Mumbai’s favourite god while fervent devotees accompanying the deity chant ‘Phudchya Varshi Lavkar Ya’, exhorting him to ‘return soon the next year’.

Pulling for Bihar Flood Victims

Yesterday it rained heavily in Dadar. For a moment I wondered if I should return home rather than negotiate the stretch from the platform to the over-bridge and beyond.


Along the road bridge that passes by the station and flooded with rainwater is a narrow lane that exits in the direction of Lower Parel. It is squeezed between two rows of flower sellers, one with their backs to the bridge, squatting with flower baskets in front, and the other operating from tiny shops opposite where flowers stitched together hang from hooks in the ceilings.

One lot of passengers exit the station in the direction of Matunga, the other in the direction of Lower Parel, while the third disappear into the bustle of Dadar’s markets and beyond, maybe to Prabhadevi.

On rambling days rainwater can be fun. But on crowded weekdays flowing rainwater, after unsuccessfully seeking storm water drains, will have washed a hundred hurrying feet before washing mine, a service I would rather be spared of. Add to it rows of early morning customers bargaining over baskets of myriad colourful flowers squeezing the lane further, crowding the narrow passage so thick that I can barely see my own feet as I get nudged and pushed on my way out. I might’ve overlooked this as well if not for the mucky shade the rainwater takes in the lane littered with wasted flowers and leaves, turning the ground beneath my feet to a soggy carpet of squishy muck.

“It is Ganesh Chaturthi, the Municipal Corporation folks must be busy holidaying to turn up to clean this up,” I hear an elderly man say to another. Umbrellas are out. I hold mine firm as it is knocked around by other umbrellas held similarly.

“Fold your umbrella now,” a rotund gent chides me. I realize that I’m better off folding it than fight for umbrella space in a patch of sky barely visible under the rag-tag plastic shelters that the flower vendors have rigged up outside their shops along the length of the lane, narrowing it even further.

Getting off the train I had sprinted up the incline that joins a narrow corridor connecting to a large hallway. There I bumped into a large crowd of passengers sheltering in the open space that leads to the over-bridge. Having left their homes without umbrellas they stood watching the rain pour outside. Few expected it to rain today though most would’ve known that there is no knowing when clouds would open up during Ganesh Chaturthi.

“There’s no telling until the last day (11th) of the festival,” a fellow passenger had noted as we scrambled for cover from the rain the winds blew in through the door as the train slowed down approaching Dadar.

It was when I slowed down to pick my way through the crowd in the hallway that I saw a man holding a mike. A board seemingly materialized out of thin air in front of me. Curious passengers paused by the board to read the appeal written in hindi.


“Bihar pranth mey bhishan baadd ki tabahi mey juunj rahey logon ki madad mey aapna haath aagey badaye, madad karey, madad karey”.

(Extend your hand in help to the people in the state of Bihar coping with the devastation of floods, extend help, extend help).


Behind the black board four men sat by a table with receipt books. The National Railway Mazdoor Union was organizing a collection to provide financial relief to those affected in the devastating floods the likes of which Bihar had never seen in its history. Papers are reporting over 3 million displaced by the Kosi as it breached its embankment in Nepal, changing its course to what is said to be an old course it had abandoned a century ago. Not for nothing is the Kosi known as ‘The Sorrow of Bihar’!

A member of the National Railway Worker’s Union spoke into the mike calling on people to contribute generously towards the effort. They were accepting donations of Rs. 20, Rs. 50, and Rs. 100/-.

A curious crowd gathered behind the man with the mike. After one of the four men at the table issued me a receipt for my contribution and another a flyer listing the relief efforts the Union has undertaken over the years since its inception in 1954, the man holding the mike spoke to me in chaste Marathi.

“We’re the Dadar branch of the National Railway Workers Union. At other major stations respective branches are organizing the same effort.”

Yesterday was their first day of the collection. “We’ll be holding it for five days,” he said. I could barely hear him over another announcer to the other side calling on people to donate blood. The blood donation drive has been on for several months now, unconnected with the flood relief effort. Cubicles line the wall where volunteers donate blood.

Behind the man with the mike a second board lay propped up against a support, announcing the objective of the collection drive and appealing for donations to help the flood affected.


A loudspeaker partially obscured the letters NATIONAL RAILWAY MAZDOOR UNION.

In yellow and blue chalk the following message in hindi appealed to passengers.

“Baadd pidith jano ki madad karey. Bihar mein aayi bhishan baadd se pidith jano ke liye madad karey. Iss satkarye mein bhag lekar unkey jaan bachaney mein aagey baddhey.”

(Help the flood affected. Help the victims of the devastating floods in Bihar. Participate in this good work and help in saving their lives.)

If you are traveling through Mumbai and were to happen upon any relief effort being organized to help the Bihar flood victims please step up and help out. Everything counts.

Note: In the flyer one of the members of The National Railway Mazdoor Union passed me were listed the following relief efforts the National Railway Mazdoor (Workers) Union has undertaken since its inception in 1954 –

(1) Flood Relief in Raigad District – Rs. 1,52,000/-, (2) Flood Relief in Beed District – Rs. 50,000 in the year 1989-90, (3) Floods in Andhra Pradesh – Rs. 50,000/-, (4) To Kargil Martyrs – Rs. 1,20,000/-, (5) For rehabilitation of Latur earthquake victims – Rs. 1 lakh on 30-9-93, (6) Rehabilitation of Narmada Bachao Andolan – Rs. 10,000/- on 4-9-2001, (7) Orissa Cyclone Victims – Rs. 15 lakhs, (8) Rehabilitation of earthquake – affected of Gujrat – Rs. 15/- Lakh – 26-1-2001, (9) To help riot victims of Gujrat – Rs. 10 Lakh, (10) Assistance to Adivasi Children – Rs. 9 Lakh for Bore wells & Ambulance at Nandurbar, (11) To Tsunami Victims – Rs. 5 lakh to Prime Minister’s Relief Fund, Rs. 6 Lakh for rehabilitation of Kameshwaram Village, and (12) Towards relief & rehabilitation of 26th July 2005 Flood Victims in Mumbai & Konkan – Rs. 50 Lakh.

The Omkareshwara Temple in Madikeri

“Joy, we need to reach the temple before sundown,” I shouted over the din as the bus groaned up an incline in Madikeri. “Hopefully we will. There’s still time,” Joy said, looking at his watch, then at the fading light outside the window. The bus slowed down to let honking traffic pass. We had rushed back from Abbey Falls and had hoped to make it to the Omkareshwara temple before the light dropped for the day.

It was a busy evening in Madikeri, the capital of Kodagu (also known as Coorg), a district of Karnataka State. Of the crowd we passed on our way to the Omkareshwara temple most were young and motorbikes were their preferred mode of transport. “Raja’s Seat is the only entertainment in the evenings around here,” Joy told me as the bus slowed down to pass groups of youths and families making their way to Raja’s Seat to watch musical fountains seemingly spout coloured water to loud rhythmic music. Raja’s Seat was to be our last stop for the day after Omkareshwara before heading back for the night to the Club Mahindra facility in Galibeedu, the tour sponsors. Abbey Falls was crowded. It was there that Joy gave us a short lesson in coffee beans as we walked back to the bus, pausing every now and then to look at coffee beans growing on either side of the cemented path. As the bus pulled away I looked forward to the quiet of the temple.


At 1,170 metres above sea level it’s inevitable that Madikeri’s inhabitants will have made their homes along the rising gradient of hilly terrain. In the distance Madikeri gives the appearance of a terraced farm of roofs. And it was these undulating roads that bore our bus to the Omkareshwara temple just as sunlight began to drop behind the hills. It didn’t help that we had descended by a fair bit to get to the temple, and in the distance electric lights had begun to flicker up in the hills that ringed the temple. As dusk loomed fading light turned patches of vegetation in the hills to a deep shade of green.

As we made to get off the bus at a bifurcation in the road where a certain Timmiah had his house the driver backed up the slope to make a turn so he could park the bus and wait out our return. As he struggled to negotiate the turn in the narrow road horns sounded behind him. He braked. And the horns fell silent. Inch by inch, helped by Manju, his teenaged assistant, directing him from the outside he began to maneuver the bus into position, grumbling all along. He had a long day at the wheel, first Bhagamandala, then Talacauvery before returning to the base at Galibeedu for lunch, and followed by Abbey Falls, and now Omkareshwara. There was an edge to his voice as he barked at Manju, his eye outside the bus. Traffic began to bunch up behind him; drivers patiently waiting for the bus to hold its position just long enough so they could pass it.


By then we were hurrying down a mud path that led past the pond fronting the temple before walking in a single file along a parapet that overlooked the pond where two small boats lay anchored together. I cannot remember the colours for there was no Sun to bounce off them. The late evening cast the environs in an ethereal tinge of blue in the still waters, dispensing the calm of an open sky that December day last year.

Two beggars on either side of the entrance stood in silence, hands outstretched. In the lengthening greys they seemed as much a part of the surroundings as the temple.


We took off our footwear outside the entrance to the temple before walking through the main door. For the benefit of devotees visiting the temple pooja timings in Kannada and English painted in white on a metal sheet were nailed to the wooden door that opened into a courtyard of sorts, circling the temple in the middle.

On entering the door a room on a raised platform displayed a board in Kannada and English. It was the office of the Parpathigar.


A middle-aged man in a woolen sweater sat at a wooden table, pen in hand. A yellow bulb hung overhead. On the wall behind him a calendar depicting Goddess Lakshmi seated in a lotus flower hung beside a Ajanta Quartz wall clock donated by Pandian Enterprises based out of Madikeri. The wall calendar was gifted by Vinayaka Enterprises, advertised as ‘Exclusive ACC Cement Dealers’. However the portion at the bottom where month-wise calendar leaves are stapled was empty, indicating the calendar was an old one, now retained for the picture of the deity worshipped in India as the Goddess of wealth and prosperity.

A tiny scrap of paper stuck at the staple where month-wise calendar leaves are ripped off at the end of the month to display the next one showed the calendar as having been issued in this century. The last digit indicating the year was missing. All over the empty space someone had noted scraps of information in blue pen, possibly contact numbers, addresses and the like. Until this information remained relevant and was not transferred to a notepad or a diary it served as another reason to keep the calendar on the wall. With a little over three weeks to go for the year the calendar would possibly make way for a new one, issued by any of the many privately run enterprises that abound in Madikeri, and advertised prominently on the calendar, and ensured visibility for the entire year. In households across India calendars of deities later transform into framed pictures that find their way into prayer rooms where they’re worshipped through year after year.

For a Parpathigar I thought the office with the lone man at the desk writing under a yellow bulb was nondescript to say the least but then the Parpathigars no longer figure as prominently now as they once did during the reign of the Kings when they performed important tasks in the administration of justice, civil as well as criminal. The Mysore State Gazetteer records the Administration of Justice in the erstwhile State of Coorg thus: ‘On the Criminal side, Gauda of a village was authorized to reprimand and admonish the offenders for minor offenses. The Parpathigars had powers to confine offenders for ten days. All other offenders deserving higher punishment were sent to Subedar who had power to confine offenders for 30 days.’ After Coorg surrendered to the British in 1834, the ‘Parpathigars or Naik Subedars were invested with powers (as defined by the Coorg Courts Act, Act XXV of 1861) to try suits of money or immovable property of the value not exceeding Rs. 50/-'.

Apparently Parpathigars also functioned as Civil Administrators when they were not a part of the Administration of Justice. Writing about her father’s uncle who once functioned as a Parpathigar at the Omkareshwara temple, Deepa Bhasthi, a blogger from Madikeri, is reminded of an incident involving her grand-uncle when she, her mother and the maid resolve to move an old grinding stone from her front-yard to the garden three years ago. After many years of use having inflicted wear and tear upon the grinding stone it eventually came to serve as a seating place in her front-yard where Deepa “spent many an evening there reading and getting bitten by mosquitos.” Reminded of how it came into her possession, Deepa writes, “One of my ancestors was a very good administrator, the Parpathigar, at the Omkareshwara temple that I have written about. The king was once very pleased with his work and asked what he wanted as a reward.”

