Vizag Snippets 4

On the morning of Saturday, the 27 th, we ..(husband, Hyma and Bavagaru)....drove to Devipuram......Nearly 30 to 35 Km from Vizag, on the Anakapalli route....After going through some of the unending suburban localities, the road finally cut away from the main route and ofcource all along the country side was utterly delightful, ....Soon after 15 to 20 minutes of driving on a narrow, dusty, deserted road brought us to a sign- Board which announced DEVIPURAM.....You have to turn right and go through a very thick, silent cashew-nut grove before stopping at the temple..(ashram?) gates.....

A clearing has been made in the middle of a dense cashew-nut grove that was hemmed in by lush green hills, and a neat,lotus shaped, three storied temple stood there....The top most stairs houses the goddess SAHASRAKSHI,--the main deity---and was fashioned like a MERU .....To the onlookers from a distance, it would look like the crowned head of a DEVI....At the ground level, there is another sanctum and an image of the deity directly under the main sanctum upstairs and also receives poojas .... The temple is surrounded by three virtual circles, adorned at specific points by the images of !108 goddesses of the KHDGAMALA STHOTHRAM......Sadly i do not know much about the sthothram......I think the idea is that 108 goddesses surround and stand guard over the Ammavaru....or ...Sri chakram... or may be MANIDWEEPAM...the supposed abode of the DEVI......The names of all the goddesses are written on placards before every one of them, giving us an idea of who they are.....SMRITHYAKARSHINI,...SABDAAKARSHINI<... GANDHAKARSHINI...etc.....
As far as i know.....SRICHAKRAM is an euphemism for our body and the above goddesses are the powers,...or capabilities,...or ...the life forces it possesses....



As the names themselves suggest....Gandhakarshini------attractor of scents

sabdakarshini------attractor of sounds


There are many others and ofcource, as said before i was handicapped by my ignorance of the sthothram to sufficiently understand the intricacies of the temple science....I realized the fact there it self and rued the lack of time we had, even to make to an attempt at it...

The temple has been built by the efforts of one Sri.Dr. Nishtala Prahlada Sasthry garu,---previously a scientist with BA RC, it seems he took a voluntary retirement from it---, who kept having the visions of Devi.....It has been stated that she appeared before him, conversed, and ran after him like a young girl....calling him NANNAGARUUU...-dad-...All the 108 images of the goddesses were stated to have been sculpted just as he had seen them in his vision....



Interestingly, what makes this temple unique is the reported statement of Sasthry garu, that the place is a KAMAKHYA PEETHAM....He insists that the Devi her self informed him of the fact....That meant that,here at Devipuram, the goddess is not just a mother figure nor the queen of creation,but also is in her most feminine form of a fertile, young wife of the Eeswar....Nubile, erotic, and eager, here, she is determined to continue her infinite union with her lord and teaches us to notice and respect the fact....In fact all the images are that of a scantily clad young woman, ,....but notably with appropriate MUDRAS....And...the big board at the precincts of the temple advises the visitors to appreciate the fact that this universe has been created out of the grand union of Siva- Parvathi, and one should not be ashamed or feel prudish about it but must learn to view it as unenbarassedly as we worship a siva-lingam.....Sceptics might take this otherwise....Certainly it would be embarrassing for an Indian woman to watch the images in company of strange men....(On second thoughts...it might be quite easy if you can watch our movies).....Psychiatrists might have their own theories about it....Moralists might take their own line....Whatever might be, i guess there wont be a dispute on the basic principle of the theory....

Not many people know about Devipuram and it is getting into the news just lately.....That might have been one reason we found it almost devoid of visitors....Few resident young girls,a priest or two and a gentleman..(looked like a volunteer, and a bit too determined to collect some sort of donations from us )...)... were seen occupied with the routine temple management chores.....We took a tour of the whole place and later a priest conducted a small pooja for us....

It may sound flippant but i seriously think that faith ...like love ...can take you at once and unawares....May be it is all in the mind.....I don't know....You are there, beating around, and something, somewhere, attracts you and you are convinced that it is It...The Truth....Might not be very reasonable to others but makes perfect sense to you....May be that is why it is called FAITH....To Hyma it happened as she stood looking at the image of one of the Khadgamala deities....It was of a young mother nursing her baby....Hyma says she inexplicably smelt a sudden pervading scents of milk wafting around....That, and few more experiences convinced her of the presence of Devi to her........I myself had a pleasant experience of offering 108 kaluvapoolu to the deity, which had been a long cherished dream of mine, which never seemed to materialize before ...........

GOD is omni-present....ofcource....Only you tend to get reminded of it at very few places....Devipuram did that to us, though before going there i Was rather sceptical...Frankly i was not too enthusiastic about the Kamakhya concept...Even now i can not say i understand it....For, however liberal and educative it may sound, it Is a double-edged sword and in the hands of unscrupulous could degenerate into some thing sickening, as we all know too well what happened with the tantrik practices of yore....But i could feel a certain TRUTH there that convinced me.....Do not know if others could feel the same too....An instance of this......When i presented the kaluvapoolu, the priest , who was in a hurry said that he would offer them to the deity upstairs as he was going there anyway...I agreed and we returned to Vizag and from there to Hyderabad itself....but all along there was lingering doubt in my mind on whether they reached the Mother.....Just as i entered our gates at Hyderabad and going in, a magazine from Jillellamudi welcomed us from the letter-box and it was like this......



..........................................................................................
On the evening of the same day we boarded our bus to Hyderabad.....Yes...I know we have sinned....Sinned abominably by not visiting Araku and Ananthagiri...But sadly we had no time for it, and before that Bavagaru drove us around Vizag....Just like that....to get the feel of the city, i suppose....And it was delightful....

One surprising thing about the city was the great influx of visitors from Orissa and Bengal....This is quite common, Hyma told me....Every year, in October and December, Bengalees and Oriyans visit here in large numbers....Seems they have durga pooja holidays during this time and Vizag is teeming with them in all places.....Kailasagiri , beaches, the C.M.R halls.....Specially the C.M.R halls...as Bengal is a communist state and mall culture still has not stepped in,it seems , they go bonkers over the Chandana and Bommana complexes....The hotels are full, the cabs are full, the shops are full...The funniest point was when a coconut vendor at rushikonda beach welcomed us in Bengali to buy his wares....

..........................................................................................
Rushikonda beach was a delight.....Lying on the Bheemlee road,far from the madding crowds,it is shallower and therefore safer than others and waters are purer...Beautiful cottages have been built on the hill slopes and i daresay the view from them would be enchanting....A slow drive along the road ,flanked on one side by the sea and belts of casuarina would be just lovely....

.....................................................................................

This is a slightly different coastal city as i have observed.....The weather is drier, less humid than others, though that would be a hasty judgement to make after a visit in winter ...Again there is"'nt too much sand sticking to your feet....perhaps that was because of it being a rocky terrain...almost in the valley of eastern ghats, so to speak....

.....................................................................................

The Sea And Hyma 2

This time round Hyma has got a flat right on the R.K beach road...(During their previous sojourn,they used to stay at MVP colony, which had no sea view).. .A two-bed affair with a big window and a sit-out over looking the sea,..which i must say is a rare kind of gift that only very few people get to have....and even those who get it rarely have the time or mood to enjoy it....Now, she has found her most pleasurable passtime....Baywatch......Dont go by the title and drool over the prospect....Fortunately or unfortunately bikini-clad beauties still have"nt yet taken to haunting Vizag beaches....Not yet...

I got a call from her one afternoon ...They had just them moved to Vizag and the new flat...

"hey,..what do you think i am doing?"...She gleefully enquired...." standing in my balcony and watching the sea..."

"oh...Is that so,near?"...I was pleased...

"Yeeeaaaah..."...She chuckled..."i can see the sea from three of my balconies, and ships are moving like autos do on a road.".....You can bet i went green with envy...

Thus began her love affair with sea....(Ofcource it is not as if she is watching the sea for the first time...Even previously they were regularly visiting it on sundays..But not by as close quarters.)...Everyday after Bavagaru goes out to his work, Hyma settles down in her balcony, with a pair of binoculars too...(a gift from Bavagaru..encouraging her to pursue this interest).. and mounts on to her self-appointed duty....Bay watch....She laughingly says that there is every danger of her being appointed a coast guard one of these days....


...And ..she has a lovely view of it.........From the sit-out you have a broad side view of the beach road and uninterrupted sea.. Early morning sun comes and turns the waters into sparkling liquid gold....The mid-day would be languorously sultry,..as the sun shimmers down and waters seem to send a glare across,... while in the evening the moon comes and,passing her wand across, cools them into rustling silver foil... Ships can be seen standing afar,.. ...From her kitchen balcony you can watch great, smoky, lumbering ships slowly disappearing behind the Dolphin"s nose as they ease in to the harbour....During nights the sight is more enchanting .... Some of the ships pass on distantly,, as though brilliantly lit cities are gliding along.. ..While others stand silently, gently swaying ...,and sometime in the mid-night you wake up ,look at the reassuring lights and peacefully go back to sleep....

