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.....