Geography

Back again.
The faces smile and wave
Acknowledge a friend
We're all sailors on this boat
Education,like it or not.

Different and yet
Familiar as home
The roads, that shop,
The juice bhaiyya,
The guy who tops up
My phone

The accent comes
Effortlessly
The intonations
The emphasis
The rolling of the "r"
Which is softly derided
At Home.

Distance is but a matter
Of miles-
But is geography
That bane of the Eight-grader
More than just a scaled map
Showing green nations
Divided
By thin strips of
Blue?

Or is it
An attitude.
Of now being
'Far away'?

Bus chronicles

Since,
a. I have a driver's license which I don' t use
b. Tuk-tuks drivers are exorbitant
I travel around Colombo during the day by bus, private not so private.
There are the the obvious disadvantages like men who are over-observant when it comes to any exposed female leg and smelly, sweaty armpits which have never know deodorant or hair-remover...but THEN there is also the fascinating cross-section of society which one gets to observe. Mu.ha.ha.
Like that day, I was in a 177 at the back where there was room. Next to me on the left was an enormous guy, asleep and softly snoring, no doubt dreaming of rice and his wife's yummy chicken curry, with his Nokia phone on his gently undulating, well-fed tummy.

On the RIGHT was this other large dude. The first thing that attracted my attention to him was the fact that this joker was in a green and white checked shirt and an orange cap. My fashion-conschious friend Ni would have died a slow. painful death.

Next to him, sort of enveloped by his girth was the Girlfriend, whose face I never got to see!
Checked-Shirt Guy had one of his arms entangled in both of hers and was breathing very heavily. I could swear I tried not to look, but then I'd lie!
The arm on my side was large and hairy and was often engaged in turning the girl's face towards him what was probably a very sloppy kiss, judging by the soubnds emenating from that quarter! These kisses were punctuated by about 5 minute breaks...and several heavy, sternorous breaths. And sweet murmurings of course!!

I just sat there next to them, smirking, knowing I'm a superior bitch but lovin' it anyway!

A dia from any other angle...

A Dia (lamp/pahana) from any other angle...

What can I say I love taking pictures of the changing moods of fire :)

Hostel might not allow us to light our fire crackers but at least the dias are pretty :) Shub Diwali!

In the wee hours of the night...

I'm more often than not playing Barn Buddy on FB, busily trying to harvest my plants before some thieving busy body steals my brinjals. This is what is occupying my time this study holiday/leave/break call it what you will. This AND FiryLand this totally rad application that allows me to grow my own garden in the fairy realm! The name of my garden is the Tipsy Toadstool (*much winking*) and the name of my Purple fairy-who incidentally is a naughty flutterer, dayem!-is Fancy.

Below is Gary the Psycho Snail, created while I should have been studying Language Development of the Neonate- a singularly boring bit in an otherwise veery interesting lesson. Added to the fact that I had to read a xeroxed note that looked like it had been through a World War for all the xeroxed scribblings and other nonsense on it, I was also having "issues". When issues occupy the mind...language development of my future children does not register and time is spent doodling Garys and thinking much, deep thoughts.

Gary the Psycho Snail!

Durga Puja-Bengali Style

Went for a Durga Puja today. The 10-day-long puja is part of the Dussera celebrations of the Bengali community. The whole festival culminates in the immersion of the statue of the Goddess Durga in water. The Bengalis apparently give more importance to Parvati-considered by some to be the Mother Goddess-as compared to the South Indian Tamils in whose festivals Parvati (and her other form Durga and Kali the Goddess of destruction) hardly feature. Durga is said to be the wife of Lord Shiva, and mother of Ganesha (The Remover of Obstacle and God of wisdom), Karthik, Lakshmi and Saraswathi .The family-tree of the Hindu Pantheon is complicating and varies a lot depending on who from WHERE is telling the tale. Various communities differ in the importance given to each God and Goddess.

This Durga Puja in Bangalore was organized by the Bengal Association here. Almost 4-5 lakh Bengalis live in Bangalore which is a startlingly large number for me the small-islander! Ha ha J The vast ground near Ul-Soor lake where the puja is held is full of non-Kannadiga-looking, fair, aquiline-nose people speaking with a lot of o’s and sho’s in their speech in an accent I personally find rather cute.

The main marquee has a big stage set up at the front where the 5 statues of Durga and her children set in a Gold painted frame worked with frieze-like designs. The statues are made of mud from the banks of the Ganga delta…now that is a lot of mud. HOWEVER as D points out, it goes back to where it came through the immersion of the statue in the lake J Smart hai na?

Durga herself is a slightly scary lady with kohl-ed eyes and ten hands holding a number of frightening and unfeminine things like for instance, a spear. She sits atop a lion-her vehicle-and is trampling a hideous, green, grimacing demon. Ganesha her son-supposedly created from the saffron off her own body-is a pink-bellied, elephant-headed God with the rat as his vehicle. Lakshmi is smaller version of Durga with a decidedly Hedwig-esque owl as her transport while Saraswati keeping in tune (haha!) with being the Goddess of Music has a sitar in her hands and a delicate swan at her feet. Karthik’s aight.