At about three in the early mornings, scores of little fishing boats with brave white sails lit up by feeble lamps, can be seen bobbing away on to the high seas from Rushikonda..... And it looks as though the sea is a big lake and has thrown up innumerable white single petalled kaluvapoolu.......Generally these boats return around three "o" clock in the evening,,...while their women gather at the shores with bowls of food, and wait for the men to get back safely.....Hyma says it is heart-wringing to watch them tie themselves to knots as the boats negotiate the crucial final lap.......Since all the catch the men bring home, hunting through out the night might just go under the sea with just one unfortunate encounter with rocks or strong currents......When they are finally ashore, it is the women now who would take charge....First the men have to be fed...as they could be ravenously hungry since usually they do not eat much while on the hunt.....Then they would sort out the catch and start in autos to different destinations...and ..Markets...


So, ...Hyma sits in her balcony ,watches the waves and marks the changes.....The sea too shrinks and waxes according to seasons...She says...In summer it recedes almost to the small out crop of rocks that were right in front of her window as crow flies.....While sometimes in rainy season it comes almost up to the beach road...literally washing the edges....When the crop of rocks do not show up over the waves, it meant the tide is full...while most dark fortnights could find them showing up ....


No doubt she is on her way to become a sort of an authority on the vizag beach.....She could tell you quite a few things about it....."Dont ever wade into the R.K beach waters", she advised me....Not only they are treacherous,--- being very deep,and are also constantly kept dredged---....but the area around, it seems, houses an incredible 500 plus hospitals and nursing homes, which keep emptying their sewerage into the bay....Industrial waste is something nasty by itself but hospital waste?....Hyma says she sometimes feels sorry for the kids who play around with the waters...


She could tell you few sea-side stories too...One was about the problems the port had to face....Back in the fifties when the Vizag port was being developed, the constant huge waves and tides proved troublesome,and hampered their work..... ...That was when Sir .C.V. Raman suggested a simple solution..." Drench a ship there",,he was said to have told them..."that would fix it"...Indeed they had sunk a huge old ship and the problem has been fixed...

"Take a look around among the visitors and did you notice any thing?", she nudged me and whispered conspiratorially...I was a bit startled and with my over imaginative brain looked around the beach, expecting some cloak and dagger stuff..."idiot",...she pointed to a man in black track suit ..."He is a guard...There are many more like him...These people just mingle with the crowds and move around...At the first instance of a mishap occurring ....they would dive in faster than those in Baywatch "...

These days, she even slowly started reading the moods of the sea,she says.....If it gives out that peculiar fishy smell....----neechu vaasana---it meant a storm might be brewing up in it"s bowels.....Then the rains come....The sea seems to merge with the skies and becomes a blur......the waters would become muddy....sometimes red too...And scores of ships are stranded, jostling for space and waiting to unload........The other day, after a particularly severe bout of rains,Hyma, who just then returned to Vizag after few days at Hyderabad agitatedly gave me a call...

"what do you think would happen?...Are......THIRTY..THIRTY ships are waiting here and i don't know when could they complete the work".....It took them nearly one month before all of them have finished unloading and done with.....and gave Hyma a great deal of work and worry, i should say...:)...She daily supervised the proceedings critically and had her reservations on the efficiency of the whole system...

"A ship has to switch off all it"s engines as it arrives till a certain point ",..she educated me on the protocol of it....."Then four tugs would come whizzing ,as busy as bees,surround the ship on four sides and royally and respectfully would help it in to the harbour"....

The most amusing incident for Hyma was when a ship accidentally strayed up to the rocks before her flat and got stuck in the sand....."I was just getting up from bed one morning", she told me between laughs...."And ran out to the sit-out as i heard a hideous screeching sound....as if a pig got stuck in snare...A large ship was there around the rocks,bellowing the siren as sailors ran around the decks in confusion..."....... Those rocks are pretty near the land and the ship should not have strayed this far....Hauling it inside proved to be a long-drawn effort...Scores of tugs came in daily and vainly tried to ....till a ship was called from Australia to the rescual..Meanwhile, Hyma, ofcource, as usual stood guard,and worried over the possible punishment the captain of the ship might have had to face...

Her biggest disappointment, sadly was on seeing I.N.S.Virat....Touted as the India"s premier battle ship, when it was announced it would be going this way,Hyma was all expectation and patriotism as she waited to see it pass on....Instead all she saw was an old vessel lumbering on like an old dowager princess, spluttering and coughing up a great deal of smoke, followed by a retinue of tugs,lot of gun-salutes and fanfare....You can say Hyma was disgusted..."and she fouled up my skies all along with the smoke", she groused....

Ofcource it is needless to say when Hyma"s big day falls on....The Annual Navy Day Show.....On that day, Hyma hastens Bavagaru to his office ,packs off her lunch,picks up her Bi"culars,,an umbrella,and.........goes up to their roof-top...---.It is no time for civilities, she tells me--- grabs the best possible seat and as happy as a child, waits in pleasurable anticipation for the show to begin........ The air-crafts zoom in, executing perfect 10 aerobatics,...mock-fights go on along the shore,...sub-marines glide under,......and later in the day, the spectacular fire-works at night ....as she and Bavagaru, watch sitting in their balcony.....

May The original couple on Kailasagiri and Hyma and Bavagaru in their sit-out continue to enjoy the seas for a long time....

The Sea And Hyma 1

Hyma is my cousin..a year older to me and the forerunner of our batch, all of us, the second generation kids........It was stated that none of the babies before Hyma in our family survived.....So,Hyma started and all of us followed....Sometimes the fact that we all survived was attributed to her VENNU CHALAVA....Means that she is covering the fire for us all.....May be she does....For doctors have testified that her x-ray reports show an extra rib....

She is also the proud carrier of that much used up name.....Our family seems to harbour a mistaken belief that they are a blasted royal lineage and keep giving us the same names so much that now there are no less than five Hymas, three Ratnas,two pairs of Anasuyas and Kameswaris and ofcource we are all rather tired of the whole thing....


So, Hyma the first ,is not only a leader of the batch but also a rare beauty,.( rare also in the fact that she is genuinely unconscious of her looks) a fact that all of us girls have to regretfully concede.....Ofcource the crown has been presented to her only after a very stiff fight ,mind you....(We have our our self-respect..Don"t we?)..Delicate, curly haired and with unblemished complexion, , Hyma used to resemble a JAAJIPOOVU in our childhood .....Still looks like a jajipoovu these days......but like one that has slightly gone to fat....Exsoose me, for being catty...You do"nt know what it is to live under the shadow of one such great looker...as me and Janaki.(nearer her age) have discovered to our chagrin......

Looks like Hyma has got a lot of her MENAMAMA----my father---in her than his own kids....Surely she has inherited the same zest for life...easy attitude,a capacity to savour the simple pleasures and joys that life brings...,and same whole-hearted enthusiasm for her interests.... Launches herself headlong into every thing that catches her attention..and tries to the best of her ability to live life to the full....

By nature, a warm person, her interests are varied....That included great cooking (we can all vouch for it) ,classical vocal music, (passable, i daresay..though she might kill me for that)....,playing veena and sitar (she has a delicate touch), and to top it all.........talking...(That is an A grade too).. As Rajnikanth says in some film ,Hyma is a perfect Indian and would drop dead if she has to stop talking.....We remember how once as a kid Hyma engaged a 70 plus friend of grandpa, who dropped in when the elders were not at home....She sat talking to him nearly a full one and half hour non-stop till aunt came home...while we yawned and waited in the background.....

Gardening also used to be her passion once,...when they used to stay at an independent house, --Alas, they had a transfer and had to move out perforce---.....During that time she literally filled up her garden with a great variety of croutons, cacti, and others....There were so many that an exasperated Bavagaru had to put his foot firmly down on further expansion....Ofcource, like all good wives she never paid heed and kept bringing in some and shoving them out of sight under the portico....

They stayed at Vizag for a decade---till...94 or 5 i think---moved to Hyderabad for few years and shifted again to Vizag two years back and this time they got a flat on the beach road, and Hyma, with her two sons having settled down, found that she has acquired other hobbies too....A renewed interest in vocal music....She has joined a group and started taking annamachrya music lessons.......She insists her group is in great demand to do kutcheries for ganesh pandals so much that she recently informed Bavagaru that she is fast running out of stock for jari sarees and must refurnish her wardrobe ....

Then there are yoga classes.. ..These days she could do BHASTRI, she gleefully informed me....and meditations in the nearby Ramakrishna mutt.....( the other day during her meditation she gave a shhhhhh when irked by a noisy group of visitors, closed her eyes and when she opened them after few minutes,...to her horror,.....found all of them around , reverently prostrating before her..)...Between bouts of laughter she told me she is being more careful these days....

