41 Days of Summer…

Author: | Category: Travel

… right in the middle of the worst winter in the last 20 years! That is a true luxury, especially for a person like me who starts shivering at the first hint of a cold breeze. Add to it awesome spicy food of a wide variety… that too, without a single day’s toil in the kitchen… Now you know why I am constantly smiling these days! 🙂
 
This was a work combined with vacation trip. The swanky new office in a brand new technopolis near HAL in Bangalore was very impressive with naturescapes and waterfalls all around. The moment I started snapping some pictures, one of the security personnel at the the entrance came running… “Ma’am, no photos please…” “Not even of the flowers in the garden?” “No Ma’am, all photography is prohibited”. I really laughed out loud… it was no use telling it to the security man, but I had to say it… “this is the number one news and photo agency in the whole world, and we ban photography on our own premises? Interesting!”
 

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Stolen photo of flowers 🙂

The whole trip has been a continuum of good food; some great, some really great. It is difficult to pick favourites from the lot, but standing out in my memory are the traditional thaali meal at Rajdhani, a taste of Goa at Fishermen’s Wharf, Manglorean food at Parika, Mediterranean at Byblos, Tex-Mex at Habanero, Mughlai at Umerkot…
 
Amazing among the places I managed to visit during this trip are Ranganthittu bird sanctuary, about 75 miles from Bangalore, and the fishing port at Beypore, Kerala. More about them later.
 

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Ancient tree by the roadside

And the drive through the Western Ghats (9 hairpin turns!) will never lose its charm. Though the waterfalls were not very active despite the bountiful monsoons, the view of the mist clad mountains and valleys was as enchanting as ever.
 
And yeah, I got to eat sweet jackfruit, one of my favourite fruits ever! Though it was early in the season, I found a fruit seller on the road side selling it, and grabbed some. Delicious!
 
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Sooo… tonight I get on the plane to go back home. The last punch of winter is waiting for me, I know. Remember, some of the heaviest winter storms in the past have been in March. It will be great to have a taste of true winter knowing that it won’t last too long and that spring is right around the corner. After all, how will we appreciate summer if there is no winter? 😉
 
Just remembered, daylight saving time will become effective the day I land at Newark Liberty! I can get acclimatised to the new time and get out of jet lag at one go! 🙂

~Ria

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06 Mar 2014

Old old times… a jackfruit tree

Author: | Category: General | Tags: ,

In the old old times, itinerant mattress makers used to travel from village to village offering their services. They will come to a village, camp on the outskirts, and go to the houses which had silk cotton trees growing in their compound. If the family wanted a mattress made, they will take the accumulated cotton pods, usually stored in huge gunny sacks, and make the mattress for them. They will extract the cotton from the pods, clean out the seeds and other impurities, beat it in the sun till fluffy, and stitch the mattress with a cloth cover. Often with a striped pattern. Have you ever slept on a freshly made cotton mattress? Lovely indeed!
 
So, just like that, one evening a group of three mattress makers came to this village too. They had to cross a river to get to the village. It was dusk by the time they arrived at the river. And lo and behold, the river was in spate. It was getting dark fast and they had to reach shelter before nightfall. Without many options, they decided to brave the fury of the river. After all, weren’t they all good swimmers?
 
Alas! As they got the towards the middle of the river, the swirls and eddies started pulling them down. However valiantly they fought, the men kept sinking towards the bottom of the river. And lost consciousness…
Till they woke up, lying on a lovely green meadow… alive with birdsong and a gentle breeze. Just like in a fairy tale. They looked at each other in amazement… is this a dream? Did they all die and get to some alien place? However the pangs of hunger scratching their stomachs assured them that they were very much alive. And they started looking around the deserted place.
 
Walking along, they saw a group of people far away, sitting around and eating something. As they got closer, they got the strong smell of ripe jackfruit. And there was enough water in their mouths to steer a boat…
 
The three men approached the group and asked them for some of the jackfruit. The group was reluctant to share any of it. But hunger prompted the mattress makers to keep begging, and finally the group’s leader spoke up, “This is a celestial variety of jackfruit, not seen on human earth. If we give you some, you have to promise not to take any of it with you.” The mattress makers willingly promised and were given some of the fruit.
 
When they tasted the fruit, there was no doubt about the veracity of the group leader’s statement. They had eaten many a jackfruit, but nothing anywhere near this. This was pure nectar, absolute ambrosia. And there rose in the mind of the youngest among them, the insatiable desire to take a seed of the jackfruit back home. How to manage that with so many eyes keeping watch? On the pretext of scratching himself, he turned around and managed to quickly secret a seed in his underwear. With beating heart, he finished eating his jackfruit.
 
Once all the jackfruit was eaten, the group leader collected all the seeds – except of course, the one secreted away by our man – and led the mattress makers away, to the side of a small stream. He told them to close their eyes and wade into the stream. They did so and when they opened their eyes, they were walking on to banks of the familiar river! There was no end to their joy when they realised that they were back on earth safe and sound.
 
