Sunday, May 7, 2017

Left or Right?

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
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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