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....

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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...

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"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.....



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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....

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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.....
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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
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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...

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"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...