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The jackfruit tree that grew out of that smuggled seed was a giant of a tree indeed! The fruits that it produced in abundance were so sweet and tasty that the tree’s fame spread throughout the region. Legend has it that when the ruler of the local kingdom was passing through the village, he sent one of his servants to fetch one of the famed jackfruits.
 
Eventually, my paternal great great grandfather bought the land on which stood the jackfruit tree. (I would like to believe that the presence of the tree had influenced his decision!) The jackfruit tree continues to thrive to this day with fruits hanging top to bottom during the early summer.
 
All of us children in the family have heard this story growing up. And I swear, I do believe each and every word of it too! 😉

~Ria

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03 Mar 2014

Chaos in the City

Author: | Category: Africa, Kampala, Uganda | Tags: , , , ,

It’s the end of the month and time for a guest post. (How time flies!) We have the honour to present Gaia’s first post.

~Admin

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It is six pm in Kampala and traffic flow is at its peak. Ten hours earlier, at eight am, the situation was the same. The slow movement of cars, mini-vans and even large trucks on the congested roads has become more than a slight irritation. As the long lines forming across the city become longer and longer, with what seem like each passing day, more and more are anguished by this sudden increase in the number of vehicles on the road.

 caosin the city 1

 
The major roads in Kampala were constructed in the 1980s and the population at the time was 480,000. There is still little difference in the roads and road networking but the population has increased by more than 300%. Almost 1.5 million people now reside in Kampala central, with many more commuting daily into the city from Greater Kampala. So is it any wonder that there is a traffic surge when the width and number of our roads have stayed the same?
 

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The despondent motorists sit, clutching the steering wheel and inhaling the thick black smoke that is spit out by the vehicles ahead of them and watch with more than a little envy as those on motorcycles (commonly known as boda bodas) whiz past with smug looks on their faces. Of course, these boda bodas must stop at the front of the line. They swarm around the first car, waiting for a gap in the traffic to zoom off to the front of the next queue of cars. Adding to this horde of people and metal are salesmen who take advantage of the standstill and try to sell various goods to the motorists.
 
During these peak times of traffic flow, some motorists seem to toss away the idea of civility and begin to behave in an almost belligerent manner. Creating three lanes, all going in the same direction, on a road that can capacitate only one lane in each direction would be a fine example of this. The major culprits of this crime are the matatu (a 14-seater van) drivers. One of the most upsetting things about this loutish behaviour is when an emergency vehicle, especially an ambulance, is unable to get through the masses of cars and simply has to wait like the others while the life of another person is in jeopardy.
 
Many new cars and motorcycles are registered everyday and if expansion of roads does not take place soon, could the traffic flow in Kampala come to a complete standstill? Perhaps the government will suggest implementing high tolls for motorists, but is this the right solution? A better way to approach it could be through improving the city’s public transport system or through expanding the roads. Making public transport safer would encourage more people to use the provided services and therefore reduce the number of vehicles on the road. Expansion would lead to smooth flow of traffic and reduce bottlenecks.
 

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It’s not all bad news though! The Uganda National Roads Authority is definitely on the right track to improving the situation. The expansion of the Northern Bypass in Kampala is one such example and there are many other projects in the pipeline for the UNRA: But for now: sit tight, put on that radio and imagine that the car horns bleeping around you are an accompaniment to the music!

~Gaia

 

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28 Feb 2014

The big banyan tree and silk worms

Author: | Category: General

So… so our quest to find the tribal settlement where they make their traditional jewelry ended without much success. And the time was only around noon. What now? Bala came up with a solution… let’s go take a look at Innovative Film City. And there we headed right away.
 
Innovative Film City is a combined movie shooting and entertainment facility. Located about 25 miles from Bangalore, it has a facade built up in the style of Roman monuments. Though the place boasts of many attractions, everything except for the Mirror Maze and Ripley’s Believe It or Not were total disappointments.
 
film-city
Now what? Time on our hands… And true to form Bala came up with the suggestion… Dodda Alada Mara! And we set out in that direction immediately.
 
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Dodda alada mara is a huge banyan tree, located in the town of Ramohalli, 17 miles from Bangalore. It is the fourth largest banyan tree in the whole of India.
 
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Banyan trees (scientific name: Ficus benghalensis) are a variety of fig trees that sprout aerial roots. When these roots touch the ground, they take on the role of supporting the tree and start growing in girth. Slowly, they begin to resemble a tree trunk and soon one will not be able to tell them apart from the main trunk. Thus the tree spreads across vast areas as if walking across the area.
 
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According to Wikipedia, the Ramohalli banyan covers an area of three acres and is 400 years old. It has more than a thousand aerial roots, with the circumference at the crown reaching close to a thousand feet.
 
By the way, banyan is the national tree of the Republic of India.
 