ANNADAANAm....That is yet another work she takes up nowadays....A friend,..few like minded people and Hyma get together, contribute to the kitty and very frequently on festival days, organize free food distributions to the poorer and needy people in the locality....She has a Thataki of a maid with her,who arranges to fetch food from a mess...A curry , dal, sambar, curd, rice .....Ten Rs per head...Sometimes the women cook up few kilos of extra rice, and dal... somebody contributes a sweet or fruit and nearly seventy five hungry people could have lunch, for a 700, or 800Rs .. ..She explained the economics of it to me.......and I must say i am impressed...


But what i am going to write on is about her recently acquired, most favourite pastime..........More on it later....

Vizag Snippets 3

As all andhras do, i too have, heard of Simhachalam for long.....That actually the hill is said to be a volcano,..(dont know if geologists have confirmed this)..-----Quite a significant fact,that some of our most revered shrines are said to be on top of volcanoes.... Arunachalam, which is considered to be the agnilingam,...while,Mangalagiri, and simhachalam house Ugra Narasimha Swami----...

Till few years back, Hyma assured me, Simhachalam used to be a beautiful hill,full of varieties of trees---Jack fruit ,and pine apple,common for Vizag, were in abundance---,with a lovely weather, air replete with scents of woody flowers..(sampangi is prominent among them). and natural water springs ..the rocks used to be damp with moisture....It still looks beautiful ,as i could notice...but may be the residents know better...


Usually the moorthi of Varaha Narasimha swami---that is how the Lord is called there...though the pet name, popular among masses is Appanna,--- is covered in layers of chandanam,ie'sandalwoodpaste.....Only once in a year, on the akshaya triteeya day, all the layers except one are peeled off...and devotees can have the Lord"s nijaroopa darsanam...Hyma says that somehow--nobody knows why----the city heats up on that one day...Ofcource it falls in summer but not withstanding fact, on that particular day, there is an inexplicable hotting up.....She did not believe it her self at first....But later, did notice the changes...

According to historians, long back in old times,Simhachalam used to be the the main city, and Visakha was just a nearby fishing village...Today visakha is the city and simhachalam is it"s suburb.....I could believe it...We are seeing some of those changes our selves, happening in front of our eyes....Golkonda was the main city till just a century back....Now Hyderabad is considered the new one and Golkonda is disparagingly called as the old city....In few more years i could visualise the Hy-tech city emerging as a still newer city.....

Wikepedia says that after Thirupathi...Simhachalam temple is the second highest income grosser in Andhrapradesh....That came as a surprise to me...All along i was thinking it might be Sri sailam...Kalahasthy,or Bhadrachalam...May be that is why the temple always tends to figure in the news with something or other...it"s lands are regularly being encroached upon,....some scam about the deity "s ornaments being tampered with... ......




And then there was this dacoity.... I vaguely remember it, since the details of it were all over the state.. ...Few years back (may be thirty..), a group of dacoits broke into the temple and made off with some jewellery and may be some hundi collections too...Somebody called Martin, a man with Stuartpuram connections and supposed to be of naxal leanings, led the robbery....They finished their raid and were hurrying down the hill as Martin, flushed with his success was said to be shouting something like ..".So, where is the God? and why can"t he save his own house?"....(Just like Hiranyakasyap?)....A crude bomb he was carrying accidentally slipped down and in the ensuing blast Martin lost his leg......He survived,...i could remember that, and carried on with his mutilated limbs.....People drew as many conclusions over this as they liked...Some said that it proved the existence of the lord....Some said it was just a co-incidence....Somebody else thought the punishment was not enough....May be the Lord thought that Martins are better looters than some who go under the garb of his devotees....On the flip side,could it be that the lord was forced to spare Martin,since he would have to be accorded salvation if death came in the Lord"s hands.?....

A rummy thing....This, concept called justice...As a child from a family of advocates and judicial officers, i well remember arguments regularly breaking over some of the issues pertaining to it...Babai thought that dad was too much of an acquittal judge and used to fiercely advocate for rigorous penalties....His argument was that if found guilty, serve the criminal with the maximum punishment....Dad, would differentiate with a clause...."Severity where it is needed."..Well...One was being an advocate and the other was being a judge, i should say...

Anyway...Simhachalam seems to one place where the query ..."where is God?...gets answered... since it is said to be the spot where the Lord caught up Prahlada in his arms as the little one got thrown off the cliff, by his notorious father...

There was considerable rush of pilgrims on that 26th, mid-noon, when we alighted there on our way down,from the Arasavilli trip...That very popular song..."simhachalamu..maha punyakshetramu" was playing in the in the air.....A lovely, typical sindhu bhairavi...As a child, i used to be very fond of the song and bellowed it at the top of my voice till requests came in asking me to put a stop to the racket........I was pleased to note that i still remembered the lyrics...


We purchased few special darshan tickets and had the good fortune to have Lord" s darshan for few minutes....


................................................................................. ...


Camera can never be a substitute for the eye nor is a photo for the real thing....

That was exactly how i felt as we stood on the vantage point...(you"ll be taken in a lift there)...at Kailasagiri, and looked over the above scene.....The marriage party had gone back to Hyderabad, while we elected to spend a day more with Hyma and Bavagaru...

Nearly every movie shot in Vizag these days shows this shot at least once...and every mention of Vizag in visual media carries this mandatory clip....Even just as a snap, it is a beautiful image...But none of them prepared me for the sheer shocking impact, the real breathtaking beauty of it...A heady mix of hillside and sea...is a rare combination....You do not see it often and that alone makes Kailasagiri, a tourist spot of international standards....

Kailasagiri stands at one end of Vizag,...the third hill of a three fold hill range, on the nearest side to the sea......Most of the visakhapatnam city is spread across and in between these hills and ofcource spills over on all sides too...... It used to be just another one of the innumerable hills there till some twenty years ago, when the municipal authorities woke up to it"s potential as a scenic spot and started developing it....Today it has beautiful gardens, a small museum,a garden of some rock sculptures, and a toy train doing rounds of the hill....where from you can catch sight of the beautiful scenes of valleys, hills, sea and a city....



The crown of it all is a giant statue of Siva and Parvathi....She, the daughter of Himalayas,is beautiful and he is looking slightly austere.... .seated on a pedestal and looking over the sea, , it looks as though the original couple are eternally chit-chatting,and relaxing ....and the scenery before them.....lovely bluish bay with mists rising out, is divine...A sight for the gods...

Vizag Snippets 2

On the morning of the 26 th, we, a party of six, including a little girl started for Arasavilli.....Left to ourselves may be we two (hubby n i) would have preferred to visit Araku....But as we had been there as a party, we were game for the Arasavilli trip and must admit enjoyed it thoroughly and were glad to have done it at the end of it all.....

We engaged a taxi and very predictably the driver turned out to be a mine of information....He seemed to think we have engaged him as a guide too and by the time we returned ,we were in a position to rattle off info on where actor Tharun"s cashew nut grove is,...the two best filling up stations of Vizag,...how many bus services actor Sarath babu owns at Amadalavalasa,...the kind of local political equations ,...the place where best cashew nut can be procured,...the climate, crops,and the financial well- being of the ryots of Srikakulam Dt etc etc etc so much so that i wished i had him as my geography teacher back at school....My scores could have been better....

.....................................................................................


Actually we thought that Arasavalli would be a more than three and half hour journey and pleasantly surprised to have reached there in just two hours...Wide, in perfect condition,surrounded by greenery, and with sparse traffic, the NH5 was fantastic.... The kind of road long distance drivers dream of....You cross the Nagavali river, and go up to Srikakulam and Arasavilli is just five or six kilometers away from it...Nagavali is sort of a perennial river, our guide told us,,as it never dries up....farmers harvest two crops a year,and coupled with the produce from the nearby forests,most of the people in the district are quite prosperous...nay.. very, very prosperous, though none of them ever look like it,he added caustically...

The famous SuryaNarayana temple...the only one to be dedicated to Sun god (konark is not really a consecrated one, if you remember)...is a medium sized shrine,not really big ..., but nevertheless well maintained....There was"nt too much of a rush....But "wait till sun day",our driver, philosopher and guide said...."bus loads of people would throng the place, pleading for health, eyes and dasa parihaarams."......

The main deity,flanked on each side by his consorts, is an attractive figure,with brilliant eyes and fierce mustachios too....There were specific instructions written prominently on walls, warning the devotees not to close their eyes in his presence and keep looking on....The surya namaavali and aditya hrudayam are also engraved on the walls and i guiltily reminded my self once again that i should start reciting them, at least from now on...

Yearly once sun rays are stated to reach the feet of the lord here for three days and people come in droves to witness this amazing spectacle...One young man of our party, a mechanical engineer from New york,went about the premises for sometime, searching for , a clue to know how the sun rays could enter at all into the temple as it was all boarded up...He gave up at last with a shrug...Ofcource we were not really conversant with the exact angles and directions of the place...

