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.