Apparently he asked for very little. To this day it must rankle Deepa for she writes, “(Her grand-uncle was) so content with his life that all he asked for (from the king) was a cot to sleep on and a grinding stone to help in the kitchen! Can you believe the absurdity? I mean, there was so much he could have asked for!”

The erstwhile reward now rests in her redesigned garden, among terracotta horses, and shells.


Bells peal as devotees who’ve come in before us walk across the courtyard to the temple and climb the steps to where bells hang at the entrance, ringing them before paying obeisance to Lord Shiva. We follow behind, walking through the short, arched passage before pausing where it opens into the temple courtyard. Images of Garuda and Hanuman grace opposite sides of the wall where the passage arches overhead before depositing us under the sky. I take a picture of Garuda. I’ve been intrigued by Garuda since the time I was a child.


Kodagu (also known as Coorg) changed hands several times in its history. The earliest recorded history of Kodagu from the 9th and the 10th Centuries speaks of the Changalavas governing the East and a part of the North of Kodagu in addition to the Hunsur taluka in Mysore as a feudatory for the Gangas of Talakkadu who, after two centuries in power, eventually met their match in the Cholas in the 11th Century. The Cholas then ceded power to the Hoysalas in the 12th Century who survived early challenges to their supremacy mounted by the Changalavas when they held out for independence after the fall of the Cholas but before long the Hoysalas subdued them in 1174 AD, turning them into vassals. The Hoysalas rule came to an end with their defeat by the Vijayanagara Empire in the 14th Century and the Changalavas then subordinated to the mighty empire. However, the Vijayanagara Empire was not to last. Betrayed by two Muslim commanders, the Gilani brothers, at the battle of Talikot in 1565, the Vijayanagara Empire went into decline with its defeat at the hands of the Muslim rulers of the five Deccan Sultanates of Ahmednagar, Bijapur, Golconda, Berar, and Bidar who joined hands against the Vijayanagara Empire. The victorious Islamic Deccan Sultanates then laid waste to the glorious empire the remains of whose resplendent architecture can still be glimpsed at Hampi, an inner suburb of the Empire, architecture that had little or no parallel in the world then and possibly now. Hampi is now a World Heritage Site.

Mysore was soon to descend into a state of flux after the battle of Talikot. Srirangapatna was a viceroyalty in the Vijayanagara Empire, overseeing the vassal states of Talakad and Mysore, the latter ruled by the Wodeyars. Though the Vijayanagara Empire weakened considerably after the battle of Talikot in 1565, it still retained a hold over Srirangapatna via the Viceroy, Rangaraya, but its days were numbered in the face of an emboldened vassal state of Mysore. In 1610 the Raja (King) of Mysore dethroned the Vijayanagara Viceroy of Srirangapatna and moved his capital from Mysore to Srirangapatna. Eventually he would turn his attention to the Changalava hold over Kodagu, starting with Piriyapatna (Periapatam), the capital of the Changalava kings that Piriya Raja built in 1589 and named after himself. Facing imminent defeat at the hands of the Raja of Mysore, the last of the Changalava kings, Vira Raja, put his wives and children to death before himself falling in the defence of his capital Piriyapatna in 1644.

With the Changalava dynasty having come to an end, Kodagu now lay open to conquest by Mysore. It didn’t happen because the Raja of Mysore was occupied with fighting off enemies elsewhere, so it was left to a prince of the Ikkri or the Bednur family, said to be related to the Changalavas, to take the reins of Kodagu (Coorg), and a steady succession of his descendants ensured his dynasty remained the Rajas of Kodagu until the year 1834 when the British deposed them. Long before then, in 1681 the capital was moved to Madikeri from Piriyapatna (needs to be confirmed) by Muddu Raja. Before it came to be known as Madikeri it was known as Muddurajakeri.

The dynasty probably suffered as much from internal strife as from Tipu Sultan until his death at the hands of the British in 1799.


It was in 1820, 14 years before the Coorg rulers were deposed by the British that the then king, Linga Raja, built the Omkareshwar temple at Madikeri. In my travels across the country I’ve been intrigued by the origins of temples, more so those dedicated to Lord Shiva. And it was from the temple priest that I learnt of the reason behind the construction of the Omkareshwar temple.


The elder of the two priests spoke softly in the dialect of Dakshin Kannada. It’s been years since I last actively conversed in the dialect, the tone and style having escaped my ears in the time since then. So when the elderly priest, Shivram Bhat, spoke I had difficulty picking up certain expressions. Other times I strained to pick his voice in the backdrop of devotional songs ringing through the temple.

“The king, Linga Raja, killed a brahmin,” he said.

“Why did he kill the brahmin,” I asked, alarmed at the turn the story of the origin of the Omkareshwar temple was now taking.

“He desired a brahmin girl (apparently as a daughter-in-law though some accounts suggest he wanted to marry her). However her father, a poor brahmin man, refused to give his daughter away in marriage, and Linga Raja, infuriated at the refusal had the innocent brahmin man tortured and killed at this very spot.”

The brahmin priest paused. Outside, the shadows had lengthened. Bells pealed near where the three of us stood, away from the entrance to the sanctum sanctorum.


I watch devotees run their hand over the arathi (lamp) and bring it to their eyes in acceptance of the light blessed by the almighty. Then they drop coins as offerings in a plate holding the lighted lamp. A few dip their finger in the small container of kumkum (red vermillion) and apply it to their forehead between the brows, at the spot considered to be home to wisdom.

“Then?” I prompt the priest.

“On killing a brahmin he acquired the brahma hatya dosha and began to get nightmares, falling off his throne and the like. It was relentless. Then he was advised to seek redemption by building this temple,” he completed. It is believed that the soul of a murdered brahmin will take the form of a ‘Brahmarakshasa’ and torment the murderer until he seeks redemption.


The Shivalinga now worshipped in the temple has its origins in Kashi. Among the many Shivalingas in Kashi five are considered the most sacred, and Omkareshwara is one of them. Praying to Omkareshwara is thus believed to rid the sinner of the tormenting ‘Brahmarakshasa’. Linga Raja (also known as Lingarajendra) installed the Shivalinga from Kashi in the temple where we now stood, seeking redemption for his sin. Linga Raja was known for the terror he inflicted on his citizens.


Looking around I’m struck by the absence of a mandapa or the pillared hall common to temple architecture in India for, it is in the pillared hall (mandapa) that devotees congregate for prayers. The entrance to the doorway that leads to the garbha-griha or the sanctum sanctorum where the deity resides is reached through the pillared hall. Typically a circumambulation passage encloses the garbha-griha, the devotees using it to circle the garbha-griha as they pray, symbolically circling the universe and indicating the soul has no beginning nor an end. However the mandapa is consipicuous by its absence here, and the entrance to the doorway is instead reached through a verandah-shaped enclosure running along the sides.


“What are those images,” I ask the priest, pointing to the walls making up the outer precinct of the temple, enclosing a courtyard, also known as a prakaram. A yellow bulb hangs over a window and two images flank it. I cannot make them out clearly from where I stand. More images abound along the length of the prakaram.

“They depict stories of the gods, the gods themselves, and events from our epics,” he replies.


Through the main entrance to the courtyard I catch the lights in the pond outside, lights from the hills surrounding the tank reflecting in the water. And as if on cue the priest says, “The pond is a sight to watch during the ‘teppotsava’ when the deity is paraded in the boats you saw anchored in the pond as you entered the temple. The whole place lights up. Large numbers of people gather at the time. The ‘teppotsava’ takes place in Kartik Masa.”

Kartik Masa is usually the eighth lunar month of the Hindu calendar. Depending on the beginning of the year it can vary from being the first month as with the Gujarathis or the seventh month as in the Bangla calendar.

The elderly priest, Shivram Bhat, is from Vitla near Mangalore in Dakshina Kannada having come to the Omkareshwara temple in 1976 to take up priestly duties at the temple. The younger priest, Gopalkrishna Bhat, is from Puttur. He was formerly with the Kukke Subramanya temple before he coming here. The Kukke Subramanya temple is 105 kms. from Mangalore.

The elder of the priests looks in my direction and says in Kannada, “Brahmandra antey kanathdalla.” (You look to be a brahmin).

I smile before replying, “Yes.”

“Are you Haveega,” he asks me. Havyaka (or Haveega) is a sub-sect of brahmins professing the Advaita philosophy of Shankaracharya, and are mostly to be found in Uttara Kannada and Dakshina Kannada. Kodagu borders Dakshin Kannada.

“No, not a Havyaka. I’m a Vaishnava,” I reply before clarifying further, “a Madhva.” Madhvas are a brahmin sub-sect who profess to the school of Hindu philosophy known as Dvaita. It was originally propounded by Madhvacharya in the 13th Century.

The priest then points to royal inscriptions for me to read. “They’re written in halle Kannada (Old Kannada),” he says.

I nod and look up at the inscriptions before admitting, “I cannot read the script.” The devotional song playing on the tape soothes me even as it drowns his voice when the pitch rises in praise of the lord. Then we walk up to a window a few steps to my right. He pauses in front of it and points to the bars in the window before placing his finger on what appears to be a cut in one of the bars. “This is the King’s seal,” he explains.


I strain my eyes in trying to make sense of the royal seal on the window bar. It is a tiny seal etched in metal. The bars of the window are made of Panchaloha, an alloy of five metals (gold, silver, brass, copper, and iron). Pancha is five in Indian, and Panchaloha has a sacred significance, used in the construction of temple icons.

I can barely make out the royal seal in the dim light as I bend to take a picture. The temple bell sounds again like it has in the time I’ve been here. More devotees make their way in to pay obeisance to the deity, each with a wish and prayer on the lips, a cycle that has no end, and nor a beginning – only a present.


Note: This is Part Four of my Coorg Diaries. Read Part I, Part II, and Part III posted earlier. This is Part Four of my Coorg Diaries . This is Part Four of my Coorg Diaries .

Musicians at a Wedding Down South

Before the advent of ‘marriage halls’ (known as Kalyana Mantap) most Indian marriages used be conducted at the home of the bride, the others at temples. I attended several such marriages as a child. It helped that I had several aunts from either side of my family, resulting in a succession of marriages over the years.

Weeks before the wedding date, relatives from near and far, usually women, traveling long distances, having left their working husbands behind, would gather at the home of the bride. And then would commence a very enjoyable time with the household turning into a bee hive of activity as preparations for the marriage began in earnest. With sweets being central to wedding preparations, a whole variety of them, it was only natural that I would, along with sundry other cousins keep a close watch on the large tins they were stored in, raiding them at the first unguarded opportunity that presented itself. The elders even if they knew of our capers did not let on.

In the evenings the house rang to devotional songs with neighbours joining in as the women took turns singing songs, much laughter interspersing playful ribbing as reluctant singers were prodded into giving voice to their vocals.

The shamiana (pavilion), chairs, flower arrangements, horse carriages, cooks, and the wedding band used to be arranged for in advance. I took a fascination to the music band (also known as a brass band or procession band), attracted to their tidy uniforms often a bright red, and shiny epaulettes and shoes, marching in formation while playing gleaming musical instruments, often a mix of clarinets, trumpets, and saxophones.

Widely employed during weddings, brass bands lead the procession (also known as ‘baarat’) as the groom makes his way to the wedding venue on the female of a horse, known as ghodi. The male of the horse is called ghoda. Also, the night before the wedding the brass band leads the bride’s side of the family in a procession to the groom’s house to escort the groom for the milni ceremony.

The repertoire of early brass bands was Indian classical music, largely raga based, rendered with a mix of shehnais, dholaks, and the harmonium among others. With the advent of film songs popularizing wedding sequences in Hindi films, brass bands added films songs to their repertoire.