.....................................................................................


"Sri koormam is just three kilometers from Arasavilli...and you must visit the place" insisted our driver (sorry i can"t remember his name)..."anyway you have come this far...So, Why not?"....,..."yes...Why not?"....

Sri koormam sounded vaguely familiar...What i mean is, i have heard of it but never knew it was so near to Vizag ....Not on the list of generally popular pilgrim stations, it is nevertheless gets talked of as a very ancient one and does figure as an important place in vaishnava lore.....Actually it is said to be the only shrine dedicated to Lord Mahavishnu in his koormavatharam......Interesting really....There is MATSYA NARAYANA TEMPLE at Nagari in chittor Dt,where the lord is in his matsyavatharam, now Sri koormam,and later the Varaha Narasimha shrine at Simhachalam.....We felt we were going through the entire list of dasavathaarams...and idly wondered where else in the world does one ever find divinity in all living creatures....



Indeed Sri kooramam turned out to be a very ancient temple but made us feel really sad for the sorry state it was in....Stated to be under the patronage of the GAjapathys of Vijayanagaram,it has vast grounds, a large temple complex, mantapams,good sculptural wealth (though i must admit do not know too much about it), even a small hatchery of baby tortoises too ( where urchins run after you pleading for 10 rupees....To feed the tortoises with greens) , but in the end, we found the paint peeling off,the floors are sinking in, the outer grounds are full of weeds and rank growth,the vahanams and palanquins looked lacklustre, and the general atmosphere inside the gloomy, dark temple is of neglect....Wish somebody...T.T.D? or like minded people would come forward to renovate it...


The sanctum was a bit startling....Instead of the usual idol, we saw a giant stone-made tortoise, perched up on a big rocky platform.....The lord----For it was HE---was facing to the backside of the sanctum, resting after the onerous task of bearing the weight of Mandaragiri.. .....Sandalwood paste has been liberally applied all over him, while beautiful stone-studded namam adorned his snout....

But the Priests here more than compensated for the sorry appearance of the temple with pleasing demeanor and made a sincere effort to explain the significance,and rituals of the temple, and spoke in English too..( for the benefit of the convent educated,) they later explained....A darshan of swami here would ward off griha, graha, vaasthu doshas and brings in the blessings of our ancestors, according to them...The priest at Mahalakshmi temple,(Lord"s consort) went even one step further and declared that people suffering from sani dosham invariably came there...."you can all check your charts", he challenged...It has even been tested and proved, he averred,,but personally i was not convinced.....



.....................................................................................


It was already ten in the morning by the time we finished visiting both the temples....And the driver took us back to Srikakulam....As we had not breakfasted yet, we asked him to take us to a hygienic place where we cold get some food that would not upset stomachs....By the look of the things, that seemed to be a remote chance, for,Srikakulam, though a district headquarters looked backward,out of date and unusually dusty---widening of roads was in progress, we were told--....,

Perhaps that was why, at the Hotel Nagavali,---the best one ,, our driver assured us----we were rather taken aback, to see what i have never seen even at some of the best hotels of Hyderabad , ....waitresses in miniest of miniskirts....Even our G.E. nephew looked a little dazed....O.K...we thought....So?...Even the hinterlands have caught up with times...wow....Nagavali is a three star hotel, we were told...It did look rather cushy,..until we have placed our order...They made us wait full one hour for a rather usual andhra breakfast,...and charged the earth for few tepid, oil less dosais,(they seem to care more for my health than myself) and unpleasantly cold chutneys....

.....................................................................................

Vizag Snippets 1

On the evening of 24 th of this October, we were on Godavari Express...comfortably ensconced,... and on our way to Visakhapatnam to attend a wedding of one of my husband"s cousin"s son.....Does it sound too complicated?:)..O.K......

And i was excited about going there....For long i have heard of the city.....from my uncle who studied for his law there at Andhra university,... about the beautiful locales the hostels were placed in ... his graphic accounts of how he stood at the balcony of his room 212, at sidhartha hostel, looking on the sea,....From the works of Rachakond Viswanatha Sastry, Puraanam Seetha....You could say i half expected to encounter Gedela Nookaraju, veera Bangari,discipline athayya , Rathalu and Rambabu freely roaming on the strets........And from other umpteen scenic locales that seemed to have caught the fancy of our various film Directors who never seem to get tired of the place.........For i have been seeing Vizag in films since my childhood...

Somehow it never came about for me to visit the place.....A bit ironic....Since the place is not too far off or in another state......Once i did go through it on my way to Vijayanagaram for another marriage..(seems like i go there only to attend weddings)....but then the only memory i had of it was just a hazy picture of a railway station....

The Godavari arrives early.....about six"o"clock and runs through a beautiful belt of greenery much before that....One is pleasantly surprised by the flower girls----who somehow seem to have gotten into the compartment---selling bunches of lovely KALUVAPOOLU as cheaply as 10 for five rupees....The wayside ponds were all filled with hundreds of them.....
.....................................................................................


Surprisingly, the vizag station does not seem to be too big.....nor too modern....But once we got out and drove down, the city looked clean,...roads are wide and thankfully not clogged with traffic snarls.....and buildings, as usual, a curious mix of the old and new.....

One word is a must here on the lovely old worldish constructions of Vizag..My pet love....I just loved the stately, old K.G.H ,collectorate and university (though we have seen very little of it) ......When we (me n hubby)..got down in front of Hyma's apartment block-----she is my cousin---- and i stood transfixed, staring at a very old balconied house opposite her"s,Hyma went into giggles...." All of us in the family seem to have a kind of fetish for old houses" she said......" when last time Sandy came in, he even took photographs of the building"....

Some of those beautiful structures seemed to have been converted into either hotels or marriage halls or some kind of government quarters.........Good, we thought....At least they have been preserved this way and ugly multiplexes have not risen in their place......Though that day seems to be not too far off seeing the pace at which Vizag is expanding....

The grand Hawaa Mahal, wherein Nehru was said to have been stationed when he came down to Vizag to launch the famous JALAUSHA, is on the R.K beach road and Hyma"s house is just a line or two behind it and we could look down on it"s terraces from her balcony.... Even today it IS a lovely building....Hyma says it is her daily adda....she goes there everyday for her endless classes....art of living,kriya yoga, cookery and what not....

Another lovely little...little little granite building with two turrets..(it reminded me strongly of Lady Ampthill"s).. is converted into a Bar cum restaurant and back gardens and is called Sandy Lane....The back side view from it is excellent, Hyma certified....One could see the sea very closely from there...

The delightful sprawling , low roofed , lenghty granite bungalow...that featured in many a motion picture----rendu jadala seetha, swarnakamalam etc---is today Viswapriya function hall and is on the beach road too....... Another couple of buildings on the AAsilmet Junction that captured our fancy turned out to be the living quarters of joint collector.... Daresay there are many more such ones that i have not seen
.... ........................................................................................

The twenty- fifth had been entirely devoted to attend the marriage ceremonies....That just meant we had nothing else to do than decking up in silks, sitting glued to our seats,gossiping and eating excessively, taking pleasant naps ...Advantages of being on the bridegroom"s party, i suppose....Then looked out for prospective marriagable youngsters.....To get them married off too..........Also, i discovered how comfortable it was to be just that much distant to the principals of the marriage party....and not having to run frantically for the thousand things the priest seems to perpetually call for......Just when you think you are perfectly prepared and relax,he is going to fox you utterly by asking for something you never imagined to be of any use.....sandalwood powder balls?.....ant-hill sand?.....juvvi leaves?...grinding stone?....Grinding stone ,of all the things ....My god...

.....................................................................................

"It is a mistake to think that only punjabis and gujarathis have vivah sangeet,..sing and dance during weddings".....said the exuberant Mrs. Snehalatha Murali, an artiste with AIR Hyderabad...who formed a troupe with few other talented singers to give live concerts.... at marriages and other functions too ....That might be quite common, you might say,.. but here,her speciality is wedding music ..or pellipaatalu ...."we, in Andhra pradesh have a fund of rich heritage here in this regard, and the idea is to present them in a more attractive and updated way...."....she said....To do this, she and her fellow artists have dug out a number of wedding songs that went to rust ,..that were unable to stand the speed of modern day"s fast paced weddings,packaged them in newer, livelier tunes...


We had the good fortune to listen to one such concert at the wedding reception thrown by one our relatives on this last sunday of the october and must admit that it certainly was a highly entertaining and enjoyable affair...