We have yummy Bengali food in the lunch tent-kichri, which is a mixture of rice, dhal and spices like Jheera, an Aloo and Gourd curry and a pineapple “chutney” which is such that if I was at home I would have had it for dessert with cream ;) We have rasgollah, a white version of the Gulab Jamun for dessert (which is OF COURSE put right into the plate with the other food) but I still hold out that Gulab Jamuns are the yummiest sweets in India.

The rest of the stalls house everything from books to a Rajasthani home-made pickle stall with MANGOE pickle etc. Yummy stuff which they let us taste with small, wooden spoons. I go all tourist and take a million picture, which calls for hastily-covered snickering by my so-called friends!

The event is quite obviously thee place for the Bengali youth in Bangi to ahem “socialise” and generally check out the market for prospectives. We give a coochy’ing couple their privacy and sit down in the main tent to gossip and exchange myths.

Rosh is a Tamillian and D a Bong (As the Bengalis are called). They have different versions on seemingly every myth. We talk about the hilly regions of Uttaranchal, the pollution that’s set into the picturesque tourist town of Darjeeling and taking cold-water baths from the Ganges at some unearthly damn hour in the morning. It just makes me want to visit these places so badly.

I love my little country with it’s 20 million nut jobs and I know I haven’t seen half of what Sri Lanka offers to the anyone who bothers to look but here, in India, away from stupid restrictions like transport and friends who think where you’re going is duh or people worrying about their other holidays, I seem to have more scope to travel wherever I want to go. And the choices are literally endless.

We then decide to have paan. Paan is basically betel leaf wrapped around well a lot of things including a lot of sweet stuff. That might not be too clear a description I’m afraid. I’ve had it once and although it was an interesting experience it tasted decidedly leafy. This time my God. Yummy. The minute you crung down on the bright green outer covering an explosion of tastes just bursts in your mouth-leaf, sugar, bitter, sour. Paan uncle is thrilled when I ask him if I can take a few pictures of him and the stall. This is the perfect ending to a great afternoon. Chewing on the paan is a companionable, friendly business which leaves more than just the after-taste of betel leaf and sugar on your tongue. Three buddies eating their paan has a simple, almost village-esque feeling to it.

We take off. This has been fun :)

Things are better at home

it;s raining outside..started quite randomly I have to say as it always does in Bangalore...you never know when the damn skies are going to open and out forth their showers of blessings. As an added blessing of sorts, the lights went off and I'm currently typing by the mellow light cast by my lap monitor and blind (ha ha!) faith.
I THINK I want to eat something but I don't feel like hogging so yeah.
Sometimes I wish I was at home. If I was at home, I wouldn't have to figure out a way to maneuver my torch and my toothbrush together at the same time to brush my teeth. And, if I was at HOME, my father would fix the light. AND if I was at home I would crib about how hot it was under my mosquito net, but I would wear my raggiest night-wear and go lie like the dead on my parents' bed, in their room where the windows would be open and the cold wind which comes with the rain would blow in to the darkened room. And malli and nangi would come and lay likewise and there would be screams as one abused the other. And there would be mundane gossiping about random people we know.
If I was at home, I'd still be thinking about the things I think about against my will, but somehow things might be better, because although you don't realize when you ARE home, things-even random rains and power failiures-are most often better when you're home.
Now that was a bit of a homesick rant.

Arre! lights came!

Kannada Gothilla

Something I posted on the ILP blog-



Going in with the enthusiasm of a new-comer to volunteer at the Community Library, the importance of a common language as a starting point didn’t strike me. My last session at the library started off ordinarily enough with two little girls coming and sitting next to me for a story-reading session. Both in 8th standard-but like most of the children there, very small for their age- M was quite the outgoing one and read the story in stumbling phrases but with reasonably good pronunciation. S on the other hand with her retreating smile, shied away every time I asked her something-including her name!-with a “Miss English goththilla”. Helplessly I would say “Kannada goththila”, my usual ticket to eliciting at least an attempt at English, but to no avail.
However, one thing I really love about the library is how a story or an activity can spark the interest of the most recalcitrant child. Soon, S was vying with her friend to read and there was a general battle….but the thing is that even though she read the story, most of the words were empty expressions followed by colourful pictures to her. Also, even after reading almost three stories, she wouldn’t speak in English to me.
There are some words you can explain with gestures and picture but even so there would be a constant poking in M’s ribs after I explained something, and S would ask in muttered Kannada what so and so was. Without even the advantage of basic Tamil, you feel helpless sometimes because the kids DO want to learn, they want to do rhyming words (Sometimes with disastrous results-“Why can’t hill rhyme with smell, they have the same ending letter?”!), they want to be given dictation and they really want to be part of everything.
The same happens even to people who can in some way communicate with a close-enough language- Rosh who speaks Tamil was wracking her brains trying to think how you explain why the past tense of “go” becomes “went” and why “he comes” is the present of “he came”.
The system is doing and awfully shoddy job is the children in Public Schools are taught to read but not to understand what they’re reading out, because in that case the whole joy of learning a language is lost. Idealistic joys of language aside, it is of minimum practical use as well.
On a happier note, thanks to this little handicap I’ve started picking up little bits of Kannada, although I have to say that when I explain a tree to be a “mara”, and then say a wood is “place with a lot of maras”, I can’t help but join them in the giggling!