Over time ‘marriage halls’ began to make their presence felt, essentially shifting the preparations out of the house and to a commercial venue. Flower arrangements, brass band, seating arrangements, food, and even accommodation are now available as services for a fee.

Each time I attend a wedding I look for the musicians, which I suspect is more for their outfits than their ability with the musical instruments. However this time around last year the five musicians I met in Bangalore during the wedding were clad in simple clothes: shirts and white dhotis. It might have to do with the instruments they were playing. I cannot imagine a clarinet or a saxophone with a dhoti.


Of the group two played the dholak, one was on the harmonium, while the other two played the shehnai, an ancient Indian wind instrument. The shehnai (also spelled shenai) is rarely played solo. It is usually accompanied by another shehnai. While one holds a drone the other exults in a succession of subtleties, flowing richly.


Ustad Bismillah Khan, the legendary shehnai exponent, came to be synonymous with the shehnai and no Indian marriage is deemed complete without the shehnai making its presence felt with its soulful tunes that reflect the seriousness of the occasion even as it exuberates in the joyousness of the event, alternating between smiles and the tears streaming down the cheeks of the bride as she prepares to leave her parents’ home for that of her husband, a separation that distinguishes between the two phases of life in the Indian scheme of things.



Inching closer to the hand operated harmonium I noticed on the bellows a company label showing a map of undivided India, indicating the harmonium was manufactured before India’s partition in 1947. It is very likely that it was rolled out in 1944, the year R. Annaihya started Bharath Harmonium Works near Balapet Square, Bangalore.

Along with the harmonium the now yellowing label has survived over sixty years, enduring the daily rigour on the musician’s circuit. It cannot but be a testimony to the care lavished on the harmonium over the years.

Bharath Harmonium Works still operates out of the same place it first started, manufacturing a range of musical instruments, even the telephone number is the same as that on the original label except for the prefixes occasioned by a growing Bangalore population. The third generation now runs the place.

I spoke with Yashpal, the grandson of the founder, R. Annaihya. He told me that along with his brothers he took over daily operations at the manufacturing unit after his father passed away. He does not remember much of the old days except that his grandfather worked under Hanif, a Muslim musician he credits with introducing the harmonium to Bangalore. I can only guess what he might mean by this because he does not recollect any details beyond this except to say that Hanif, on finding that harmonium was not in use in Bangalore, maybe also elsewhere in Karnataka State, “took four carpenters to Bombay somewhere in 1888-1890 to train in the art of making the harmonium.”

He does not recollect the exact year his grandfather went to work for Hanif. “It must be somewhere between 1930-34,” he said, arriving at the date backwards from 1944, the year his grandfather, R. Annaihya, started his own company, Bharath Harmonium Works, after working for Hanif for “ten years or so”.

R. Annaihya passed away in 1992, leaving behind a legacy whose future now appears increasingly bleak.

“I may not continue this much longer,” Yashpal said, indicating that Bharath Harmonium Works faces imminent closure. “I function with a lone carpenter,” he explained before continuing, “Hardly anyone wants to learn the craft now.”


The hall resounds to the tunes of the shehnai while the harmonium keeps up a steady drone. Strangely I cannot recollect the harmonium player use the keys, only the external bellows, depressing them rhythmically, forcing the air into the internal bellows, expanding them as they push against the reeds to produce the characteristic sound of the harmonium. Actually I cannot recollect seeing keys on that harmonium either. I’m not sure if they had any.

I sit on the side watching them play in concert. They hail from Tamilnadu, traveling from wedding to wedding. July is an auspicious month for weddings in the Hindu calendar.


“This is a busy month for us,” the shehnai player leans over and tells me, smiling as he returns it to his lips, straining on it as the tunes fill the large hall.

Note: The post has spawned an interesting debate on whether the instrument shown in the pictures above is a Shehnai or a Nadaswaram or if using both interchangeably is correct.

The Nadaswaram is also referred as Nagaswaram or Nagasvara (the name probably owing its origins to the Pungi that snake charmers use, Nag is Indian for Cobra). However the Pungi is much smaller. One school of music lovers will insist that Nagaswaram is the correct name, and not Nadaswaram. If the Pungi origin is true then they make a valid point.

The Nadaswaram itself is not of uniform length across its constructs. A shorter version of Nadaswaram is known as Mukhavina. There’s yet another length of the Nagaswaram that is known as the Timiri, and another version that is known as the Bari. The Nagaswaram that functions as a drone is also known as the Ottu. In each case the length differs. However the variations do not matter insofar as knowing the instrument as Nagaswaram among the people of South India.

But to the North of India, Nagaswaram is seen as a variation of the Shehnai just as the Mukhavina, the Timiri, the Bari, and the Ottu are seen as variations of the Nagaswaram and/or differing in nomenclature where applicable.

The instrument that South Indians know as the Nadaswaram the North Indians will identify as the Shehnai, else as belonging to the Shehnai group. It’s a common construct insofar as both are wind instruments, using bamboo reeds, the number of reeds could differ between them just as their lengths differ among themselves, their use during weddings, and they’re both played in a drone-'active' pairing.

With the Shehnai there is no consistency in the number of openings either, ranging from six to nine, but they’re the Shehnai just the same.

Down South the Shehnai is known as the Hindustani music counterpart of Carnatic music. Up North the Nagaswaram is known as the Carnatic music counterpart of Hindustani music.

Out West, the Shehnai and hence the Nagaswaram will be seen as a variation of the Clarinet, and vice versa.

Once variations come into the picture the original name ends up being a generic name, just the way the Nagaswaram/Nadaswarsam became a generic name for the Timri, the Bari, the Ottu, and the Mukhvina, just as the Shehnai probably became a generic name for the Nagaswaram, or possibly the other way round depending on which came first.

This makes me curious to know which of these three came first. Does anyone know for certain? Grist for another North – South debate? :)

Through Karjat by the Udyan Express

This time last year the rains had settled down in Mumbai, having traveled up the West Coast early in the season.


So when we left for Bangalore we did so under a sky that had changed from a salubrious mischief monger to one of subdued obedience. The light had turned mellow, and birds were few and far between. Copper Pod and Gulmohar blooms were history, and not a trace remained on the streets of the colour the blooms had lent barely a month before.

I might have enjoyed the subtle nuances to the light if not for the threat the skies held out. If we did not have to travel some distance before boarding the Udyan Express I might have actually preferred to sit by the window and look into the distance and watch the skies open up on the Yeoor hills nudging the Mumbai horizon. It is difficult to delight in the mellow light when rains threaten a wet experience.

The Udayan Express pulled into Kalyan Junction shortly after quarter past nine. We made the platform early in the morning, preferring to wait for the train in the morning din on a busy railway station than run the risk of missing the train. Nobody takes a chance in the Mumbai rains, more so if they’re transferring to a connecting train. I settled down in the hard comfort of the stiff seating the railway junction provides travelers.

Milkmen got off suburban locals and balancing the large aluminum vessels on the head made for the exit. It was early morning rush hour, the time of day when the city of Bombay lifts itself up from the slumber of the night before and braces itself for the million embraces the local trains deliver into its weary lap. To stand there and watch the rush hour traffic without being a part of it for once warmed my cockles no end.

The Udyan Express runs over 1200 kilometres between Mumbai and Bangalore, the journey lasting twenty-four hours as the train passes through Pune, Solapur, Gulbarga, Yadgir, Raichur, and Guntakal before pulling into Bangalore City Junction at nine the next morning. Beyond Raichur it enters Andhra Pradesh, passing Adoni, Guntakal Junction, Gooty, Anantapur, Dharmavaram Junction, Penukonda and Hindupur before entering Karnataka again. From Hindupur, Bangalore lies three hours away.


Along the way scores of stations flash by, small outposts in the hinterland of Maharashtra and Karnataka, and a small stretch of Andhra Pradesh, passing villages and towns, crossing rutted roads at railway crossings and chugging along vast fields of standing crop, and elsewhere freshly plowed fields.

Ploughing deeper into India the terrain would change to a dusty brown, sometimes a rocky grey.


I was looking forward to the run across the country. The window was to be my companion for the length of the long journey.

I looked out the window as the train left Kalyan before walking down the aisle to the door. Wedging myself against it, with camera at the ready, I watched the Western Ghats mountain ranges slide away in slow motion in the far distance.



In the foreground rice fields shimmered in the latent glow of the monsoon morning. Large electricity transmission towers rose from the fields and every once in a while children, walking on mud bunds separating squares of rice fields, reflected in the water, making for a doppelganger effect in the reverse, images that were reminiscent of rural scenes from black and white pictures of years ago.

All along, farmers, ankle deep in the slush of the paddy fields laboured behind pairs of bullocks, ploughing their fields in slow motion.

Every once in a while scenes of village folk bent at the waist, planting rice crops, flashed past. Plastic tied around the head they rarely straightened up to watch the train go past. However the children did, waving to passing trains. Watching farmers at work invariably makes me wonder how it must be to be connected so elementally with the earth, smelling its fragrances, and working it for sustenance. India is among the largest consumers of rice in the world.



As the train made its way toward Karjat, the earth yielded patch after patch of peaceful scenes of rice fields getting ready for the Kharif crop, also known as the monsoon crop since it is sown in the monsoons. Sugarcane, Maize, Cotton are among the other Kharif crops. Beyond Kalyan it wasn’t until we crossed Badlapur that rice fields made an appearance in significant stretches, the scene repeating itself as we passed Vangani, Shelu, Neral, and Bhivpuri Road. Beyond Bhivpuri Road lies Karjat at the end of the coastal plains of the Konkan. Located on Bhor Ghat, Karjat is known for the largest concentration of farm houses in India, and lately it’s been in the news for the film studios located on its outskirts.

A little over an hour separates Kalyan from Karjat. All along the route the Western Ghats mountain ranges, also known as the Sahyadris, stretched in the far distance, unfolding like a curtain as the train covered ground on its onward run even while hiding from view the terrain on the other side, in the rain shadow of the Sahyadris.

Beyond Karjat the rice fields would make way for the mountain ranges, bringing them much closer than at any other point in the journey. However there was still time before they would rear mightily within view, staying with the train as it made up the incline, helped by the extra engine hooked to the first, before turning south-east in the direction of Pune.

I prepared to photograph rice fields on the run to Karjat and the mountain ranges thereafter. A polythene cover was at hand to wrap the camera with when the wind brought in the rain through the door.

It is difficult to make out faces of Oxen tilling the fields except through the zoom. Usually there isn’t much to separate the two bullocks by size so there’s not much one can deduce in terms of their temperament. It’s a little game I play with myself when I stand at the door as the train slices farmland in the sowing season.


I imagine a little white star on the forehead of an Ox to indicate a blessed soul who wears his blessing with little pomp as if it were his right and he is fine with displaying it to the world. But I was stumped by a pair of bullocks I saw in the field one of which had a white face. It might not have jarred as much if there was some continuity on the rest of its torso. There was not a hint of white elsewhere except for the face; the rest of its torso was a mix of brown and black. There could not have been a greater contrast in colours. This was a first for me. It was as if the head and torso from two different Oxen were joined together. I wondered if it had a split personality.

The cattle were oblivious to the train as it thundered past more rice fields.

Between Kalyan and Lonavala the train would make a stop at Karjat. I looked forward to seeing the khaki-shirted Diwadkar Vada Pav wallahs complete with red sashes running across the front of their shirts. They wear the red sash with Diwadkar printed in the Devanagari script on the front, to the back the brand name is printed in English. The Diwadkar Vada Pav vendors are unique to Karjat and are not to be found elsewhere on the Mumbai Suburban Railway Network.

On railways stations elsewhere in Mumbai and adjoining suburbs Vada Pav stalls are run from railway platforms. Typically a tender process identifies the most favourable bids and depending on the number of stalls allocated for each station the eateries commence business, turning profits quickly as office goers and other travelers make a beeline for the snack. Vada Pav is arguably the most favoured snack on railway stations on the Mumbai Suburban Railway Network. Vada is a potato-based patty savoury made from mashed potato that is rolled into balls before before being dipped into spice-seasoned batter of gram flour and deep fried. Eaten with Pav, a type of bread, it is filling. It is garnished with chutney that can alternate from moderately spicy to very spicy.