The primadonna of the troupe,..Mrs.Snehalatha, her self was the life and soul of the concert and led with a breezy presence...The format was a kind of combination of mujra--- in the sense that the singers...(.there were five women, all clad in bright red-maroon embroidered chiffons and suitably ornamented for a wedding,... and a male singer.).. sang and acted out the lyrics with lovely facial expressions while sitting ---,....a bit of dramatics.. and ofcource music concert all rolled into one ......Enlivened by some easy, ched-chaad type of banter between the two marriage parties...---One boy proxied for the groom and a girl for the bride----....they had liberally interspersed the proceedings with some contemporary,on the spot witticisms ----like they said the groom and bride make as lovely a pair as Abhishek and Aishwarya and they need not lie today as they had to sometimes----.......While some of the rather raucous and loud humor that made up our yesteryear"s rustic folk"s cup of tea sometimes made you wince --like the mother of the bride presenting her with an appadala karra as a parting gift,...they certainly touched few chords too...I must admit i had to personally smile up my sleeve at the mother-in-law advising the new son-in-law to start learning to make coffee, since her precious daughter would not wake up so early.....coo.......I don"t really think Anasuya ever saw a sunrise in her life...


...The concert itself was a medley of mainly some old , very familiar pellipaatalu,--each one suited to the occasions of the wedding rituals,...from engagement to the arrangements,wedding dinner, down to Appaginthalu, ,..-----, few noted filmi wedding songs,..-----sreerasthu..subhamasthu from Pelli pustakam, the evergreen kotha pelli koothura rara , haayiga cheyi cheyiga,---- few annamacharya keerthanas..( for example , they broke into "Jagadapu chanavula jaajara" for the "buvvam banthi".....when the irrepressible Snehalatha sprang up from the dais to rig up a small impromptu kolatam with guests and the little kids....She even coaxed the neck deep busy mother of the groom to relax and sport with her for few moments...

They almost sang for three hours,...ably accompanied by a small orchestra of a mrudangam, kanjar, key-board,and some others and kept the audience spell bound to
the chairs throughout, even down to the mangalam when the sole male tenor rose to present it to Lord Srinivasa....It was a beautiful rendition... set to soulful kaanada, and devoid of accompaniments, the resonant human voice rang out like a bell in praise of the lord and strangely brought a lump to the throat... and once again i veered to the view that no instrument can ever match the emotive impact a human voice could cause.....Incidentally the boy was said to be the one who sang track for the hugely popular Maha prana deepam for Shankar Mahadevan, from Manjunatha.....

On the whole it was all very enjoyable and one felt, apt for a wedding....Better than gazal or band shows....Ofcource there were the few usual sound recording hiccups and a bit overcrowded hungry guests milling around.....But, ..yes...inspite of all that, a rather refined and renewed package of the old tradition.. ....

A Rocket Ride

1973,...APRIL...Jillellamudi....


It was a hot day,... usual in summertime and...Jillellamudi, in spite of the fields and the Drain ---(It is a canal and heaven knows why it is called DRAIN-)---- that flows down on it"s south, could be quite a hot place as everybody knows...Guntur districta... mazaaka?.......The big building on the south side of the village----jillellamudi,was a very, very small one, -----and it"s enclosure was bustling and busy with the preparations that were going on, to celebrate Mother"s up coming golden jubilee birthday.....For in few more days,...on the great day,there was going to be a feast and they were intending to feed 1 lakh people on the premises and surrounding fields.....Lorries bearing provisions and goods have been coming in regularly and shedding load...rice, pulses,oils,mirch, spices....


It all started rather casually....Everybody knew mother "s fifty-first birthday was coming on and as usual everybody had his or her own plans on how to celebrate the happy occasion...Somebody thought of conducting a Kavisammelanam....Another one thought of releasing a special souvenir...Someone proposed ordering a diamond-studded crown....Someone else talked about inviting great saints to convene a vedantha sabha.....Jillellamudi was not one of your methodical,well-knit, tightly run kind of establishment one sees as in the case of some other institutions....Nor was it a moneyed one either...Funds perennially flowed low...To say honestly...it was like a big family...A big middle class family,...with all it"s accompanying delights,faults, advantages, worries, ego-clashes, and splendid rallying in- time of -needs....And it ran just like that...A family function...Somebody plans, somebody chips in with timely help, somebody executes, somebody finds faults,.....Nobody quite knows how funds would come in or go out...They just do...In the end everything gets completed in time , just right and nothing ever gets stalled ...either for want of money or men...

When all these ideas were put before mother for her approval,she reacted in an unexpected ?..way.....These were all good plans, she said...----(ofcource, she never hurts anybody)---... But if it was all the same to them, she would rather spend the money in feeding her children...Infact, she said, it was a long cherished dream of hers to see 1 lakh people sitting together having dinner.... .. All those little kids gathering round mummy,bearing their little gifts realised once again what she really wants....and that was how all these preparations have come about and going on now....

It was nearing dusk when a brother was called upstairs, into mother"s penthouse on the third story, with urgent summons....A problem cropped up and needed his assistance....Vistharaakulu,...the leaf plates, we generally use for eating have to be procured urgently......As estimates go, 1 lakh people were expected to dine...that means at least two lakh plates...as usually two are used, placed one on top of one ...And ofcource you can not bring home just what the figures say without leaving a wider margin......You might need some for covering the items, some for reserves...Anyway, Jillellamudi was a constantly busy place with nithya anna prasadam..---(Mother never liked the word annadanam)-----.....people coming and going all the time...So, few extra would not go in vain....They have inquired with wholesale merchants at Vijayawada, Guntur and drew blank...No body was ready with that kind of supplies with them and at such a short notice......That left only one place to head for...Madras...

He was given few instructions...where to go in Madras, and few details about the transaction...He had to reach there in the morning at the earliest, finish the transaction and try to return the same day if possible...It took another few more hours before they could actually make some arrangements and he touched the feet, had kumkum and took leave of mother...

So, it thus came about , the man sat huddled in corner bench on the deserted Bapatla station----( the nearest railway station, seven miles from Jillellamudi, )-- platform at eleven or so in the night,... waiting and praying for a train to halt there....A group of devotees heading for Guntur dropped him at the railway station as per mother"s instruction and drove off... He wished they had taken him with them till Guntur or at least till Thenali....They are busier stations and may be he could catch a train from there....For Bapatla,..197 miles from Madras ,though situated on the busy Vijayawada-Madras line, is small station and no self-respecting express train worth it"s salt ever halted there in those days.....Nearly 30 years back....On that particular night even the friendly , ponderous Dakshin passed on before he could enter the station...

Time passed and the station clock chimed twelve...He sat there, fanning the desultory mosquito away...twiddling his thumbs, and wondering why mother bade him wait here,and how on earth he could ever reach Madras this way...Early morning?...looked like he would not be there for the mid-day itself.....


At about twelve, the station master went round the platforms checking and making sure his station remained free of unruly elements...He caught sight of the brother and enquired what train he was waiting for, and they fell talking.......When the brother said he had to go to Madras, the S.M. nodded his head ,.. said he heard of the golden jubilee plans,.. laughed outright at the prospect of his boarding a train for the night saying only the Circar express next morning would be his option,and went off with a cryptic.."may be you could go in sputnik"...The brother felt rather foolish and settled further on the bench more comfortably...

The time went past twelve- thirty....The station quietened down and was silent now...A small goods train rattled by on the loop lines and creaked to halt somewhere on the outer area of the station...A figure sped up from the stationmaster"s cabin and ran in..."come on...Board the Sputnik.."..The s.m hurried him on... The brother was in confusion and hastened alongside the S.M.... Sputnik was the name given to the goods train that carries live stock from Calcutta to Madras...Because, on account of it"s precious cargo, it was a common practice to give it a green signal all the way, at all stations and it completes it"s run in record time...

The brother boarded an open topped compartment full of grazing, mooing,bleating cudding,cattle ,and goats and reached Madras before the sun was up.....

Kudos To Koti

Sometime back, i sat with my family members watching, Zee telugu"s little champs,....A boy was singing "idele tharatharaala charitham" from "peddarikam" ...We were listening to it, all mesmerised...,when one of my sisters thoughtfully remarked "i never realised that Koti gave so many hits"...Koti,.. the composer of the number was sitting there in a judge"s seat,listening attentively,with a little smile playing on the lips....and eyes that lighted up with happiness.....One is actually surprised to find him ,looking so young on the telly and he comes across as a bluff, hearty , down-to earth person....I mean , we are hearing him from ages and the person turns out to be not too old...:)...not at all, sir,.....My husband even wondered idly why he did not take up acting....

The kids rendered many of his hits, some melodies, some dhammakedaar songs...A girl sang ""muddula jaanaki pelliki mabbula"...From Peddarikam"...woow...Another one broke into "roop thera mastaana",.."guvva gorinkatho"...Someone else rendered "priyathama priyathama"..."o navvu chalu."....Lovely melodies and foot tappers...One liked both the genres...I, particularly love his dhamaaka madhyamavathis in "mechanic alludu',..."bangaru bullodu" and the thunderous.."amma brahmadevudo" from "govinda govinda"...What range?.....and what pure dynamite music?....After hearing them, one strangely felt grateful to the creator of the music....For how happy did he make us all.........I and my daughter loved to listen to those blasted beats of his .._---pun intended----and would break into smiles whenever we thought we detected his father"s strains among them..."after all..it is "baabu sommu"...we would say...Who else has rights on it?....


