A day at work

A day back, I was visiting Sondekoppa, a small town on the outskirts of Bangalore. As I went through the small bylanes in one of the villages, I felt like moving away from the big city that Bangalore was and coming to live in one of these small, quaint places. It is another matter that Sondekoppa natives must be dying to come and live in the comforts of Bangalore! The villages had neat lanes and small but comfortable houses. This just reminded me; in Chitradurga, the houses had a kind of foyer at its entry where fresh grain was stored; then only you entered into the living room.

I went to the high school in Sondekoppa. Unlike Bangalore schools, it had a huge play ground . Near the gate, I was taken aback to see bicycles parked, around 60-70 of them, that too the big ones. I was surprised because of late, I have seen students coming to school on the big cycles only in movies. I am not sure you can see it in Kerala, certainly not the big cycles. There everyone have moved on to Atlas cycles and BSAs and other geared ones.

Then I saw the primary school. We reached there just as the school was closing for the day. The tiny tots were rushing out in their dark blue-light blue shirts, trousers and pinafores. There was this BMTC bus waiting in front of the school gate. Once all the teachers and some of the students got in, it got going to Bangalore. Minutes later when I turned to look, the school gate was closed and locked and there was a stillness as if no one had ever been there at all.

For the first time in my life, I saw a live IEC talk for the community. The public health nurses could easily assemble 20-30 women from the villages they went to. I dint know it could be so easily done. In one place, there was this small community hall. Initially there were just around 10 women. Later the numbers started swelling and there were 50-60 women in a matter of minutes. It felt great to see the eagerness with which they were listening to the health talks by the nurses; the vigorous shaking of their heads, their shy smiles and knowing laughs, the screamings of their little kids who got bored with the proceedings. A green salad of bean sprouts with salt was passed around to all and the kids where happily munching on it along with the arrowroot biscuits. Much to my dismay, I found that my new mobile did not have a camera and I sorely missed recording all the fun for posterity.

Chitradurga fort

As part of our evaluation programme, our team was in Chitradurga. I was truly amazed at the roads which took us to Durga; such smooth wide corridors free of vehicles that vehicles can practically fly on the roads. The toll charges too are as impressive as the roads! Close to the city, we saw giant wind mills in all the surrounding hill tops and they seemed to form a ring around the city, like huge watch towers.The barren plains suddenly burst into greenery and people once we entered the town. The avenues were lined by trees like back in Bangalore. The urban dweller that I am, I felt re-assured once I saw a couple of shops of Lee, Wrangler etc.

On a free day, we visited the Chitradurga Fort. I thanked all the stars the moment my taxi stopped in front of the fort gates. A moment more and I would have thrown up from motion sickness. I couldn't enjoy it as much as I would have wanted because of the stupid Chemoreceptor trigger zone in my medulla doing things to my GI tract. Once that cleared up, the rain started and I was watching my feet so as not to slip up on the smooth slate stones lining the walkway.

 Now coming back to the Fort, the name of the fort was actually Chitra-kal-durga which roughly translates as "Picture-Stone-Fort". This came about because some of the boulders around the fort apparently resemble a rabbit or a human face or a prostrate elephant if you look at them. What most impressed me about the fort is its architecture. It has seven turns and seven gates and so it is also known as  ' Yelu suttina kote' or seven-circles-fort. The winding nature of the fort walls and its 7 curves makes it an impregnable fort, impossible to capture. There are many temples and water tanks inside it.The living quarters where made in mud and has disappeared in the monsoon rains over the centuries. Another interesting thing was the way cuts where made into huge boulders in the fort by masons. Apparently they would create small wedges with chisels. The rain water would seep in and the hard granite rock would easily be chiselled away in sheets along the cuts made previously. Truly 'Cutting edge technology'.




That's one of the turns of the fort.





A step well inside the fort

CVs, resumes,...

In the process of writing a new covering letter and updating my CV all over again, suddenly I was struck by the weariness of it all. Initially it was interesting to keep count of how many jobs I had applied to....it kept on growing 1,2,3,.....6,7,... At last count it was around 15 to 16. And I don't even remember when it was! Now I have lost count and have wearied of it all, probably its around 20- 25.

That's the advantage when you have a government job, don't have to search for a new one every few months or years. But won't it get boring after a few years? Monotony will set in but you can't afford to lose the job for the sake of your family.


Earlier I had read, one should enjoy the job, love your job, do what you love so that it is not 'work'. But finally when I found a job that I love, suddenly I find that I enjoy the holidays, I savour the double weekends. So I guess a job is a job after all, not something you want to do in your chill out time. May be even music composers who love to make music might be doing something else in their chill out time!!

Monsoons in Kerala

Looking out at the rain from the balcony, I was wondering how people carry on with their lives in the rain season over her... Here I am, sitting cooped up in the cozy confines of my apartment on a lazy sunday morning. I  tell myself I am not going anywhere till the sun comes out. I again remind myself that it might take another 2 months for that to happen.... I cannot remain cooped up all that while. So life must go on despite the downpour, the drizzle, the thunder and lightning. And it does go on as usual. Its life as usual for the people with a minor difference; you just have to keep an umbrella ready with you  at all times. When in Bangalore, sometimes it used to rain all of a sudden and I would be the only person in the whole town with an umbrella ready. The Kerala climate had taught me to keep an umbrella ready, come rain or shine. I would always have it in my bag. Bangaloreans consider it a kind of blasphemy to carry an umbrella with you. If it rains, they just walk off the rain or take shelter under the next shop till the rain peters out. But in Kerala, rains are of a different kind.... It can go on pouring for the whole day with waxing and waning in between but never stopping, you must be a fool to go out without an umbrella!