As passing trains pull into Karjat the khaki clad Diwadkar Vada Pav vendors take their positions with practiced ease, two to a bogie. Placing metal stands on the platform they rest their stock of Vada Pav and a packet of chutney, carrying the brand name Diwadkar Foods, in a rectangular metal tray with straps.

At other times they carry the metal stand on their back and dispense Vada Pav from the metal tray that is slung from their necks.

Preparing Vada Pav is a skill that comes with practice. Usually it is the garnishing that distinguishes Vada Pav preparations. Diwadkar’s chutney is red but not as spicy as the red suggests.



It had rained a short while ago, leaving a fresh feel to the trees and the road that runs parallel to the tracks. Vegetable vendors sat by the edge of the road with baskets of fresh looking vegetables. Vegetable vendors bring the streets alive. Baskets of fresh vegetables lend a hint of fertility to what might otherwise be a stretch of dull, unyielding asphalt. Moreover it makes for a reason to walk the roads checking each basket for vegetable varieties sourced from diverse farms, bargaining over prices. In time regular customers develop nodding familiarity with the vendors, exchanging smiles all around. It is an experience actually.

On leaving Karjat, where extra power was added in the form of a second engine, I had little less than two hours to photograph portions of the Western Ghats mountain ranges for, the train after crossing Palasdari makes its way past Thakurwadi, then up Monkey Hill before passing Khandala and then Lonavala. From here it’s not long before it leaves the Western Ghats behind, entering the Deccan Plateau on its way to Pune.



At Thakurwadi a temple dedicated to Lord Hanuman appeared in the middle of nowhere. Painted pink it stood out in the greenery. The paint was running loose in the downpour. An elderly villager clad in a wrap-on and a blouse made her way up an incline that ran parallel to the track.

The villagers usually build their homes in clusters, the sloping roofs merging in the backdrop of the mountains. Occasionally homesteads will emerge from isolated patches of farmland, fenced with stems sourced from surrounding vegetation. In the rains it’s not unusual to find fences sprouting life.

A light rain fell outside. I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with mountain air. I was joined by another passenger at the door. He simply stood there and gazed at the mountains that seemed to stretch, and stretch, and stretch all the way. Waterfalls cascaded down the mountains, striking white against the deep green of the foliage, indicating they fell violently.


The western edge of the Deccan plateau ends in the Western Ghats (also known as the Sahyadri mountain ranges) that run north to south along the edge of the plateau, stretching all the way from the Gujarat – Maharashtra border, through Goa, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala, about 1,600 kilometres in all. Sahyadri means benevolent. At 1,200 metres on the average the Western Ghats are not among the tallest but what they lack in height they more than make up with their rich bio-diversity.


But from where I stood at the door of the train, watching the ranges up-close through my lens, tracing waterfalls that fell from great heights down sheer rock faces, and elsewhere emerging from dense foliage covering the near vertical drops, I was reminded of the ferocity of river Mahdei from a trekking camp in Goa years ago. I had only just escaped drowning by the thinnest of whiskers. Nobody had expected me to get out alive.



The train trudged up the incline. It had only a short distance to go before it would veer off into the plateau in the direction of Pune, leaving the core of the mountain ranges behind. I tried counting the streams cascading down the mountains for no particular reason. I could not hear them. They were too far for that. I wished I had carried my field glasses. A 10x50 might've brought them upclose. I wonder if these outcrops have been sufficiently explored, for if my experience trekking the Western Ghats is anything to go by I wouldn't be surprised if explorations were to reveal ancient temples lost to time.



It had stopped raining on the route but in the distance I knew from experience that come monsoon it rarely stops raining in the mountain ranges, swelling rivers that eventually feed peninsular India, among them are the Godavari, the Mandovi, the Krishna, the Cauvery, and the Zuari. At their source the numerous streams descend quickly from the heights before they roil in the violence of the monsoon.


Rice fields were now few and far between. As the gradient steepened we left the plains behind. Even as dense vegetation blurred features of mountains in the distance I rewound to images of paddy fields I had seen earlier in the journey. Other images from long ago of children playing in the fields, pausing to wave at the train as it roared past them came to my mind, leaving a warm feel behind.




For some reason each time I’m on a train passing through vast fields in the Indian hinterland I’m reminded of the unforgettable train scene from Satyajit Ray’s classic Pather Panchali when Apu and his sister Durga ‘discover’ a train in a field of Kaash flowers.



Born into an accomplished Brahmin family himself, second to none in their achievements in the Arts, Ray’s Pather Panchali (Song of the Road) is a story of a poor Brahmin family from rural Bengal in the early twentieth century and charts the story of Harihar Ray’s impoverished family struggling to make ends meet. In a backdrop as grim as this the film belies the seeming futility of their existence with its portrayal of Harihar Ray’s children, Durga and Apu, as alive to possibilities of life, and ever ready to imbue meaning into the simplest of things that simply being alive had to offer.

Riding on their unaffected childhood innocence that manifests in their discovery of the world beyond their immediate circle of life the film unravels time to the pace of Durga and Apu’s life, and nowhere more so when Durga and Apu find themselves in a field of Kaash flowers, possibly drawn to the humming of high tension electricity wires, only to hear an unfamiliar sound carried their way on the breeze. Never having heard a train before Durga stills herself, her eyes having averted to a non existent visual frame before her, only the occasional jerk of her face in the direction of the sound indicating she was seized of the unfamiliar, and Apu having gone quiet, looking for cues in Durga’s absent gaze presses his face to the high tension electric metal pole even as the Kaash flowers sway gently to the breeze now bringing the mystery to the fore.

Seconds turn to minutes and as Durga breaks into a run to meet the mystery, Appu follows her. There among the head high flowers they pause unsure of the direction the sound was coming from, their heads still, the sound grows louder, and in the split passage of a moment on the threshold of unfolding the unknown, realization dawns, and their heads jerk to their right just in time to catch sight of thick black smoke in the distance gusting back above the heads of Kaash flowers, the engine and coaches hidden from view. Pushed back by the force of air yielding to the train’s momentum as it hurtles across the plains, the swirling black smoke might as well have been a demon snorting rage. Appu breaks into a run to meet his defining moment as he comes face to face with a steam locomotive for the first time in his life.

In that one moment of sprinting innocence I understood the Indian hinterland from a different perspective and my travels by Indian Railways were never to be the same again.

Red Shirts of a Different Kind

In 1983, the year India won the Cricket World Cup, there was one other moment that kept the nation transfixed as it agonized over the fate of the one man who, through the seventies and the eighties, colonized the imagination of an adoring nation. It was the year Amitabh Bacchan was returned alive to a grateful nation.

Each time I catch sight of sprightly railway porters (also known as coolies) in bright red shirts and shiny brass armbands sporting license numbers on bustling railway platforms as they take their positions, usually one to a bogie when the train rolls into the station, I’ve mixed feelings.

On the one hand I’m reminded of Coolie, the role Amitabh Bacchan essayed in the film by the same name, barely surviving an accident on the sets. In a dialogue from the film he famously declared “Bachpan se hai sar par Allah ka haath, aur Allahrakha hai mere saath; Baazu par hai saat sau chhiyaasi ka billa, bees number ka beedi peetha hoon, kaam karta hoon coolie ka aur naam hai Iqbal.”

For years the film instilled a sense of pride in railway porters otherwise accustomed to a life devoid of meaningful dignity, and occasionally respect, the lack of which is often glimpsed in heated arguments with harried customers over fees for transporting luggage from the train to the taxi stand and vice versa, and the butt of the occasional derisive comment.

The flip side can be a nasty experience with aggressive porters upping the price after transporting the luggage to the train, a situation rendered delicate if the train has sounded its horn to indicate imminent departure. The more enterprising among them will launch themselves into moving trains to be the first ones into unreserved compartments before quickly spreading their towels on unreserved seats, to be “sold” to passengers with valid tickets. I’ve had my share of confrontations on the occasions I had to travel by the General Compartment. One journey I remember traveling for six hours sitting on the footboard because there was nowhere else to sit.

At Victoria Terminus, and as with other railway stations, it is not uncommon to catch sight of porters (or coolies) demanding money from clueless foreign tourists for ‘helping’ them locate their train and the compartment.

Nevertheless it can be hard work for, the very nature of Indian Railways and the people who travel by it ensures that the railway porter’s job remains a demanding one. Even with light luggage, scurrying up the stairs and through crowds to the waiting train can be quite a task for a seasoned traveler, let alone a porter with heavy luggage stacked on his head while zigzagging through crowds. It gets trickier if the client arrives late and has only a few minutes to board the train.

Those of us who saw Coolie will remember the song

Sari Duniya Ka Bojh Hum Uthate Hain
Log Aate Hain Log Jaate Hain
Hum Yahin Pe Khade Reh Jaate Hain

Chaar Ka Kaam Hai, Ek Ka Daam Hai
Khoon Mat Pijiye Aur Kuchh Dijiye
Ek Rupaiya Hai Kam,
Hum Khuda Ki Kasam
Badi Mehnat Se Roti Kamaate Hain
Sari Duniya Ka Bojh ...

(We carry the burden of the world
People come, people go
We’re left standing here

We do the work of four for the price of one
Don’t drink our blood, give us a little more,
One rupee is less, I swear on God,
Earning our bread is mighty hard work
We carry the burden of the world ...)

On train stops along the journey I often get off and saunter on railway platforms for the joy of the hustle and bustle that is characteristic of Indian railway journeys. There’s so much to see that at times it is as if I’m at a play where I visit different theatres by turn to catch the entire story. It can be surreal.


A year ago on one such train stop at Pune on our way to Bangalore I got off the Udayan Express (6530/6531) that runs between Bombay and Bangalore to take a few pictures of railway porters napping on hand carts in the afternoon. There I met Nandu and Vilas, two Marathi speaking porters. Within moments we were surrounded by the rest.


Vilas, the elder of the two said though the job has become demanding in terms of competition it is possible to make a living on it for, more of India now travels by trains.

A few of them were at the ‘drinking water’ taps. From the look of it they’d just finished eating their lunch. On finding none of the porters approach any of the passengers disembarking at Pune I became curious.

“Passengers from Mumbai getting off at Pune will rarely hire porters to carry their luggage,” Vilas explained. Pune is pre-dominantly Maharashtrian.

Nandu, the younger porter listened on, as Vilas continued.

“It is possible to eke out a living for a couple and two kids in this job, but not if you’ve habits (an Indian euphemism for addiction to vices like alcohol, cigarettes, gambling, ladies bars, and women on the side among other things).”


As the train sounded the whistle I made an offhand comment as I prepared to leave, “Too many trains now as compared to before.”

Vilas smiled before saying, “Lots of trains yes, but only if folks use our services will money pass hands else not.”

I smiled in turn before sprinting to the door just as the train pulled out of Pune.

Hard Lessons

The Jehangir Art Gallery has been a permanent fixture on my visits to Fort for quite some time now. I wonder if visiting over 70-80 art exhibitions at the Jehangir over the years has made me any wiser about the Indian Art Scene. I doubt if it has. However I do remember a few memorable ones. Occasionally I might drop in at Samovar, the in-house café, for a quick bite or two before walking down the steps and out into the Mumbai sunshine. Once in a while I might settle down on the steps and watch the world go by.

The art gallery, with its four exhibition halls, is helped by its location. No one who visits the heritage precinct of Kala Ghoda can miss seeing it. So, tourists visit the gallery in droves. Some get curious after seeing others walk in, and hence follow suit. Yet others hesitate, wondering if they’ll be allowed past the entrance before mustering courage and making their way up the steps.


