Homeward Bound
Just last Sunday, the last Sunday of
April, 2017, I had gone to attend the marriage function of my daughters’ very
dear friend. My daughters had reached the day before and I was motoring down alone,
my wife having stayed back to be with my mother.
To reach the venue, I had to travel
South from home for about 35 km and then turn West off the highway and roll on
for another 3-4 km on a narrow winding road past a ‘bhileez’. Halfway down the
highway, my car’s AC decided the heat was too much wanted to take the other
way. So it went out. I had to vent out the heat through the windows.
Fortunately, it being its own day, the sun had likely woken up late and was
only beginning to warm up so it was manageable.
My short journey was without incident
and I reached just in time for the ‘muhurtham’.
The hall was imaginatively designed. There was a central square where the
marriage ceremony was conducted. This was surrounded by a tiny moat. On the
outer periphery, there was a gallery setting where all the guests sat. Very nicely
decorated with flowers and all. I sat in a corner near a huge pedestal fan which
was blowing air laden with rose-scented water into my face. I felt like a rose
garden. So much so that someone came up to me and asked me “Aap Gulabi ke fother hain?” I rose from there and took another
seat. Wah!
Lunch was a quiet affair without much
‘halla-gulla’. There was a tasty pilaf followed by a superb rasam to go with the plain rice. And there was a sweet dish called "pheni"
but no rossogulla. Having filled
myself right up to the Plimsoll line, I lolled around for some time but forbore
to take a nap. The heat, the good lunch courteously served and the absence of a
nap all contrived to get me into a half-stupor as I took my leave.
When you get into any kind of a
stupor, don’t drive ‘tod upor’. I
checked the car AC. It was snoring gently so I decided not to risk any confrontation
by waking it up. I rolled the windows down to “hawa aane de” mode. As I drove out of the gate, the heat was
beating down and the road appeared to be ululating in front of me. No, not
ululating. Pulsating. Doing a jig. I was seeing mirages. The result was that I
took a different route out of the village from the one I had used to get in,
and got confused not a bit. It would be wrong to say I was lost but maybe I was
just a little disoriented. The compass in my head had stopped working. My
mobile signal and GPS too appeared to have stepped out for a breather.
I neared what looked like the main
road and stopped beside a couple of misguided pimples sitting by the roadside,
apparently passing the time of the day, to clarify my doubt whether to turn
right or left for Bangalore. Of course, I didn’t know they were misguided or
pimples but they had “no good” written all over them. But there were no other
excrescences around and these were the only blots I could ask, so I asked them.
And I was told to turn right. Something about the tone of the voice put me on
alert. It sounded like it was waiting to laugh. The boil who told me to turn
right might have slapped the back of his jobless sidekick in glee, but I didn’t
see it as I was occupied looking at the road ahead. I did hear a kind of
slapping sound, though.
This advice to go right didn’t sound
right and I decided to seek a second opinion. I first shook my head three times
vigorously, mentally poked my brain awake with the nib of my fountain pen
filled with a compassionate violet ink and washed it (the brain, not the nib or
the ink or the pen) with cold water. Then, I drove a little further and,
slowing down near an old man, put my head out and shouted the question to him,
“Bengaluru lefta, righta?” He leaned towards me as far as his neck would allow
and told me in an equally loud voice, “Bengaluru leftu!” For good measure, he gesticulated
towards the left with his left hand. Two other chaps standing near him nodded
to their left in affirmation. I nodded back courteously in appreciation of the
sincerity in the voice and the vigorous gesticulations, put my head back in and
turned left as advised.
Just then the GPS sauntered back to
my mobile holding the signal's hand and told me that left was right and right was wrong.
I wanted to go back and shake the old man by his hand and the misguided young
rascal by his neck, but calmer sense prevailed and I continued homeward without
further let or hindrance. Quite an eventful Sunday it turned out to be.
GLOSSARY:
Bhileez > village
Bhileez > village
Muhurtham > the auspicious time to perform any important
function, like a marriage
Aap Gulabi ke fother hain? > Are you Gulabi’s father?
Halla-gulla > a colloquial term for commotion
Rasam > a kind of a South Indian soup with tamarind juice,
tomato, lentils and salt, seasoned with spices
like chilly, pepper, cumin, mustard, etc, and garnished with curry and
coriander leaves.
Pheni > a kind of stringy thin rice noodles over which
sweetened milk, flavoured with saffron, almonds and cardamom, etc. is poured
before it is eaten
Tod upor > a Bengali term meaning “on top of it” or
“afterward”
Rossogulla > a highly popular sweet believed to have
originated in Bengal and Odisha (there are claims from both regions), made from
Indian cottage cheese shaped into round dumplings and soaked in sugar syrup
Hawa aane de > a Hindi term meaning “let the air pass”
© Shiva Kumar, 4th May
2017
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