The tree is teeming with whole families of monkeys, always on the prowl for any food stuff that can be snatched from unwary hands. Curiously, they seem to have developed a taste for soda pop!
 
monkey

On the way back from the dodda alada mara, we saw an interesting sight. Huge frames made of bamboo and palm leaves are set on the sides of the road. The frames hold concentric circles with what looks like fluffy white oval shaped cotton balls in them. These are about an inch long and half as much wide.
 
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Looking closely, I realise that these cotton balls are cocoons of the silk worms.
 
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And sure enough, there are other frames nearby which have silk worms crawling along the circles on the frame.
 
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We tried speaking to the person tending to the frames, but he couldn’t understand English. Some others nearby came to our help. I was mainly curious about how the cocoons are processed further. However, we were told that they are not processed locally, but sold to silk makers by the weight in the nearby market.
 
What impressed me throughout this trip was how friendly people are. I am always wary of taking photos without asking permission first, but was so happy to see that people had no problems with being photographed. I still remember clearly the incident where one of my friends was yelled at by a homeless person near Columbus Circle over just the suspicion of a photograph being taken!
 

~Ria

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26 Feb 2014

In search of tribal treasure…

Author: | Category: Arts & Crafts, Humour, Travel | Tags: , , , , ,

The car flies along the Mysore road. My cousin Bala is driving and the roads are delightfully empty as it is a Sunday morning. We are headed for the Lambani tribal settlement on the outskirts on the city. This tribe makes beautiful metal jewelry and embroidered cloth with mirror work, well known for their excellent craftsmanship. We are hoping to see the making of the lovely artefacts and to buy some, if available.
 
The progress is not so fast though, as we have to stop frequently to ask for directions. Many of these stops turn out to be exercises in character assessment as it seems inconceivable that anyone would willingly say ‘I don’t know’ around here. So one has to gauge whether the directions given are anywhere near dependable, based on the person’s apparent confidence, his body language, whether he looks you straight in the eyes…
 
From the highway we turn onto a paved road; just barely paved. Soon the going gets worse as the paving disappears from under the wheels and the terrain gets increasingly tough. Soon the path becomes two ruts hardly visible among the high grass, climbing up and down hillocks. The vehicle is lurching from side to side, the bottom often touching the ground with scraping noises. I’m getting more and more uneasy, as I’m the instigator of the plan. The other occupants of the car – Min and Bala’s wife Su – have this scared look on their faces and are looking uneasily around.
 
Soon the trees on either side are brushing the car and we can hear scratchy scrapy noises. Any indication of a road or path is almost gone. There is all kinds of discussion in the car… what if we get stuck somewhere, how will we turn the car around, what if we are not welcome where we are going… Su and I try to dissuade Bala from going any further. And Min looks like she is ready to scream at the first indication of trouble.
 
But apparently Bala is looking for adventure. We have come this far; now we don’t want to turn back without seeing the village… the road is sure to get better further along, says Bala the eternal optimist.
 
All of a sudden, the car bursts out into a clearing. Far off across the flat ground we can see some kind of construction. Just as we start looking around from the now stopped car, there is this loud whoop and flurry of action. A bunch of men, all dressed in tribal finery and shaking huge spears, rush towards the car from across the clearing. The loud shouting and yelling fill the air, combined with the noise of their running feet. Bala makes a tight circle with the car and in the blinking of an eye, we are driving helter skelter out of that clearing. As the car turns, we catch a quick glimpse of a huge cauldron, steam rising out of it, set on three gigantic stones with a roaring fire under it, in a corner of the clearing. It is being stirred by a bunch of women who are standing on stilts so that they can see into the pot. That is all we see and that is enough to set us out of there at the speed of thought…
 
Aah… I guess my imagination ran away with me… The story up to the point where we burst into the clearing is all true. We find ourselves in a grove of young mango trees, with some construction happening at one end of the grove. We speak to the people there… yes, we are on the right track; the Lambanis live around the area. No, they do not carry on their traditional arts anymore, at least not around there. And at this time, mid-morning, most of them will be at their work places.

mangoes

Young mangoes – mouthwatering stuff!

So, a wild goose chase, but we thoroughly enjoyed it! 🙂 And the day provided many other enjoyments as well. On the way where we stopped for breakfast, we got to taste moode idli, a delicacy of the locale. Made of a mix of rice and lentils, it is steamed wrapped in pandanus leaves.

moode-idli

Moode Idli

Also, we stopped at Janapada Loka, a cultural center set up to nourish the arts and crafts of Karnataka. Founded in 1994, it is located on the Bangalore-Mysore Road on a 15-acre campus.

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Statues inside the gate of Janapada Loka

Artists in residence perform and conduct training in the traditional dance forms and music. Bangalore University has recognised Janapada Loka as a research centre.

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Dancers at the Janapada Loka

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The day we visited, there was a Yakshagana performance scheduled at Janapada Loka. But unfortunately, we couldn’t stay for that as we had to go see the Lambani settlement… 🙂

~Ria

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With sincere apologies to the Lambani people. The above story is no indication of the behaviour of the friendly and peaceful tribes; it only proves the influence of popular fiction on my imagination.

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24 Feb 2014