After visiting an exhibition one late afternoon I stepped out of the gallery and was about to run down the steps and across the road in the direction of the David Sassoon library but stopped short on seeing a lady posing for the camera against the backdrop of the art gallery. Her little daughter stood on the road with a point-and-shoot while she posed patiently, waiting for the shutter release, to be indicated by a flash, though there wasn’t a need for one in the late afternoon light. Seconds passed, no flash, more seconds passed, still no flash. A touch edgy, she walked up to her daughter and after a few quick instructions she returned to her spot and struck a pose. Her husband stood to the side watching on.


The little girl brought the camera to her face. Behind her, cars motored past. More seconds passed, still no flash. I watched from the steps, willing the little girl to get it right, for I knew it must mean a lot to her to be able to point to the picture later and tell whoever would listen that she’d taken the picture of her mother in front of the art gallery. Yet more seconds passed, still no flash. By now the mother was getting visibly irritated, and after walking up to her daughter for the third time she returned to her spot and struck a pose. Nothing happened. The little girl tried, but the camera would not yield.

The lady strode up to her little daughter in a huff and snatched the camera from her reluctant hands before turning it over to her husband. The little girl dropped her gaze to the road as her mother led her to the side, by a parked car. Her father took her place. Her hands by her side, she watched her mother strike a pose for her dad.


Seconds later, the camera flashed.

I wonder if later that night the little girl wished she would grow up quicker.

Forever

By an ancient river meandering through an old city
Every once in a while
Wandering souls will pause,
In a timeless moment of togetherness.

There, floating on the wind,
Moments from centuries ago
Whisper in willing ears
The story of a king mourning his love.

The Long Road

At times it is not so much the milestones but the length of the journey that brings meaning to traveling.

River Crossings

Each time I take the ferry across the Mandovi to Piedade on the island of Diwar I return refreshed.

From the time the passenger ferry glides across the Mandovi to where I wait under the shade of coconut palms in a light breeze wafting across the river, stirring the placid waters into shy ripples glinting gold as they catch the Sun, I delight in the languid pace of life before making my way down the sloping ferry ramp to the gangplank the ferry’s crew lowers to discharge passengers from Diwar for passengers to Diwar.


Eyes squinting in the harsh noon light, waiting passengers quickly make for the ferry after having waited in the heat of the afternoon Sun at St. Pedro in Ribandar, off the Panjim – Old Goa road. The Goa Institute of Management (GIM) that was formerly known as Santa Casa da Misericordia (The Holy House of Charity) or The Royal Portuguese Hospital lies nearby. It was also known as the Ribandar Hospital. Until 1993 it was the campus of the Goa Dental College before making way for the management institute.

Each time I pass the heritage structure by bus I wonder why it was not set back further from the road so people could admire its façade. The banks of the Mandovi lie only a few metres away. Occasionally a few boats can be found anchored to a small jetty that abuts the road as it passes by the former hospital. In the night it is not uncommon to find lanterns in the cabins of these boats. For years I would lookout for the lanterns as the bus made the corner by the former hospital on its way to Old Goa and beyond.

Sometimes as I wait in the Sun, watching the ferry leave the shores of Diwar in the distance, Redvented Bulbuls in nearby trees catch my attention, so do Kingfishers that perch on overhanging branches scouring the waters for sign of fish. Other times I watch large barges ferrying iron ore from Goa’s open cast mines that account for over 60% of India’s iron ore export, their massive flanks the colour of rust, an occasional burst of horn shattering the peace of noon as they keep to the middle of the river, sometimes going upstream, other times downstream of the Mandovi estuary.

Usually only a few people are about as the ferry sweeps an arc on the river after leaving Diwar before straightening up in the direction of Ribandar. On weekdays office goers returning to their homes in Divar ready their scooters, motorcycles and cars as the ferry glides to a stop on the gangplank making noisy contact with the sloping ferry ramp, occasionally jarred by the impact as it slides up the ramp to the sound of the engine winding down.

Once the ferry empties of passengers and their vehicles it is boarding time. The crew is at hand to direct the passenger traffic onto the flat-bottomed ferry. Then the levers snap into action as cables reel in, lifting the gangplank as the ferry pulls away in slow motion. Soon land recedes in the distance as the engine throbs to life, cutting through the water swiftly. Every once in a while I lean on the side of the ferry and rest my chin in my palms and watch absently at the wake the ferry churns up as it glides to its destination across the river.

The island of Diwar that was to my back as the ferry pulled away from St. Pedro now swivels to the front as the ferry makes an about turn mid river. A swathe of mangroves hides the island in the distance. Upstream of the Mandovi, tributaries that feed it now run steady after the heady monsoon months when runoffs coursing down the slopes of the Western Ghats mountain ranges into its tributaries swell the Mandovi, raising her water level upstream. It is late January now and the South-West monsoon is still a good five months away.

As the ferry approached the island of Diwar mangroves loomed large. Travelers heading to Piedade, a village in Diwar, got off the ferry.

Herons were about the patch of mangroves that had parted to reveal the ferry ramp. When the tide is in fishing nets erected along the length of mangroves are home to water birds looking for an easy meal.

Strung around bamboo sticks the fishing nets attract Egrets and Herons and they can be found perched on the nets hunting fishes trapped in the nets as the tide goes out. Within minutes the ferry was empty of travelers. A fifteen-twenty minute wait for passengers headed in the opposite direction, to Panjim and elsewhere, and the ferry would embark on its return journey, criss-crossing the river route before calling it a day at ten in the night.

Given a choice I would chose a ferry crossing over that by bridge any day even if it means sitting on the riverbank late in the night for the tide to come in and bring the ferry over like the night at Surla-Maina years ago. Returning home with my parents I spent the time squatting on the approach road with dozens of travelers watching for signs of the incoming tide while identifying the stars and constellations overhead in-between even as we made new friends that day. When the tide came in three hours later, bringing with it the ferry that would take us to Volvoi I was disappointed at having to leave behind what had been a perfectly delightful wait on the quiet riverbank where water lapped the landing rhythmically. Away from the highways Goa goes quiet in the night. Streetlights along narrow roads keep travelers company at intervals, welcoming them with their shadows that shorten to a point as they pass underneath the tube light, lengthening behind them as they move away.

Another time returning with my friend late one night we made for the Amona – Khandola ferry only to find the ferry anchored for the night, having made its last run for the day. Fortunately for us the crew was still around. A request and a sympathetic nod later we rode over the gangplank as the engine came to life. I don’t remember it sounding sweeter than it did that night under the stars. In the distance lights flickered beyond the banks, growing brighter as the ferry glided over the still waters to Khandola. It must have appeared like a hulking apparition to anyone out on the banks that night. A bridge now spans the ferry route.

Ferries between Panjim jetty and Betim used to run full in the days following the collapse of the bridge over the Mandovi in the mid-eighties, just two months after I expressed fears over its stability to a fellow athlete as we ran over it on our morning run from Campal to the incline beyond the bridge that leads to Maphusa. “This bridge will fall someday soon,” I had remarked to him as we willed our weary legs over it. Two months later it went down. Ferries were then pressed into service to take travelers over the Mandovi. Watching passengers and vehicles at Panjim jetty crowd the flat bottom carrier headed for Betim across the river I would say a quick prayer and will the ferry over the Mandovi safely.

The only ferry route I swore off was the one connecting Dona Paula to Mormugao. Actually I do not remember it to be a flat-bottom ferry; it was more of a boat that could hold about 25 passengers. One monsoon day the ferry nearly tipped over in the rough seas. We were thrown off our seats as it began to see saw in the tumultuous waves. As we scrambled to right ourselves, reaching for support to steady our footing, the waves deposited sea water in the boat. Someone passed a bucket and the seawater went right back, arms scooping the water furiously. Overhead the clouds darkened as the rain pelted us. Looking back now I’m inclined to believe that ample screaming and vomiting by passengers eventually convinced the wind gods into letting us survive the journey. It took me the threat of impending exams at school to eventually cast those memories away to the back of my mind.

Among the ferries I’ve ridden over the years the one over the Terekhol in Pernem is among the more memorable experiences I’ve had. The Kiranpani – Aronda ferry over the Terekhol bridges Goa and Maharashtra respectively.

Kiranpani perches on the very edge of Goa’s northern boundary with Maharashtra so, it was only natural that folks crossed over to Maharashtra by night, smuggling in essential commodities from across the border into Goa during the blockade by the Indian Army of the Portuguese ruled Goa. To get to the Terekhol fort we boarded the ferry at Kiranpani for Aronda across the Terekhol river, passing through a sliver of Maharashtra at Redi where Usha Ispat has located its Pig Iron plant. Then we crossed back into Goan territory as we neared the Terekhol fort. From here the Arabian sea swirls around a near 360 degrees. The fort is now a luxury hotel.

When we reached Kiranpani early in the afternoon we saw migrant labour busy in extracting sand from the river, depositing large quantities of it along the banks for trucking it out to construction sites. Demand for sand is high in the booming construction industry; more often than not the sand is extracted illegally. On our way back from the Terekhol fort through the portion of Maharashtra that separates the mainland of Goa from its other portion, a small one, we stopped at what was a small village shop for directions to an eating place that might be open for lunch. An elderly man stood behind a row of bottles that held confectionery among other things. He spoke Konkani well and was running his shop from a room to the back of his house.

“If you want we can make food for you here,” he said. Surprised to hear the shopkeeper offer us the option, but glad nonetheless, we nodded and went in and made ourselves comfortable on two planks of wood hewn into rudimentary benches. His wife, an elderly lady, got to work preparing lunch. Few places I’ve eaten since can beat the authenticity of that meal I had that day. Then we crossed back into Goa and hit the road.

From Kiranpani, Vengurla and Sawantwadi in Maharashtra are twenty-odd kilometers away. Pernem is the last stop for trains out of Goa, heading up the West Coast. Each time I take a train out of Goa or enter the state I make for the door as the engine hurtles over the huge spans bridging the Terekhol. The tone changes to a distinct metallic as I peer down at the river and wonder if the river is indeed so green as to have a golf course at the bottom or is it that my eyes are playing tricks on me. Coconut palms fringe the waterways, and in the distance every once in a while I spot ferries making river crossings.


For sheer visual drama few ferry ramps can beat the one at Narwe (Naroa) in Bicholim where the rail bridge over the Mandovi reverberates as trains hit the Konkan trail. The ferry ramp is fairly close to the bridge and passing trains make for a heady spectacle as if floating in the sky. As May gives in to June, and June to July clouds come in from the West in great numbers, spurred on by the South-West monsoon winds. In the backdrop of white puffs sailing in the sky, the sight of trains speeding over the metal spans high up in the sky stir imagination, and waiting at the Naroa (Narwe) ferry point for a ferry to take me to Diwar I’ve often willed trains into passing that way just so I can look up and marvel at the unfolding scene.


Looking up to watch a train pass over a bridge up-close is different from watching a train pass over a bridge in the distance where it becomes part of the landscape, an element that is as much a part of the bridge as the bridge is part of the earth that holds it up. But up-close against the backdrop of a summer sky, the pillars are transformed into fingers of an open palm nudging the train into taking wings and sailing away to a faraway land. In the silences to be found in the far corners of Goa, the real very often seems unreal. Out there landscapes make you their own.

The few times that I’ve taken the ferry out of Narwe to Diwar I’ve had only a traveler or two for company waiting for the ferry. The sparse numbers may have to do with the time of my journey as ferries usually run full in the morning and evening hours when the traffic is largely made up of office-goers.

As the train emerges from the tunnel at Old Goa on its way up North it first clatters over the bridge spanning the Mandovi at Old Goa before crossing over into Diwar. After a short run through Diwar among paddy fields it passes over the second rail bridge on the Mandovi, entering Bicholim at the Narwe – Diwar ferry point, where if let your imagination fall in step with the rhythm of the train chugging over the bridge you can see it sail away with the clouds.


On its run through Diwar the locomotive cuts through paddy fields and open landscapes where birds of prey circle in the sky and water birds emerge from mangroves along the Mandovi.

