Tag Archives: Kabbalamma

And So, Uranus

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And so, Uranus, here we are at that golden shresht birthday hubb . I got there a few months earlier, but you knew I’d wait there at the corner till you caught up, didn’t you? I have with me every little gem that we made together, and  I’m sure you do too.  You started out all those years ago as the shorty sitting in the first row in the class photo, while I beamed sheepishly standing three rows behind. Niether of us noticed , when you grew those inches and when I stopped,  what with my drawing a tray with two doodh pedhas and two tumblers of water on the margins of my rough notebook, pokerfaced, while you cracked up in Silvie’s class  and ended up being asked to “get out of the class” for your troubles.

And how clever of you, to improvize, and inflict on Ms Jayashree the little essay in Hindi, about  Deepavali ek shresht hubb hai. Kyonki hum nayi kapde pehente hai.  And further,  hum nayi kapde pehente hai kyonki Deepavali ek shresht hubb hai. Sigh, that must be the first of our gems,  though I can scarcely remember  when we got started.

Soon , though, we had everyone thinking we were twins, and we still do that even now, like when I walk into Arushi, looking at all the magic that you are making, and  the nice lady draped in one of your designer sarees widens her eyes on seeing me, and asks, “your sister?”

Do you remember that time a year ago  at  Jeanne’s the girl giving you a pedicure asked us that question,  and you , put on my poker face, and replied, “we’re twins”?  And we are, too.  Mostly I’m the quiet poet, and you are the charming friend magnet. Everyone wants you for a friend. And many must wonder why you have me for a friend.

But I wonder how we can be anything else.  You and I, we both  know there can be no better best friends than us. We have our gam-gala,  and  Iskanta and Ammallidoddi and a thousand things in-between  to prove that. I have that mad urge to pause  at the french door of that restaurant here in Herndon, and laugh like the grannies of Onida  KY Thunder Series ad, rolling on the ground, thinking about a flag-march in a Jaipur Hotel that never happened.

I am sorry I have killed your love for “aye mere watan you ki logon” by saying  Nehru wept because he wanted her to stop singing. But, as your best friend, your honorary twin, I knew it had to be done.   Call it my revenge for shooting up and growing taller than me, if you like.

Can you think of anyone else you’d rather be with when the little Road Runner surpasses your expectations in her 12th standard results, and calm her down, soothe her,and tell her you’ll be along home immediately, hang up, and  laugh, rather diabolically for a mother? Are  we not the cool mother-aunt duo who do cool things and  the cool things are cool because we do them?

Oh, I’ve loved our trips to Okalipuram, and can still laugh at the day when it rained on us, sitting in the back seat of the beat-up Fiat, while it respectfully bowed as it passed Basha from his window!  And coming upon good old Ammallidoddi on our visit to Kabbalamma.  Very naughty of you though to call out loudly to Raja and tell him, brightly, that I  remembered your dad’s name for him. Kari Dore  is not offended, I know, but still………….!

But it’s been a privilege to watch you grow from the lady who gave motifs and patti and talked  to picky custombers politely, through clenched teeth,   to the designer in demand that you are today. I have tormented you by playing it back to you after they left, but  I simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity. I haven’t yet actually heard anyone say “Nee daggara Arushi cheera leda?” but I know what I’ll say when I do.

Through school and college, you were the smart,  cool lady I wanted to be. and then I saw how you were with little Jenu, the joy that you brought to being her mother, and the fierce love that drives you defend loyally everyone you hold dear, when you have to. That , I know includes me.  and knowing that, I certainly don’t wish to on the other side, at the receiving end of the fireworks!

So, today, on this milestone huttid hubb, let me say, how grateful I am that we are in each other’s life,  how rich I know myself to be.

Gulab jamuns shall be made today. Tale tale mein gol gol, you know, and  eaten to mark the occasion, the next best thing to being there with you, and falling off the chair, laughing about nothing , and everything!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ceramic Bus From Ammallidoddi

Most of the time I am a proud and possessive Bangalorean, but sometimes I wished I had a “native village”  to “hail from” like most of my best friends , where they were taken by their parents, and the father officiated at the annual temple festival, and the villagers treated them like royalty, and  everyone was invited to the feast. It must have been like the boar-eating banquet that always marks the end of an Asterix-Obelix adventure, Cacophonix included.

My best friend, Ani hails from Ammallidoddi. As you head Mysore-wards, you need to take a left somewhere in the vicinity of Channapatna, , and follow the signposts to reach it.  The same road  leads to  Kabbalamma  temple, the holy place for those who have bought  a new set of wheels, especially newly minted autorickshaws that have made this devi  a cult on the mean streets of  Bangalore.