Rain is such an integral part of Kerala life that we have poetry, films, songs, dramas, stories and what not based on the rain. In my small memory itself, I can recollect 2 recent movies with the mallu name for rain "mazha" in it. There are numerous film songs based on the varied moods of the rain. Our movies are replete with rain set pieces. Romances bud out in the rain (remember the 'rain dances'), tragedies meet with a grizzly end (bleeding to death in the rain at the hands of the villain), new life begins (impoverished other giving birth on the road in the pouring rain on a pitch dark night). Even a male and female sharing an umbrella is of much consequence!! Now I even remember one old TV serial called "Oru kudayum, kunju pengalum " (One umbrella and my little sister!!)

Now I remember  walking to the school wading through knee deep water in torrential rain one day. What happened was that the temple pond which is midway on the way to school overflowed due to incessant rains in the previous night. The water from the pond had no where to go and it simply overflowed on to the road. All the people had to wade though it with their saris and pants pulled up to their knees that day....

Now where to?

Day 1 of practicals over... I had a case in the slum with a muslim family, who spoke Urdu, hindi and a smattering of tamil..in the end we all communicated in Kannada and sign language. The old lady almost got on my nerves. If I ask her how many times she has gone for HTn follow up, she will say she she has knee and shoulder joint pain... There was this 3-4 year old child next door, she shit within an arm's length of where I was sitting. When she was finished, she got up and was observing her shit with amazement while a bunch of houseflies settled on it. Finally her mother came out and removed it with a plastic cover and to my amazement, just threw it in the street, right in front of the house. That was it, all neat and clean, finished.

On the way back i was wondering if this is the end of my tryst with Kannada? What next, Bhojpuri in Bihar?? After all, that's the in-thing, with our FM Chidambaram flooring the Parliament with a statement in Bhojpuri...

Sharing and caring

Two scenes from today's travel:

I was waiting for a connection bus at one of the so called 'circles' in Bangalore (they simply call a junction as circle, there is actually no circle!). Waiting in the shade of a sprawling tree (that's a lie to make me feel better...the sun was blazing hot), a family of 5 suddenly materialised next to me - father, mother, 3 children-all boys. They immedietly proceeded to make themselves comfortable on the concrete ring at the base of the tree. Suddenly the father shot off to the 'circle' where there were many small- small shops. Seeing his hurry, I thought he was going to get a cigarette. When he came back, he had a small packet wrapped in paper in his hands. The whole remaining team looked at it with interest. He untied it, took out what seemed to me like 5 Maddur Vades, handed one to the eldest boy 1st, then the other boys, next to his wife, finally took one for himself and they all proceeded to munch on it sitting there waiting for the bus. I must admit that I started getting slightly hungry after surveying the whole scene and quickly turned my gaze away.

Then right behind me was a group of women and children, squatting on the pavement and eating and shouting and talking and berating the children, all at the same time. They were eating from parcels of rice, spread open on the ground. Seeing the way they were dressed, they looked like the women and children who beg at traffic signals. Seeing one of the children, suddenly I thought the little boy was blind in one eye. I had a longer look and it seemed that the eye was reddish and had discharge and was appearing small, probably conjunctivitis. I was thinking why they are not taking the boy to a doctor. The little fellow himself seemed little concerned about it and was happily eating and playing around.I imagined myself going up to the boy, getting a closer look and advising the mother to consult a doctor...then I thought of the choicest expletives that would commence from her pan chewed-red-lips and suddenly deleted my imagination.

Crazy times

So, finished phase- I, theory over. I should say I had a blast with the last paper. Wrote the craziest thing ever.. the question was Euthanasia. I displayed my knowledge of the plight of Aruna Shaunbag in the paper. Hoping the evaluators atleast know about her and don't consider it a piece of my own fiction.

Thinking back, the last 2 weeks were some crazy times. We packed, moved unpacked, survived on hotel food, packed up for R's trip again and I wrote 4 exams in the middle of it all.


100 year old photos of India... my curiosity was mildly piqued, so I took a peek. But what to do, no body knows who took the pics or who or what is there in the photos. A couple of things struck me, well , kind of stupid things, but all the same ... You cannot see any one wearing pants in the pics, save the Britishers. Secondly, all Indian men in the pics look thin, not a pound of extra fat on them. Then, the skirts of the white ladies look funny... actually it reminded me of the school uniforms of Holy family and Sacred hearts schools, of billowing, blue. full length skirts. And yes, Indian women are conspicuant by their absence in public spaces.

The happy find of the day:
A cone ice cream for just 13 Rs? "Unbelievable", was my first reaction. But that'sthe all the money me and amma had to pay for a scoop from a hole- in- the- wall shop here.