A large Egret will flap its wings and ascend before gliding to a stop in the thick of mangroves or a Red-wattled Lapwing will give away its location with its sharp cries. It’s not uncommon to find Serpent Eagles and Brahminy Kites glide overhead in the blue skies nor an occasional Shikra as it breaks cover and whistles past in a blur.

On electricity wires along the narrow road that splits a paddy field into two, Drongos, and Small Green Bee-eaters abound, and so do Swallows and Roller Jays.

In the late afternoon light the grass are a burnished gold.


On our way back home from Diwar we headed for the other ferry that connects Diwar to Old Goa across the Mandovi. We drove past pretty houses to the center of the village of Piedade, then turned right. I kept my eyes peeled out for a roadside inn I used to stop for a plate of pao-bhaji once in a while. Ganesh Naik ran a small eatery in his house from a room that fronted the Dumo Shet road. Soon enough after we passed a group of boys busy at cricket in an empty paddy field the inn emerged in the shade of a leafy tree by the road. A radio was playing film songs. We made for the other table to the back of the room. The one by the door was occupied by a villager in shorts sipping tea. There were only two tables in the small room.

“What bhaji do you have on the menu?” I asked Ganesh.

“I’ll need to check if there’s any left,” he replied before disappearing into the adjoining room.

Emerging from the room he said, “Patal Bhaji, sufficient quantity.”

“Ok, we’ll have three plates, with pao (a type of bread). Is the bhaji hot?” I asked. He nodded and went back in. We sat listening to the radio, occasional crackles bringing alive the silence on the road outside.


We asked for a second round of helpings and listened to a few more songs on the radio. Sated we made for the door, bending to avoid the sloping roof before stepping out. Then we made for the ferry, this time further upstream from the one we took out of St. Pedro for Diwar earlier in the day.

As the road slipped under the wheels, the rail bridge at Old Goa that trains on the Konkan Railway heading out of Goa take appeared to our left, its metal girders glinting silver in the evening light that cast grassy stretches in pale gold. Water bodies acquired a rich hue, tones that might have quickened the pulse of landscape artists. We stopped on the way to count a large flock of water birds that had settled on a bund that ran across a stretch of water in the backdrop of the bridge. There were one hundred and thirteen of them. We could not land a positive identification. We got back on the road and made for the ferry ramp. The ferry was mid-river and heading our way. It would now take us to Old Goa, in the backdrop of the railway bridge over the Mandovi.

Across the river churches and cathedrals of Old Goa peep out from among the mass of coconut palms fronting the Mandovi. On this very river, probably on this very stretch events that made history etched Goa with blood, irrevocably changing it.

On the surface there’re no knowing how deep rivers run or what stories they hold.

The setting Sun nudges our ferry on its journey across the river, and we are away.


Note: Goa operates ferries on twenty-two routes. Typically two ferries operate on a given route, crossing one another mid river. Routes with less traffic are serviced by a single ferry. Among the routes operated by ferries are: Calvim – Carona, Keri – Tiracol, Pomburpa – Chorao, Aronda – Kiranpani, Panaji – Betim, Siolim – Chopdem, Ribandar – Chorao, Kamurlim – Tuem, Ribandar – Piedade, Aldona – Corjuem, Old Goa – Piedade, Amona – Khandola, Vanxim – Amboi, Volvoi – Surla-Maina, Naroa – Diwar, Cortalim – Marcaim, Cumbarjua – Gaundaulim, Durbhat – Rassaim, Sarmanas – Tonca, Raia – Shiroda, Dona Paula – Mormugao, and Assolna – Cavelossim.

Sugarcane in the Summer

May is a harsh month in Mumbai. In the shade of buildings that line narrow roads people travel by auto-rickshaws, motorcycles, cars and on foot. As the Sun climbs up in the sky dotted with straggling clouds, shrinking the shade to expose the tar road to the hard edged noon that fairly sizzles, people quicken their steps, easing up as they approach trees along narrow roads arching across in an explosion of deep orange Gulmohar blooms, and elsewhere carpeted with flowers of Copper Pod trees that drip-irrigate the roads with dollops of yellow shaken loose by occasional bursts of breeze rushing through the trees.

Only the stiff breeze where it can negotiate past concrete buildings along intersections in the road, cools the heat rising up from the scalding road and pavements where every once in a while people in twos and threes can be found chatting, or sharing a cigarette in lunch-time breaks from office. At corners where entrance gates open to residential complexes, vegetable vendors sit on the pavements, red tomatoes prominently displayed among leafy vegetables stacked neatly in cane baskets, waiting for housewives to step out for vegetables.


Away from the hustle of the main thoroughfares whose wide roads see little or no shade from squat buildings along their length, neighbourhoods to the back are quieter affairs. Here, amid patterns the light descending through leafy canopies makes on the road, it is possible to still time by pausing by a tree along the road to watch a street barber who has set up shop at the base of the tree, conduct his business, with the customer tracking the scissor's progress in the mirror the barber handed him.

Or other times at the sight of an elderly man who lifts his chin for a quick shave and walks away without paying even as he, with a nonchalant wave of his hand, tells the dhoti clad barber, "Will pay later." Without a backward glance the barber merely nods his head before returning the tools of his trade back to their box. His sandals, taken off out of respect to his trade, lie in the Sun near the base of the brick-and-cement platform encasing the tree.

I’ve probably done countless miles on foot in Mumbai and do not remember feeling the heat much, something I put down to the activity on the streets for, if not for the sights and sounds of Indian streets to occupy me neither the miles nor the heat would escape me as easily.

Street vendors in Mumbai are by their very nature transitory, so when I came upon a bullock cart parked to the side of a road in Matunga I paused for a moment to watch the elderly man in opaque glasses feed his oxen as they rested under the shade of a tree.


They were yoked to a cart that held a light load of sugarcane at the back. The elderly man, a sugarcane vendor, was feeding the two oxen lengths of sugarcane by turns. This amused me for I’ve known bullock carts to carry hay and other cattle feed in jute sacks hitched to the underside of the wooden carts, rarely ever fed from the very consignment they transported.

Later, the sugarcane vendor brought the whip close to his face as he secured the two lengths of leather to the slender stick with twine. By the look of it the whip apparently served the purpose of merely nudging the Oxen forwards rather then pulsating them into a gallop from hard thwacks of leather.

“Prices are going up everywhere,” he said. He had sourced his cartload of sugarcane for Rs. 2,500 from wholesalers in Byculla who receive sugarcane stock trucked in from as far as “Vashi, Pune, Nashik among other places.”

Typically middlemen ‘lift’ sugarcane produce from farmers and truck it to markets in Mumbai, where they either sell it off direct from the trucks or offload it with wholesalers who in turn sell it to small scale sugarcane vendors like the elderly man from Rani Bagh in Byculla. These sugarcane vendors then cart it from place to place selling it to sugarcane juice outlets along the way. It’s an unlikely sight though to see sugarcane vendors moving the produce along Mumbai streets in bullock carts; it’s more likely they use open-top tempos or mini-trucks for the purpose, so chancing upon the bullock cart in Matunga was a welcome sight.

“Even in season the prices are up this time around,” he repeated, looking at me before turning his gaze to the oxen. Apparently he had managed to sell off his cartload (typically 1000 kilos) of sugarcane at juice outlets along the way.

Byculla is a long way from Matunga by bullock cart but summer time affords sugarcane vendors an opportunity to earn a living as demand for sugarcane juice rockets.

“The Municipality (BMC) people trouble a lot,” he said. “They fine Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 6,000 if we don’t clear up before eight.” I assume he meant 8 AM, the time BMC staff patrol streets for vendors and hawkers doing business on arterial roads, clearing the roads for early morning traffic.

I nod my head and with a wave of my hand I step around him and continue on my way, quickening my steps to the happy beat in my head – Ta ra ra re.

It’s not uncommon to find sugarcane juice outlets set up shop in the summer. Not too long ago one could locate a sugarcane juice outlet from afar as the bells rolled with the wheel that ran the metal crusher, a rhythmic jangle that added festivity to the act of drinking sugarcane juice, more of an event to cherish than a summertime necessity. In Mumbai the crushers are a silent affair now, running out of small enclosures with a seating table or two for wayfarers.


Every once in a while a villager will travel to the city to run a sugarcane juice outlet from his wooden cart before returning to his village at the end of the summer. I’m particularly fond of cart driven enterprise not so much for the seasonal sights they offer in an increasingly mechanized world as for the simplicity of it all. They also remind me of the rural India of my childhood and my growing years, the open landscapes that fed the populace even as it left little or no trace of doing so, of the simplicity of rural folks and their almost filial attachment to their cattle, of how conversation would center around the land and harvests, of the helping hand in times of need, the laughter and easy conversations and more.

Watching an elderly villager in white dhoti (a traditional cotton wrap-on) and a Gandhi topi (cap) run his sugarcane juice outlet from a bullock driven cart parked to the side of a busy road brought a touch of the rustic to an enterprise run entirely from human labour. In the time I stood there people trickled in to his wooden cart for a glass of sugarcane juice.

Two heavy circular wooden cylinders mounted in a wooden frame are geared together with threads carved in the upper half of both cylinders so, when the yoke, fitted to a large wooden shaft fixed to one of the wooden cylinders, is turned it rotates the other cylinder as well, crushing the sugarcane fed through the turning wooden rollers. The juice flows out through a narrow wooden channel before being collected in a steel utensil through a cloth strainer tied to the mouth of the utensil.

I suspect folks who’ve walked across the road to the cart for a glass of sugarcane juice were driven as much by the sight of the elderly villager and a young man taking turns at the yoke, straining at the effort in turning the cylinders in slow motion.

To one side of the cart fresh sugarcane stalks are laid lengthwise. To the other side lie heaps of sugarcane leftover from the crushing. It is alternately used as cud and fuel. A large steel water container is placed on a wooden plank, water that I suppose is used to wash the glasses. The third wooden wheel attached to a length of wood is held down by a large stone placed along the length.

Rickshaws, cars, trucks, buses and pedestrians pass the sugarcane cart named Bhagwan Baba Rasvanthi Gruh in bold red letters on blue while the elderly villager and the young man cater to customers, taking turns at the yoke, feeding sugarcane through the wooden cylinders, draining the juice extracted into glasses, passing glasses with sugarcane juice to customers, folding crushed sugarcane, and collecting money.

A fortnight from now June will be upon the city and I already see increasing numbers of white clouds in the night sky, driven along by strong winds. The monsoon cannot be far away. In time more clouds will come in from the West, and urgent chirping of birds will ride the winds amid the swaying of trees, and as the first drops of rain will descend from the heavens the elderly villager will yoke bullocks to his cart and make his way home ahead of the monsoons that'll quench the earth.


Related Posts:
1. A Sugarcane Morning in North Karnataka.
2. A Postcard from The Nizam Sugar Factory.

A Postcard from The Nizam Sugar Factory

Placing the yellowing postcard on the glass display case I asked Abdul Hamid, “Can you read this for me?”

He paused for a moment before bringing the yellowing postcard to his face even as he bent his head towards it. Light sauntered in through the glass door that opened into the arcade lined by commercial establishments in the British-era stone building.

Under the tight fitting white skull-cap, Abdul Hamid’s broad face ended in a flowing black beard with streaks of white. When I stepped off the arcade and took the three shiny granite steps to the glass door I found him alone in the shop, standing in the far corner. Rows upon rows of old coins and stamps lined the walls and display cases that ran the length of the narrow passageway.

“I cannot read Urdu,” I said. “I believe you can.”

Abdul Hamid said nothing while he concentrated on the address printed in Urdu. It was signed by a salesman for The Nizam Sugar Factory Limited.


Under a crescent moon cupping a lone star the postcard carried the declaration ‘NIZAM’S DOMINIONS’. To the right lay the postage: 4 PIES, printed in four scripts, English, Urdu, Devanagari and what I believe must be Telugu. Until 1957 Indian currency was transacted in Rupees, Annas (16 annas equaled a rupee), Pice, and Pies (12 pies equaled an anna).