......and then came the wonderment i wrote earlier....For, though casual, i think that remark of my sister"s sums up it rather neatly...Koti always remained on the peripheries or at the end of the critic"s list... He ..Was,..Is a busy music composer,...worked for top stars.,..top banners,gave thundering hits....but.. somehow, one never associated koti with serious music...or took his name when discussing it..in those haloed, reverential tones one reserves for some others....though he kept regaling us with one after one of his hits...and we kept crooning them....Perhaps because most of his earlier --or later films---were mainly big starrers and that meant mostly catchy numbers with a good deal of jhum jhum jhum orchestration....

My daughter, who self appointed her self as my teacher, in musicology---She thinks she is an authority on it----took pains to enlighten me on this little issue...She argues that koti has not evolved a distinct style of his own-----i mean, the hallmark progressions,notes, sangathis and touches ---- and that was his undoing.....I do not quite see her point.....What style?...As far as i can see, there are only three schools---or styles--- of music in telugu cinema...One was Rajeswara rao"s style..(koti"s father and guru)....Another was K.V. Mahadevan"s....Keeravani and others seem to follow it...But the difference between the two was not too great...Ilayaraja, ofcource was a later addition and gave completely different music....One is slightly mystified and also amused with this practice in film music...One wants and glorifies variety and breaking away from tradition...Whereas in classical music, you tend to emphasize on following PARAMPARA and think mighty well of it...

In my opinion, the real bane Koti had to suffer were the times he found himself in...He is preceded by stalwarts like his father, Mahadevan,Viswanathan....Trying to survive that inheritance is a daunting task in itself......Then he had to fight for his space in a world filled with Ilayarajas,..manisharmas, and Keeravanis and Rahmans...It was a fierce competition,..In the melee, i think, he might have got a little bruised but it is said competition eggs one to further efforts and true enough Koti peaked in his career with "hello brother"...."peddarikam"..."nuvvu naaku nachavu"..."nuvve kaavali"..."nuvve nuvve"..That was first class music...kudos to Koti....

As the missing pieces fall into place.....

Photo courtesy:SamiAR

Many times we get unnerved by the curious twists and turns that life takes and just can not figure out how and why certain incidences happen or do not happen...Like the missing piece of a jig-saw puzzle, these things keep nibbling at the brain at the oddest of times, while we vainly grope for answers... why did it happen this way?...I personally think that TIME--the greatest healer and leveller--alone can give a clue to some of those life"s riddles...

Einstein once said famously that "God does not play dice"...Another famous line goes that "God moves mysteriously"...May be HE does....and..we, the mere mortals do not often grasp the line he is taking ...Even if we set aside the concept of a God,.. Destiny,..that inexorable flow of events,is as much of a mystery as the Lord himself....and we realise the fact,sometimes only on hindsight..sometimes never in this life time and may be sometimes over a loooooooooooong string of births......But when we are fortunate enough to do that, it is indeed a breathtaking vision as we look back on the medley of events and see the exquisite pattern that emerges out of all that jumble,..designed by that master craftsman ...it makes sense,and finally we are at peace...


Photo courtesy:SamiAR

Sathy Balamani

Balamani is our (ex) servant Maid.....A lean, but strong, medium statured , energetic femme in her mid forties, with three grown up kids....And she is so vain of how she is still maintaining her slim figure....She stops in the middle of her sweeping , straightens up and asks me ---with a capricious look in her eyes which belies the doubt in her question---whether she had put on any weight recently...When i say no, her face splits into a happy grin and with a satisfied "everybody says so" she resumes her sweeping....

She was with me from the day we arrived in our own new flat at Tarnaka---some seventeen years ago---till recently,when ,unable to stand her frequent french leaves, i regretfully terminated her services....Yes...That was the only problem with her...She "d keep you waiting, jumping like mad and tearing at your hair at least twice in a week with her absences from work..."why cant she intimate me beforehand?".i wail and chide my self for not adhering to the golden advice my late mother-in-law gave me.."Employ only either unmarried girls or older women",..she used to say.."they are relatively freer and do not skip work often as the women in child bearing and rearing age do".....yeah...golden words...and brilliant HR principle...

But to be fair to Balamani,she would never make you regret her once she chugs in through the threshold banging the doors ...You 'll be reminded of a steam engine...All speed and sound...Yeah, i even believe she lets out smoke through her ears...You can hoard a big basket of dirty dishes or a tubful of soiled clothes...Balamani is not one to be intimidated by such mere trifles...She will go through them with a vengeance and before you can say Jack Robinson, she is all done and gone...As my husband once remarked wryly,"you go take a pee and she is gone already"..like that lord"s test we lost to England..with a 42 all out...Just don"t look too closely at the dishes...anyway you would put them under tap again no?

As i said before,Balamani is an adoring mother of three kids...and brought them up single-handedly,...well....almost...since her husband was a lion...I mean, he is one fine fellow who chose to live life like a lion...Those of you who see N.G.C. channel know how a lion lives...He lazes around all day ,grooming, scratching, sleeping and is usually the first one to devour the food his lionesses hunt and offer at his feet...Only this one is no lion...a pussy cat, you could say...A timid, nervous man unsure of him self,..just happy to relinquish the reins to a more capable partner...She thinks he has psychic problems while on one or two times i have seen him, he struck me as quite a normal guy,..may be just a bit laid back in attitude...He is a tailor by vocation...actually managed to make it a vacation,for he worked only occasionally and obviously became the biggest woe of his wife....As the kids grew up into their most crucial formative years, his career graph went exactly inversely proportional...

It is not as if her husband ever drank or had other bad habits, Balamani used to confide in me as she snatched few moments rest between her afternoon chores...That was the time she could take a little breather as all the men are out of the house and she could indulge in a bit of gossip with the mistresses...She would burst into peals of laughter and admitted SHE was the one who took a drop every now and then..You see, ..when there are marriages, functions, and other ocassions...Here she becomes virtuous and promised she would drop the habit soon, as her kids are growing up and what would a daughter-in-law is going say?...I nod my head and remember how my father---who as i said earlier liked to have his evening drink---felt himself to be in sympathetic league with her, and never forgot to tip her every time he visited us and admonished her to save money.......to buy a quarter and not to go for cheaper iuml...

She would relax ,during those afternoons, sit back and outlaid her plans for future, not caring whether i listened to or not...She has a nephew at her husband"s place and declared that she would, marry her daughter off to him with two cents of land they owned there....After all that boy is studying engineering and is a good catch...When her sons come up and start earning, she is going to build a small house in the small plot she acquired some time back...

So.... i watched her all through these years as both my child and her"s grew up along....as she struggled ,skimped and saved to bring up three kids on the meagre wages she brought in,in an expensive city like Hyderabad.. In a way, i think it is even quite heartening to know that still people at all levels can survive in this city...She would preserve even the smallest amounts of leftovers and carried them home...Some how always made sure that her kids are dressed in good enough clothes...Took on odd jobs to add to her income..Invested in what she called as CHittis...(chitfunds i suppose) and by juggling things here and there managed to have gas stoves, grinders, t.v.even few gold trinkets which she brought in proudly , to her workplace to be inspected by her mistresses,...,put her daughter through the high school and computer cources...and managed to place her sons (they were no good in studies) in fairly good vocations...And most importantly,brought them up to be good, obedient kids...

And all this while, her husband remained just a spectator...His contribution to either the family kitty, or at least an assertive role in the house hold affairs was just nill or at the most a very feeble one...He sits at one corner of the house or goes out on pleasant walks around the locality ...I daresay Balamani must have been in the habit of giving him a dressing down now and then and berated him regularly... Why not?...Nobody would respect anyone who does not discharge his duties..It is not just a matter of money either ..For I have seen so many people,who though would not earn single paise got oodles of respect from family members...Perhaps it has got to do with how much one cares for his or her wards and how strong and assertive they are in character...

On the other hand,she spent a fair amount of her money on him whenever he fell ill or went away sulking ..He does that some time...goes off just like that...Then she and her eldest son go searching after him.......I remember how she fell into a heap crying and calling upon the gods to come to her rescue and find him...huh...don"t i know it?....She skipped work for three days once to go to warangal to find him and on return skipped another day to pay her vows at the Balkampet yellamma temple...:)

I watch and wonder at this state of circumstances........O.k..May be it IS blashemous to take Balamani"s name in the same breath with the great pathivrathas...But i can say surely that she could be called as a fraction of those great women who knew the meaning of love...For only love can make a man or woman to forgive and overlook faults in others and not anything else...no amount of brainwashing or tutoring can do that...

Mothers Of Sons

May be i am not a competent person to write on this topic, having no son to speak of...but i have watched so many pairs of mothers and sons at close quarters and have the advantage of being an impartial observer..i daresay.. Anyway i am not going to be too essayistic about it...It is just that ,having reared a girl (who Had been an obedient girl)..all our lives me and husband do feel rather shaken after observing some of "em at work...:) and have come to the conclusion that mothers of boys make Brave hearts and make even great philosophers too..