She is nothing to do with the Kabbalah cult that has ardent followers in celebrities like Madonna, Britney Spears, Jeff Goldblum, Ashton Kutcher, Guy Ritchie, David and Victoria Beckham, and Elizabeth Taylor. Kabbalamma has an awesome mystic mesmerism of her own, as  I discovered when  Ani and I went , driven by Basha ,  to bribe her, that she may forever protect Ani’s brand new Santro from accidents and ward off   the evil eye of  ill-intentioned people.

Now, Ani’s  sense of direction is legendary  for being non-existent, and she clearly doesn’t come GPS-embedded. Basha who once nursed a grand delusion that a great career as a genius car mechanic awaited him in the near future,  has stopped using his GPS ever since I bragged about my own keen sense of direction-  I may not know the right way, but I am always the first to discover that we are lost, and also find ways to un-lose us.

Ani-mated conversation between best friends in the rear led to everyone not paying attention to the scenery ambling past ( the road was bad, and we couldn’t whizz) and so it took us a while to realise that  while we went to Kabbalamma’s via the Kanakapura Road, and  the return journey took us in a different direction.

When I suddenly spotted the signpost which  said Ammallidoddi  we  realised we were going where we have not gone before. Dear old Ani, for whom this wasn’t the first visit to Kabbalamma, is blessedly never disoriented,  thanks to the non-existent sense of direction, was however, puzzled, flummoxed, befuddled . Flashbacks from Ammalli had never impinged on her trips to Kabbalamma before this. Was Kabbalamma trying to convey something here?

We decided to press on, and followed in the wake of the dust raised by a bus that was tilting dangerously to the left ,  resembling  a giant  centipede with some broken limbs   thanks to the dozens of arms and legs swinging out form the windows and the doors.  The centipede, though agonised by multiple fractures on multiple limbs, obviously had been here, done this, ad nauseum- it was just doing its day job.

I quickly deduced that we were going to emerge on Mysore Road.  Basha  grinned triumphantly as if he had engineered this course correction single-handedly, while Ani still bemused, began babbling about the familiar landmarks that  suddenly began to blast in (or is it out?) from the past.

Ammalli has become my vicarious  native village,  I  know enough about its denizens to pass off as a genuine Ammallian. I  feel an inexplicable ownership towards one  particular denizen, whom I have never seen.

Iskanta is part of the Ammallidoddi  fable that we constructed around a single episode which  defines Ani’s tenuous bond with her native village. On one of the family’s mandatory visits to Ammalli,  Iskanta,  emboldened by the fact that he was safe  inside his  home, put his pugnacious nose to the tiny window, and shouted rather rudely as Ani and her sister Mangala walked past.

It was unadulterated country-bumpkin-takes-revenge-on city-slicker- cousins.  And it was priceless.”Anita…. Pinita………..poo!! (the last was said in Kannada, and I’d rather not soil this blog with earthy outpourings, and as long as the meaning is conveyed………..)  assaulted their ears like the sharp, defiant  report of an autorickshaw backfiring without any provocation at all.

Ani and Sis were livid. With little to do until it was time to go home, the sisters spent the next three hours working out  a plan for an   apt comeback.. On their way back , they were pleased to see their unsuspecting prey  sitting on the jagli of his house, but  he scurried back inside on sighting them. His truculent  face reappeared at the window, and obviously having expended all his creativity three hours ago,  merely repeated the same battle cry.

As the two girls came abreast of the window, they chorused: Iskanta kantad meley …………!!! (Translated– something-something……… on Iskanta’s  neck)  and marched on, and soon were in splits, laughing till tears rolled down their eyes, stopping only when Father roundly scolded them.

We have replayed this one scores of times, and   “sitting on Iskanta’s neck”  has  long been a part of the Best Friends’ Lexicon.  Iskanta no longer lives in Ammalli, and not even Ani’s cousin Raja knows  what became of him. So, one lazy langorous afternoon, we created a fable around the further adventures of Iskanta.

Since we associate him  with  the Ceramic Bus (thanks Antony Bourdain)  we have  given Iskanta  an outstanding career in the manufacture of custom-made designer ceramic buses.

Oh! and he now calls himself Iskant Amali, and probably has a show of his own on Travel & Living. If  Iskant Amali turns up on Facebook, I deny everything, on account of any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely  coincidental and unintentional.

Also I am keeping my fingers crossed, and since I am not in the country anymore, I urge Ani to talk Basha into making another trip to Kabbalamma, and enlist her help in warding off  the evil eye that Iskant Amali could cast this way.

On the  other hand,  he may not turn up at all- who wants respond when the  REAL author of Anita……..Pinita…… is asked to stand up?

Kabbalamma’s restraining orders on Iskanta will keep, for now.