In a steady voice Abdul Hamid read off the postcard, “24, Mr. Madan Gopal Jamalal Saudagar, Hyderabad, Deccan.”

“Madan Gopal Jamnalal,” I repeated, assuming he had read the address incorrectly for I’d heard of ‘Jamnalal’, but not ‘Jamalal'.

“Madan Gopal Jamalal Saudagar,” he corrected me. I knew Saudagar to mean ‘a merchant’, but ‘Jamalal’? I wasn’t sure if ‘Jamalal’ was a name or a caste name. For a moment I wondered if 'Jamalal' had its origins in the word jama (to stock, to hoard, to deposit, to collect), with Jamalal to mean 'one who stocks'. Over time, with the son taking over the family business from his father before passing it on to his son and so forth, Jamalal might've come to acquire a caste description denoting merchants. I could only hazard a guess. Then I turned my attention to the postcard.

Only the previous day I had purchased a kilo of sugar from a neighbourhood shop for 19 rupees so when I turned the postcard over and read the rate card for sugar that a salesman from the erstwhile Nizam Sugar Factory posted to Madan Gopal Jamalal in the December of 1940 several memories around ‘Nizam’, ‘Sugar’, and ‘Hyderabad’ launched themselves to the fore, and I bought the postcard from Abdul Hamid.

A few things quickly became evident. The fact that the address was printed meant it must have come off a printing press. The merchant Madan Gopal Jamalal must’ve been on the list the Nizam Sugar Factory sent out the Sugar Rate Cards to either on request, or on a periodic basis or when sugar became available after sugarcane harvest, more likely either of the latter two. Sugar factories relied on a network of wholesalers and retailers to distribute their stocks.


On my travels across the Deccan Plateau on vacation from school during Diwali I distinctly remember passing tractors after tractors ferrying sugarcane to sugar factories in the night. Large swathes of the Deccan Plateau were once part of Nizam’s Dominions. Every once in a while I would lean out the window of the KSRTC bus and latch on to a length of sugarcane heaped in the tractor trailor heading in the opposite direction on their way to sugar factories, holding fast as the tractor made past, freeing the length of succulence from the heap. Then I would draw the sugarcane in through the window and chew on it the length of the journey. I learnt this from seeing villagers do likewise, but took care to avoid the stunt in the presence of my parents. A cheer would go up in the bus whenever someone managed to free a length of sugarcane thus. There was a thing or two going for me as a kid visiting those rustic regions from the hinterland.


However in the summer when I headed back to the Deccan, traveling through Bijapur and Gulbarga districts, I saw fewer tractor trailers ferrying sugarcane, instead I would pass chimney after chimney in sugarcane fields along the route, spewing smoke while farmers worked to convert sugarcane extracts into jaggery.

Jaggery brings alive an old memory.

One year Sidramappa’s yield of jaggery found no takers in the market. I remember villagers in the locality saying that even the large black ants that I took care to stay away from wouldn’t touch his jaggery. Since there was no place at Sidramappa’s home to stack his load of unsold jaggery he kept them at my grandfather’s house where they sat in neat rows against the wall in the long corridor, even reaching up to the wooden ceiling. I had never seen so many cones of jaggery before. Sidramappa hoped to sell them yet but I doubt if any got sold in the end. I remember wondering why ‘this’ jaggery was black in colour, and had drawn back in shock on tasting a piece I had chipped off the cone-shaped block when no one was looking.

Sidramappa used to work as a farm-hand on my grandfather’s farm. His hopes of landing a profit for his jaggery business venture failed as miserably as the one with livestock when his herd of goats and his brood of hens were buried by a retaining wall that collapsed on them, yet again putting paid to my grandfather’s initiative in getting him started on his own. Each year he seemed to have aged considerably from the year before in the time that I saw him when I traveled on school vacation to the Deccan every year.

One day Sidramappa did not return home. He was found hacked to death on his farm. His son-in-law had taken the axe to him.

I was too young to comprehend murder at the time, but on not finding him in the courtyard where they tied buffaloes and oxen I am told I howled for a long time, searching for him in the days that followed. Now each time I see sugarcane fields and stacks of jaggery my mind jogs a long way back to childhood memories from years ago, to a fading memory of a wrinkled face smiling under a colourful turban.


In the year (1940) that Madan Gopal Jamalal received the postcard from The Nizam Sugar Factory, British India records show sugar consumption in Nizam’s Territory at 20,000 tons, the same as Delhi. However, the Per capita sugar consumption in Nizam’s Territory stood at a mere 2.8 lbs. (1.26 kgs.) to Delhi’s 44.8 lbs. (20.31 kgs.) at the time.

In the Deccan Plateau we used jaggery (gur) far more than sugar, the latter was used sparingly, usually in preparing tea. I believe the price of sugar was a factor.

The postcard addressed to Madan Gopal Jamalal from The Nizam Sugar Factory, dated December 22, 1940, states the wholesale price of sugar for the day as Rs. 33 and 8 annas per bag of 2 cwts (~ 100 kgs.), with 1 rupee fetching 3 kgs. of sugar at 5.36 annas per kilo.

The postcard further states that ‘No offer for less than 100 bags and which does not accompany with a deposit of Rs. 2/- per bag will be considered’. A discount of 2 annas per bag was applicable ‘for orders of 1000 bags and above at a time’. This discount was increased to 4 annas per bag ‘for orders of 2000 bags and above at a time’.

I’ve no way of knowing how many bags Madan Gopal Jamalal used to order at a time, surely not less than 100 bags. I do not know if he was a big time merchant or if he ran a small neighbourhood shop in Hyderabad, though I'm inclined to believe the former. With average Per capita consumption of sugar in Nizam’s territory at 1.26 kgs. in 1939-40, Madan Gopal did not stand to make much profit from the sale of sugar unless he supplied to small time retailers in turn. There is a chance he was a retailer himself, operating his shop out of a crowded neighbourhood, the volumes helping him turn in a decent profit. Or maybe sugar was just one of the things he sold in his shop.

I can only imagine and wonder as I turn the postcard in my hand, willing it to reveal more!

Related Post: A Sugarcane Morning in North Karnataka.

A Sacred Confluence and Serpents in Stone

“Isn’t the time past 10.30?” the elderly brahmin priest asked me as I lingered on for a while where he sat on a low wall that led to the Triveni Sangama a few metres down the paved path.

In a small shop behind him pooja offerings in plastic bags placed on a makeshift wooden plank were on sale to devotees visiting the Sri Bhagandeshwara temple across the road from the confluence of three rivers, more commonly known as sangama in Sanskrit, and kudala in Kannada. I’ve heard people use ‘Kudala Sangama’ together when referring to a confluence of rivers though both words mean the same thing - confluence. Bhagamandala draws its name from Bhagandeshwara, and it was our first stop on our way to Talacauvery in the Brahmagiri hills.

A middle-aged lady in a sari ran the small shop. She was talking to the elderly priest in what I suspect was Tulu when I stepped over to where he was sitting, wrapped tightly in a shawl. The others had taken off their shoes and socks and walked down the paved path to the Triveni Sangama where the Kannike and the mythical Sujyoti meet the Cauvery as she flares up and spreads her girth on her long run across Peninsular India before flowing into the Bay of Bengal.

The priest had wrapped a shawl around his head and upper body, keeping him warm in the sharp breeze that blew in that early December morning from across the road passing Bhagamandala on its way to Talacauvery in the hills of the Western Ghats mountain ranges.

“Yes, it is past 10.30,” I reply, taking in the morning freshness in the backdrop of the mountains, a sight that invariably gladdens my heart and adds a spring to my step. Years ago the five days I spent trekking in the Western Ghats mountain ranges just out of secondary school, living in a canvas tent at the foot of the Western Ghats in a remote jungle location in Goa, left a lifelong imprint on my mind for the formidable mountain ranges, an experience that left me with a healthy respect for India’s rivers, more so those that descend from the mountains. Cauvery does.

“Oobaru barthiney aantha haleydhara, Mysore deenda (The visitor said he’ll be coming from Mysore),” the priest explained me in Kannada. “He doesn’t know the house, so he asked me to wait at the bus-stop. He said he’ll be here by 10.30 am.”

The priest wraps the shawl even tighter as a gust of cold wind sweeps down the steps to where we are. “I’ve been waiting here, it is cold actually,” he says. I nod.

A short distance away from where the elderly priest waited, buses ferrying passengers and devotees halt by makeshift shops by the road, dropping off passengers visiting Bhagamandala, while those from the opposite direction stop for passengers heading in the direction of Madikeri. There is nothing there to indicate a bus stop. Every once in a while the priest looked past me at the ‘bus stop’ for signs of his visitor from Mysore before turning to talk to me.

His face betrays little or no annoyance, just resignation, but I cannot be sure for, with age, as movements slow up, so do expressions and in the pauses that punctuate conversations the moment passes before the aged speaker can muster the appropriate expressions. There’s little such ‘seemingly inscrutable’ faces can tell me, so I usually listen carefully to the often halting speech of the elderly.

He told me he stays behind the Sri Bhagandeshwara temple complex, home to the deities Subramanya, Ganapati, Mahavishnu and Ishwara, pointing across the road to the dwellings behind trees that adjoin the temple. Along the picturesque road from Madikeri to Bhagamandala breaks in trees provided us glimpses of sloping roofs, mostly red Mangalore Tiles, named after the red clay local to Mangalore, the headquarters of South Canara (also known as Dakshin Kannada). On the road to Bhagamandala we passed milestones along the way pointing the direction to Mangalore. It lies over 140 kilometers off Madikeri (Coorg).

Coorg or Kodagu district lies to the southeast of South Canara (Dakshina Kannada) district. North Canara and South Canara were formerly parts of the Canara district under a single administration in the Madras Presidency before the British split Canara district into North Canara and South Canara.

The Canara Bank, founded in 1906 by the legendary Ammembal Subba Rao Pai, belonging to the Gowda Saraswath Brahmin community, draws its name from the erstwhile Canara district. I grew up hearing ‘Canara’ in the years my uncle worked with the Canara bank, for I would visit his family in my school vacations each year, staying with them for weeks at each of the locations his postings with the Canara Bank took him to, namely Dharwad, Gadag, Bangalore, Hubli, Laxmeshwar, Ankali (off Chikkodi), and eventually Gulbarga when he retired from his services with the Canara Bank.

Bhagamandala is sacred for the confluence of the three rivers, Cauvery, Kannike, and the mythical Sujyoti. A stone plaque at the entrance to the confluence notes the Cauvery as being ‘revered as one of the Sapta Sindhu or seven holy rivers and is considered to be the Ganges of the South. A dip in this holy Sangam completes the Hindu Shraddha rites for the departed soul.’ It also notes that ‘The Cauvery flows 800 kilometres from Talacauvery in Karnataka to Poompuhar in Tamil Nadu. Major dams on the Cauvery are the Krishnarajasagara Dam in Mandya District (Karnataka) and the Mettur Dam in Mettur (Tamil Nadu).’

I circumvent the priest to the plastic bags on the makeshift wooden table behind him and seeing me step over to peek into the contents of one, the priest turns his head and says, “The four coconuts and the four flowers in each of the bags are offerings the devotee makes at the temple to the four deities; Subramanya, Ganapati, Mahavishnu and Ishwara (Bhagandeshwara).”

The temple lay across the road from the sacred confluence. Shops lined the entrance to the temple, a narrow mud path that forked away from the road to Talacauvery, where the Brahmin priests I was to meet later had their homes. We were to visit the temple later after we were done with visiting the sacred confluence.

A fresh burst of birds chirping floats on the breeze to the strains of Cauvery Vandana playing in one of the shops across the street that sold among other things incense sticks, devotional cassettes, and puja offerings in plastic baskets, each consisting of four coconuts, four Hibiscus flowers, and four bananas along with a pack of incense sticks.