This fact realised on us pretty soon the moment i saw my sister placidly going on with her combing when my husband gave a shout, ran after and brought back Parikshith who was just then precariously bending over the door of a running train---ostensibly to peep at the outside scenery--.. Parikshith was eight,my sister"s second son, and we were returning from our trip to Shirdi,...The train entered the Hyderabad limits and was running through a cemetery when this happened...Husband and i were badly rattled and went rather fussy over the whole thing while his parents---my sister and her husband--- were unruffled..As said earlier, my sister went on to comb her hair and her husband casually remarked that since we were already going through the cemetery,it would not take too much bother if anything untoward happened...




My sister says that unless you adopt that take-it-easy attitude you will not go too far and will end up a nervous wreck if you worried over every small thing the boys did...small thing?.....Yeah...small things...Once Kashyap..(her first son)..chose to go along with the lorries that were taking the ganesh idols to Hussain sagar for immersion and returned home at nine -thirty in the night...He said he saw an acquaintance who invited him to join in the fun....all for a lark..He was eleven or twelve and ofcource forgot to inform parents of his little absence beforehand...When asked how she bore with this, my sister said ofcource she worried but since there was nothing she could do, learned to take it in her stride...

The most tiresome thing,they told me, was the cooking...especially in their growing up years...You boil pots and pots of food and it does not show even an inch on their bodies and they still whine and complain they are not getting enough...You bring home a dozen plantains and they don't last two days...You start making dosais and you have to keep at it till your hands ache.....And..what about the connoisseurs among them,who prefer hotel foods.?.. Once i observed a cousin who was fumbling in her purse and exasperatedly muttering something about "five rupees...always wants five rupees"...Since she was just then sending her son to college i asked her whether he wanted that amount to have tiffin..."NO.."..she said.." i have to pay that to make him eat at home"...I could not stop laughing..Obviously ,in mathri prema, she wanted to give him home-made food and the fellow demands five RS to eat it...


Sons are going to teach you to be philosophical..My sisters and cousins informed me..They open up your eyes to the vagaries and varieties of life...For example,they said,if you have two sons it is almost certain that one will never go out of the house and one can never be found inside the house..In fact one mother told me that she felt like a station master...You have to constantly mount guard over who "s coming and who"s leaving....Again,one son has has troops of friends and one has no more than a few....Once i went to my sister"s house and saw that it was full of Kashyap"s friends lounging,eating,at the system....O.K..that was no surprise...But when i looked around Kash himself was missing...My sis informed me HE was at another friend"s house......




They...the mothers..live in a happy state of perpetual uncertainty...You never know what is going to happen the next minute..Do not even know what to expect at the dinner table..for the son may come in with a bunch of ravenously hungry friends any time and expect you to provide food at short notice...Or he would call up and say he was eating out and you"d better not lock the doors...He may suddenly drop out of a planned trip when you are all done and ready to call for the taxi...I know it happened...Hyma and family were on the verge of calling for a taxi to railway station ---to go to Thirupathi---- and Parikshith announced he could not make it...His friend called just then and said there would be classes...My sister did not bat an eyelid and with the ease of a HR manager passed on instructions.."O.K..take out your clothes from the separate suitcase ---(did she anticipate this?)---Stay at peddamma"s house"....Or he may put a silent bomb under your feet and say he is not liking his job at the moment and thinking of leaving it and yes ..in fact left it...

And all this when you are finally at peace,, thinking of finding a match for him... Yes..I knew a boy who came in with a grave face to complain to his mom one fine day that was just about it...he was fed up with his work, thinking of going for great open spaces and explore the world and the very next day informed her that he was now thinking of getting married to a girl he met online whom he had never seen...I did not know what she exactly said,but i salute the poor mother for having gone through the scares and lived to tell the tale......

The worst part,apparently was refereeing between the warring males of the family...and that includes the bigger boy--the father---Ofcource the sons never lift a finger in the day to day chores..(a norm these days).and usually the man of the house --poor fellow--does it all himself,with or without grumbling...But sometimes a situation comes when the interests clash and the mother becomes the punchbag...yeah....i can already hear voices saying..."she is no punchbag...Always sides with her sons".. I remember the plight of a cousin who had to oscillate between a son who insisted he was ill and needed her attention and her fifty -eight year old hubby who demanded she accompany him on tour...

As my cousin"s son said to his mother who was persuading him to study well and work harder.."it"s no use,.Janaki...Try to spend another hour before God.."...:)


The only little bonus in having sons, I have often observed is that the mothers of sons tend to dress well and neatly ,up to date with fashion......might be because they do not get to be reminded of their age with the presence of younger girls on the scene...I know...as all mothers of girls do too well.....and they do not have to carry baggage in journeys....,.

While this is all in good fun,one word here about the worries of the mothers would not be amiss...I would love to recount an experience of a sister ...She went to her son"s class teacher,concerned about his poor academic performance...The teacher apparently told her "madam,do not get worried..he can cope up anytime...but he is a good fellow and believe me...I "ve seen so many of them..count yourself lucky for that"... I think that about sums up what i want to say...

Another chief worry was about the relationships and the repurcussions that are going to affect them in their most crucial periods and struggling years...I saw a cousin of mine worrying over a possible relationship unfolding with a son of hers and tried to console her...She said she was "nt concerned over whether it comes off or not but was scared it might spoil his education...I mean...the world being as bad as it is, the vulnerable kids would get hurt a great deal more or as much as a girl too...

Let"s hope that no mother"s heart burns and the kids (boys and girls too) do not spoil their golden futures and may they all flourish..

inspirations?

Recently i was watching a children"s singing competition on telly and was wondering on just how talented today"s kids are..Are..They are up to every trick in the trade...Keeping to sruthi and beat much better than some of the judges who are sitting there,...they are singing most difficult of the numbers...i mean where originally the records have been made with umpteen rehearsals and track mixings and what not...

But what i want to mention here is about one number from the movie Aadavalla maatalaku arthale verule----.We saw the film, and at that time i was vaguely aware --(you,see, i am not one of those multi talented whizz kids who can do thousand things at a time..when i am told to watch a movie, i watch it)-- that the number EVAINDI EE VELA?, and background score was real good..though the picturisation did not look too hot...When i saw a boy singing it on the show,some how it caught on me and i realised it was a very melodious number and also ..reminding me faintly of an earlier number i could not quite place ...

These days more and more numbers are sounding just like this and i heard music directors are calling them as "inspired music---obviously...No..i am not insinuating anything..After all there are only 72 melakartha ragas and seven notes..On the other hand , i really appreciate the novelty these people bring to the older versions and developing on the tunes...I thought the "voni kattina deepavali"from Pandem kodi sounded almost similar to the Mannade"s Dil ka bhawar kare pukar..pyar ka raag suno re"...So also were Sivaji"s "sahana",.."mayilarage" from "ah AAh...and premanna nuvve from Manmadhudu...I kept wondering where i have heard them..

O.k...Well...and ...good..May be the human race has reached a saturation point in creativity in music and there is now nothing more to be invented ..I am not complaining..for i did like the orchestration they weave around the original tunes...and that is no less a mean task..

Chocolates Good For Health?

Yesterday we went to my sister"s house,on our weekly get togethers, and caught Pradhith munching on chocolates with obvious gusto...He even managed to mumble between the mouthfuls that he read somewhere that they are good for heart and must be consumed at least once a week, if we want to keep that dreadful attack away..Now..is that right? ...could somebody inform me?...Looks like i have found my answer to my husband"s accusing looks whenever he catches me with one of the heavenly toffees..."hey..just what the doc has ordered...

Aaah; Yeh cheez badi musth musth

When i was writing my last post, i had a compulsion to write about this word Musth..but refrained because it was not really relevant to the main story (.may be remotely...if at all.)..and feared it would have taken the emphasis out of the main character.....But now, i must...

It tickles me...The word Musth...It must have been an urdu word...Literally means INTOXICATING..as an adjective ..and as a noun in particular cases like the person in my last post....Usually , you can call a heavily inebriated man as being in a state of musth...It is that pinnacle of mindset,semi consciousness, where a man..or a woman, as the case may be....lose their faculties , inhibitions, senses and ultimately themselves in the clouded mists of vapours of the intoxicant..Whew...How i tied myself into knots in trying to put it into words.......

Kenneth Anderson describes Musth as a periodic ailment that affects male elephants from time to time..akin to sexual excitement....During this stage ,a fluid oozes from their eyes and they become a menace to everything on legs...They become insane and resort to violence...often tramping on anything on hand to pulp...He warns that jungles are usually safer than many cities and metros...only watch out for three things...an elephant in musth, a cubbing tigress, and ofcource mating big cats....Don"t ever go near them and lord help if you ever do...

