DIARY

Friday July 29th 2011 13:30 hrs Two workshops done. Absolutely joyous kids, full of energy. Got my adrenaline going. I was on my post-workshop high! I was packing up to leave for the day. Just as I was about to turn the lights off, I noticed a large-ish delegation of very small people making its way through the two slightly darkened ante-rooms leading up to the GeoVidyaa Geography Centre of Excellence in the back room. They seemed hesitant. I hailed them and said, “Come in, come in …” (I didn’t add, “Don’t feel shy!”) Delegation came in, came in. One…

As kids, we used to chant a popular ditty: Ganesha banda kaayi-kadubu tindaChik-kereyl bidda dodd-kereyl edda (Ganesha came, ate coconut modakaFell in the small lake, emerged from the big lake) Don’t ask.  But I’ll come to the point. And I do have one, believe it or not. In the 1960s, when we first moved to Jayanagara 6th block, there were two kereys (tanks). The small tank was to the west of Kanakapura Road and the large tank to the east. Unlike now, the tank bund part of Kanakapura Road was very narrow. If two lorries—usually rickety old Fords—had to pass…

Of whom are you? Who are you? Whence have you come?                                                                                                                 - Śamkara bhagavatpāda, “Moha-mudgarah” The roots of people are not always clear. Sometimes, it is quite all right for things to be that way. Nothing much is gained by knowing the facts as they seem…

My primary schooling was at Sri Kamala Nehru Makkala Mandira. The school was housed in old houses, some of them bungalows, others not, dotted about the Yediyur circle area and even in Tata Silk Farm. This was a lower-middle-class kind of school. However, that characterisation belies the nutrimentum spiritus (food for the soul) that was dispensed there. By luck or by design, the school had some amazing teachers. I certainly was lucky they were in my life. Classrooms were held in the patio (suitably partitioned with a plywood “wall”), in the bedrooms, under staircases, on balconies, in “servants’ quarters”.  In…

Saturday December 4th 1971. Morning classes had just begun. Schools had “morning class” on Saturdays – an awkward arrangement with classes starting at 7:30 or some such hour and ending around noon. The previous night, Friday December 3rd 1971, the nightly All India Radio (AIR) newscast had announced the outbreak of war between India and Pakistan. I missed that. Saturday morning, the newspapers carried tall big headlines announcing the events, with details. I merely glanced at these. The second period was Social Studies class by Sri B Narasanna (BN, as he was called at school). We pulled out our extremely…

Kathri. Scissors. That was the connection that first brought this man into my life. In my salad days, learning to ride a bicycle was not quite what it is today. One did not have access to bicycles to fit one’s age, no trainer wheels, no helmets, knee pads, nothing. One borrowed a bicycle from one’s siblings or other kinfolk. You started with simple strokes that were not written down in any DIY manual. It was community education. Peers, neighbor uncles, one’s own kin, or someone or the other would help you learn. You went out, took several spills, and got…

To be adopted by a canine! What a lovely thing it was. Many years after the hoity-toity Madame Pussaa had adopted us and departed from our lives (sad story, don’t want to go into it just now!), we were adopted by a canine from the street. There were always a group of them hanging around in the street – self-appointed sentinels who warned us that someone who was not familiar to them, was afoot on the streets. They would howl and bark. Among these was a female dog, un-named, who had a litter of four or five. One survived. Street…

We stood around quietly, my brother and me, as Amma and Maami negotiated with the guys in the shop. The shop had bales and bales of cotton strewn all over the 10ftx10ft area, and housed three or four guys, in various stages of labour. After much bargaining from our side and patronising from theirs, we took home a pillow. It was grey with golden-yellow lines crisscrossing each other at right angles and turning black where they met. That night, my brother and I fought for rights to use the new pillow. Mysore Bedding and Furnishing. Pic: Vaidya R The place, Mysore…

I come from a family that can only be described as bonkers. Come April, amma would ask (I wish I could capture the exact tone of the original Tamizh in English; alas, it’s not to be!), “All right. When does your drama start?” Fact was that come May, I would suddenly, without any preamble or warning, fall ill with high temperature – ague, the works. Standard Operating Procedures would kick in with clockwork precision. I would gather up all the blankets and rugs I could find, make a multi-layered protective covering with them, and go to bed, shivering. I would…

Do they not look delightful Perched upon the wire, Chatting together Against the sky? When I see the same birds Through the twisted wire Of bird-cages, penned up... I ask..why? (Picture of Munias in a bird cage from the FB page of Gopakumar Namboothiri, with his permission) Why can we not just admire? The flower set upon the bush Or smiling from its tree? Why do we need to cage and tie down beings That look so much better, when they are free? The first photo was taken on Bannerghatta Road, near the Police Station; the second in a house…