When we reached Bhagamandala there were few people around and we had the place pretty much to ourselves, the silence was not to last much longer. I look around as the priest lapses into silence. Tunes float in to where I stand. There’s something to be said of devotional strains riding the breeze by a sacred confluence of three rivers. The intonation waxes and wanes in the breeze as if riding waves and in the silence occasional ripples in the water appear to match the rhythm of the song.

Before we, a motley bunch of travel writers, descended the bus that Club Mahindra had organized to take us to Bhagamandala on our Coorg sojourn that they sponsored as a part of their Web Initiatives program, I had imagined the confluence to be a roiling affair where the mighty Cauvery flexes her girth and in meeting with the Kannike and the Sujyoti she would thunder at the sky in a fearsome roar while breaching the banks in the violence of the confluence. Somewhere in the back of my mind memories of the Sharavati at Jog falls and of the Mahdei in the Western Ghats during the monsoons provided for the fearsome context. But when I learned that Bhagamandala lay a mere eight kilometers from Talacauvery where the Cauvery takes birth in the high reaches of the Western Ghats I quickly realized that the confluence lay upstream of the Cauvery and would be no roiling affair. She would run many a kilometer more before adding muscle and acquire the ferocity that would make people worship Goddess Cauvery to propitiate her so that she is less belligerent along her course downstream. Each year worshippers observe the ‘Polinkana’ festival where they propitiate Goddess Cauvery on the banks of the Triveni Sangama with a Maha Puja in the belief it will make her flow gently, releasing the ‘Polinkana Mantapa’ made up of banana stems with a lighted wick riding it. The festival coincides with ‘Karkataka Amavasye’.

I leave the elderly priest sitting on the low wall and walk down the paved path to what looks like an innocuous tank, actually a water passage that flows gently underneath a small bridge at either end of the concrete platform with steps leading to the water, and where people gather before descending the steps to dip their feet into the sacred confluence of the three rivers.

The opposite bank is not paved with a concrete platform. There a priest squats on his haunches and helps a youth with tonsured head perform rituals. Pilgrims performing rituals to their departed ancestors first take a dip in the confluence, perform rituals here before leaving for Talacauvery.

At the far end to my left a flight of steps descends from either side of the embankment just ahead of the bridge that passes over the confluence. In the distance the high reaches of the mountain ranges ring the Sangama (confluence). The skies are clear and touched a deep shade of blue. I see few birds in the sky.

Behind me, on a raised circular platform around the Ashwath (Pipal) tree, stone reliefs depicting the Nag devta (Cobra) lean against the tree trunk while some stand on their own. Kumkum (traditionally made from dried turmeric and powdered with slaked lime, turning it red) adorns the serpents. Hindus worship the Cobra (Nag) on Nag Panchmi. In the morning Sun their texture shows the effects of the elements. I do not know how long they’ve been here, who placed them around the base of the tree or for that matter which of the stone reliefs came first.

From the edge of the platform I watch pilgrims take a dip in the confluence, children shrieking in delight as they splash water on each other even as they hang on to their mother’s saris fearful of being dunked in the water. The water is not deep, only waist high, at places it barely comes up to the knees. However in the monsoons the water level rises. Standing there it is difficult to imagine the Cauvery runs hundreds of kilometers through several Indian states, irrigates thousands of acres of farmland in the Deccan Plateau, descends over mountains in spectacular waterfalls, generates hydroelectric power and evokes awe for its ferocity in the monsoons over wide swathes of land.

An elderly Coorgi lady in a traditional Kodava dress cradles a newborn in her arms while the mother, in a mauve sari looks on. Against the outline of the mountains in the far distance and in the backdrop of what is essentially a benign nature of the confluence on that early December morning they paint a picture of serenity that is as much laidback as it is peaceful and inviting. A young couple with a baby settles on the steps that descend the platform to the confluence. While the mother holds the baby in her lap, they sit in silence, watching visitors splash in the water. Occasionally a motor vehicle sounds over the bridge ferrying visiting pilgrims or maybe returning pilgrims. Sometimes it does not matter what goes on elsewhere for, in the circle of life the radius shortens to the immediate, the immediate that prolongs the moment, stilling time even as it ticks for those around.

I turn to see Amogh train his camera at the opposite bank while Arun paces the platform lazily. Just then a brahmin priest walks in my direction. In the strengthening breeze the saffron coloured shawl wrapped around his neck shifts, its loose end flapping in the sudden gust. He crosses his arms across his bare chest and tucks the loose end in the corner of his elbow.

He is lean and is dressed in a white lungi folded up to his knees. I catch his glance and smile, and like with the Serpents in stone, time has etched its passage on his face. I put his age in the late fifties.

“Namaskara,” I greet him. He replies likewise, folding his hands in greeting before crossing them at his chest. Like the other priest I met at the entrance, Ramachandra Bhat too stays in the village near the temple across the road. He uses the Kannada words ‘Kshetrawadi and Sthaladaavaru’ to indicate that he traces his origins to this place, at least as far back as he can remember.

Pointing behind me in the direction of Talacauvery in the Brahmagiri hills, Ramachandra Bhat tells me that I missed seeing the ‘habba’ (festival) that takes place annually starting on Tula Sankramana, usually mid-October and lasting a month. Tula Sankramana is the day the Cauvery took birth at Talacauvery, and each year thousands from all over the state gather at Talacauvery to witness the Cauvery surge forth in the form of a spring and it is celebrated with much traditional fanfare. The Kodavas mark Tula Sankramana as the first day of the Kodava Calendar year, such is the significance the Coorgis attach to the divinity of the river Cauvery.

Continuing, Ramchandra Bhat explained, “At Talacauvery the Teertodbhava takes place at the Cauvery’s Ugamasthana (place of birth), where once each year in the Tula month the Cauvery surges forth on Tula Sankramana in the form of a spring from the Brahmakundike (Holy Pond).”

On Tula Sankramana pilgrims from far and wide make their way to Bhagamandala to pay their respects to their ancestors. They tonsure their heads and perform shraddh (rituals for the departed) on the auspicious day.

We turn to look at a large group of schoolgirls who’ve descended into the water and playfully splash each other even as a few among them make a dash for the opposite bank to escape the playful splashing.

The priest’s tone is even as he speaks, making no attempt to be heard over the noise, yet I can hear him clearly, even the nuances. As the flow of pilgrims ebbs and flows behind us, the noise begins to acquire a steadiness of a constant hum, receding to the background even as it plays out upfront.

“This is the Dakshin Kashi,” he says matter-of-factly before continuing, “Ganga comes here from Kashi and stays here for one month. Lots of people come here at that time. It is punyakaal.”

I’m intrigued by the priest’s assertion. I had heard of Bhagamandala as Dakshin’s Kashi (the Kashi of the South) but I hadn’t connected it to the Ganges appearing here to cleanse herself in the Cauvery, in the month following the Tula Sankramana.

The legend of the Cauvery records her as performing tapasya (penance) to invoke Lord Vishnu to grant her wish of becoming the most sacred of rivers, giving life to humanity along her course and sustaining their prosperity through the ages. Cauvery’s tapasya is rewarded with the appearance of Lord Vishnu who, upon hearing her wish, grants it thus: ‘The Ganges is sacred because she originates from my feet; but you are infinitely more sacred to her as I adorn you as my garland’. Subsequently it is believed the Ganges appears underground to cleanse herself in the Cauvery every year, staying back for a month.

“I come here (to the confluence) everyday and perform kriya karya (rituals) for pilgrims if they need it. It’s been forty years that I’ve been doing this (rituals),” he says.

Ramchandra Bhat holds out a fifty rupee note to me and asks, “Do you have change for fifty rupees?” Apparently he has to deduct some amount from the fifty rupees and return the balance to someone. I take the fifty rupee note from him and pass him five tenners. He heads over to someone in the crowd behind me and returns within minutes. Then I take his pictures. He is curious to see how his pictures turned out. I show him the frames in the panel display. He smiles at me and asks, “Do the pictures develop so soon?” I explain that unlike film cameras digital cameras do not need photographic paper. The images are stored digitally.

“They’ve come good,” he says of the pictures.

Ramchandra Bhat lives with his wife behind the temple across the road and has four children. Speaking of his family he tells me, “Dhoddo maga devasthan pujey madikondu idhaney (the eldest son is a priest at the temple). He has children and stays separately (from us). Invobba deshsavey (the other son is in service of the nation – Indian Army). He completed his Diploma in Engineering and joined the Indian Army. He is in a clerical post there. The third son is a priest like me, and performs all rituals like I do. He does puja in Subramanyam Devasthan (temple).”

As I listen to the priest speak in a Kannada dialect that’s at once soothing and melodious I’m reminded of the Kannada our neighbours, the Ramkrishna Bhat family, spoke back in Goa in the late seventies, particularly when Anand’s cousin Kamesh, and his aunt, Shanta (they pronounce Shantey), whom we called Chikki, came visiting the Bhat family from Kumta in North Canara, also known as Uttara Kannada. When they spoke in their native tongue I would usually go quiet in the hope of acquiring their dialect for its nuances and tonality that was quite unlike the one I was accustomed to. In time I did manage to learn the Havyaka Kannada (spoken by Havyaka brahmins) dialect to a degree only to lose it in the years after we moved to another place. Moreover phones were uncommon in those days.

So when I heard Ramchandra Bhat speak the Havyaka dialect, it swiftly wound the years a long way back to my childhood, bridging decades and making me feel at home a long way from home.

The Sun is up in the sky, and steadily climbing. The breeze offsets any heat we might otherwise have felt. Sound of buses halting by the shops carries over to us. By now there’s a fair crowd about the place. Teachers struggle to maintain order among the schoolgirls as they break free in the shallow water, their hair tied in plaits with colourful ribbons.

Talking of his daughter he says, “Magalannu madhvey madi kottu aaythu (got our daughter married off).”

In India’s hinterland life as a brahmin priest is a difficult one economically. Where the son does not take after his father in priestly duties or if there’s no opening for one at the temple they leave the village for the city in search of a job. The Bhats belong to a brahmin sect called Havyaka brahmins, and speak a dialect of Kannada known as Havyaka Kannada or Havigannada, different in tone and usage from the Kannada of the brahmins to the north of Karnataka in the Deccan Plateau. The Havyaka brahmins are largely confined to Kumta, Sirsi, Honnavar, and Siddapur in the North Canara district, and also in the South Canara (Dakshin Kannada) district, bordered by the Arabian Sea to the West. Migration took the Havyaka brahmins to Coorg as well, though their numbers here are far fewer than that in North and South Canara districts. Moreover their dialect is known to differ from the Havyaka Kannada (Havigannada) to an extent, though not by much.

I ask him how many brahmin priests perform puja and kriya (rituals) for pilgrims offering prayers in memory of their departed ancestors. He says there are 5-6 brahmin priests like him who wait on the banks for the purpose and proceeds to point them out to me. One of them is on the opposite bank. Then he points further away along the bank at two other priests and says, “There, two more.”

Apparently two more priests haven’t come down to the confluence today. “There’re not many pilgrims today so they did not come,” he explains, shifting his weight to the other leg. “Sumne kala kallibaku (sometimes have to just while away time). I come and wait here,” he concludes, looking away. I sense a hint of despondency in his last statement, but the breeze catches it mid-air and whisks it away to the strains of the Cauvery Vandana.

Note: This is Part Three of my Coorg Diaries. Read Part One and Part Two posted earlier.

Motivation

‘Like I said, patience is the key. Now go, try again. And remember, no defeat is final until you stop trying.’

Note: At times there's no knowing the drama Bombay streets will unfold to unsuspecting travelers. On a late summer afternoon in Walkeshwar, 2005.

A Sunday Delivery

They stopped by a shopkeeper in the corridor and handed him a slip of paper containing an address, asking for directions to get there.

Someone was waiting home this Sunday for their new Sofa.