Common though is the MUSTH of drinks and opiums,and their after effects, now , i want to talk about the range of the word musth in sufi or bhakthi philosophy...for..the highest state of philosophical enlightenment and devotion is nothing short or even lenghthier than the other musths..And no languaze sang it better than urdu.... In fact, once you understand that devotion is nothing more than love towards God...even the sleaziest of lyrics sound like sookthi mukthavali...Just read this one..The famous hide and seek song from Jawaani Diwani....


jaan-e jaan
doondhtaa phir rahan
ghoomoom mein raat din
mein yahaan se wahaan
mujh ko aawaaz do chup gaye o sanam tum kahaan?
mein yahaan

The distraught lover, pained by the non -appearance of his Mashooq is roaming across the land...seeking his beloved hither and thither in frenzied quest..---just as the seekers and mystics run after the ultimate truth...pleading with him to answer...


o mere humsafar
pyar ke raah par
saath chale hum magar
kyaan khabar?

they are lamenting how tortoured are these ramblings...

Rasthe mein kahin
khogaye humnasheen


we were united at first, but lost contact midway...

The mashooq-in this case, -god, replies playfully

Haath mein ho bus aisi hi
chod kar chal diye

Why did you leave my hand when i was accompanying you so faithfully?

pas ho tum khade
mere dil mein chupe
aur mujhe kuch pathaa naa chale

ultimately the lover is found out..in his own heart..not hidden anywhere else...He is wondering how he did not ever look inside.....To which, the lover replies rather meaningfully

dil me dekha nahin
dekha sara jahaan

or this song from phool aur kaante

door tumse rahoon tho hon bechainiyan
pas aaoo tho badhthee hai betaabiyaan
ho na jaaye kabhi tu mujh se judaa
ho na jaaye kabhi tu mujh se judaa
ye dil tere liye hi machaltha hai
tum se milne ko dil kartha hai
tum hon woh jis pe dil martaa hai


Once , he tasted this musthi,he is not willing to let go of it..and craves the union forever...

jab se tum se shuroon yeh kahaani huyi
log kehthe hai ke main tho deewanee huyi
jaane kyaa baat aisi hai tujh mein sanam
jaane kyaan bat aisi hai tujh mein sanam

He is lamenting that people are now calling him insane...Oh..What was it in you that makes me this mad?

See..how the rather commonplace lyrics of a b-rated movie are going straight to heart?..

In Hinduism, this kind of love is called mathura bhakthi and is generally confined mostly to vaishnava saampradayam....krishna and his gopikas and the legend of Goda,...meera..It reached it"s best expression in the gopika geethas and bhramara geethas of Pothana in andhra bhagavatham

nee charana yugmambu channula meeda mopi
badha harimpu varimpu Madhava

kitiyeie kougita cherchenu
vatudye vardhilli koliche
vadi krishnundye itu padachinhambulide
krindati bamunanemi nochithamma dharithri

The gopis have lost their siggu, lajja, abandoned husbands,and lactating babies in an unabashed pursuit of the lord in thousand ways..as they went through the all stages of love..the seduction, pursuit, viraham, doubts and jealousies,

Alternately the lord is loved upon as a master,friend,parent,and child too,with an intense abandon as the devotees got ready to renounce families,friends,and the self in a no holds barred display of bravado..for this exacting lover who demands complete surrender..
So.?what is the secret of this musth ?

The Musth

When we were kids,...--even till 73 n 74--, a trampish sort of man used to go around in Bandar ,begging for food...May be still some people can remember him for he was quite a mysterious character...A frail looking man, emaciated from want,he used to carry a biig bundle of rags on his back... yes..rags...no diamonds or currency hidden in folds...They were just rags as one can easily see through.......I always wondered why he carried this additional burden...We, kids were simultaneously fascinated and frightened with this person"s Dickensian appearance-(-he did exactly look like the sketches of villains in Dickens"s novels---dark,smeared with mud,and serious---)I never saw him smile..

Some said he was insane...A bandaru pichadu..Our cook, satyanarayana used to say such people are called MUSTHS..a kind of leftist spiritual seekers...People who have given up the mundane world and sought god by leading a lonely life as mendicants... When he was not on streets, he stayed at the backside of the Gangaanamma gudi at the Thadepalli vari satram..resting with his sooty backpack..in sun ,in the rains of a bandar storms and cold...

Whenever he arrived at our doorstep,i ran in and brought almost pavu seru measure of rice and gave it to him...all the while trembling with fear...He used to accept it with an inscrutable face and move off...

Once, when i was out of station, it seems he arrived at our door and begged for alms..It was a busy time and my people told him to move off...Then ,strangely, he said that he came in to see the little girl who gave him alms and not for food...My people smiled over this and did give him something after all but i was pleasantly surprised when i came to know this...

Some time later i heard that he was found murdered near the backside of the ganganamma gudi where he usually stayed ..by unknown assailants...I still keep remembering him...

The Day I Saw God

May be the title should read as the evening.....For it was on an evening....one june evening in 1969 to be precise..when i saw the mother for first time in Jillellamudi..

I was about to celebrate my twelfth birthday soon...and enjoying my summer holidays at that time in Guntur, with my favourite cousins...and was supposed to join my parents later,when they travel to Penukonda (ananthapurDt) as dad was transferred there...But still there was lot of time before that and as i said before, i was having a whale of time in Guntur....

I hazily remember that there had been a lot of talk in the house about taking a trip to Jillellamudi (uncle and aunt are related to the mother).. though it never seemed to materialize.. and ofcource we kids never bothered...But one day Apparao mamayyagaru and Sarusatha called for a taxi and we were bundled in to it and started for the two hour long trip to Jillellamudi......I could remember how we got inordinately delayed, right at the Radhakrishna theater over some mechanical trouble...I think we waited for nearly one and half hrs before the car could start, and reached jillellamudi at about four or five in the evening...

In those days...Why? even now jillellamudi was such a peaceful place but going to it was tortuous.....Those seven miles from Bapatla seemed to be like seven hills ..the roads were that bad... We turned right, at the seventh milestone and motored in along the two or odd kilometers to jillellamudi, across the naked fields that had already been harvested and waiting for the first rains... we reached the big building that was called Adaranaalayam..I curiously watched as my aunt and uncle relaxed, talking to the few of their relatives, and other followers there...I think we were taken to Hymalayam too..before going up to the tiny penthouse on the third story of the building to see mother..

We were ushered in to a small room...and i could not describe the silence in there...It was a tense...exciting...throbbing kind of silence..as if the breathing is put on a hold....Not the drab, soundless gloomy silence..forgive me for being unable to put the feeling in to words...Mother sat on her bed...Visitors went up , bowed at her feet and sat back...I too sat back with my cousins and watched her...Dressed in an olive green silk sari with a red border, looking on with a calm face..she was a spell binding personality... I mean...put her in any place on this world ,without all this building up of the atmosphere,.. and still everyone would be staring at her...Though, personally she was not bothered and received people naturally..If they are known to her, she would give a happy smile and greet..Many strangers used to come to see her..and she would give them a considerate look...and was ready to talk if they so desired..

When you meet a stranger, you could look in to their eyes and know and read whatever the language they speak...usually it is impersonal..sometimes curious,sometimes indifferent,interested.annoyed, admiring,wondering,hating according to case......But when mother looked at you ,you can hardly read anything. of that sort...It was as if you are not a stranger..as if she knew you...She looked at you once or twice and carried on with other things.

On that evening someone presented her with a basket of ripe mangoes and she called in everybody present and gave a fruit to each one..I myself received one..later in the evening, she retired to the lovely open terraces of the building and all of us gathered around her bed and she sat talking to the few people ..

We spent nearly ten days there,..and i am sorry to say, we kids were immersed in ourselves playing, fighting, and chatting...We hardly paid any attention to the mother....Ofcource at all times we used to go and have darshan and even sat with her for sometime, and thought highly of her..But the age being such we concentrated more on games than on anything else..that it surprised me myself very much when, on the last day of our trip,as we sat before her and the fact suddenly realised on me that i may not see mother again once i go away...a slight feeling of sorrow started nibbling me and just then mother beckoned me to come to her...She used to have an uncanny sense of knowing other"s feelings...I went up and -did"nt know why- ,began crying..and really cried my heart out...Mother took me into her arms and soothed me affectionately...Oh.The sheer grace and game of lord....Why should i cry to part with a distantly related woman? and why should she, a rather busy woman, take some silly young girl to her heart and console her?...

Thus began a long relationship.....It saw some highs and lows, some offs and ons, some tantrums, -entirely on my part-,when i thought she was not caring for me,.. when something did not happen to my taste,---So,just because you believe in god he is bound to do as you bid?.--- but she always stood by me steadfast,showering her grace...it passed all those stages...and now if you asked me to show god i would be able to...

some links on mother
http://www.motherofall.org/
http://www.viswajanani.org/index.htm