The friend who I almost didn't make, thanks to my bookish ways!

I knew her in real life, but had no idea I did.

I discovered Sangitha Krishnamurthi's blog through another blogger friend, Choxbox. For many, many months, I would visit her blog, read, and be inspired. Here was a person who loved books, and wrote about so many interesting things - things I probably would not have mused on had it not been for my having read about them here. Special children. Adoption. Rights of the marginalized. And much more. I would read, but rarely comment. I didn't know enough of the things she spoke about. I didn't, also, know how my comments would be taken. I was fairly new to the blogworld, focusing more on my beloved books and the reviewing of them.

Now, she had a pup, Loopy, who had some health problems, and she wanted to find a good vet - her then vet not measuring up to expectations. I extended a very hesitant hand - I knew of a friend who had recently spoken of her dog's vet in glowing terms. What followed was a proper comedy of errors that is worth reading, one that has led to a lasting friendship.

But the best was yet to come. We decided to meet up at her place. 'We' were Choxbox, Starry (both of whom I knew well personally), Sangi, and myself. Plus all the kids. Choxbox had told me that Sangi's kids went to the same school as ours, but I could not for the life of me place her. Both she and I were super curious about each other's identity, and were really looking forward to meeting up. When I went there, I was stunned. This was a lady with whom I had stood outside the school all through the past few years, waiting for our kids. We had spoken a few times, but never really got into a conversation, mostly because I would be there with my nose in a book! She, too, had wondered about me. Since she had heard about me from Choxbox, she had narrowed down her conjectures to two of the school mothers - both of us, actually, already Choxbox's friends.

I am infinitely thankful for having her in my life. She is the most generous person I have ever known, giving generously of her time, energy, attention, presence, also of anything material. (Books!) She has kept me on my toes when I slip up, become lax about things, my writing included. I think of a karmayogi whenever I read the stuff she writes - do, without bothering about the returns. Be honest in your efforts. The rewards could come to in most unexpected ways.

She has always been with me since - celebrating all my ups with me, holding my hand through all my downs, standing by me whenever I needed, giving generously of her time and energy, caring about what happens in my life, but always showing me the mirror. Telling me as it is.

Which is what friendship is all about, I suppose.

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This is my entry for the Pay it Forward Blogathon on Women's Web.

Book Review: It's All The Same!

You read a book. Then you go and watch the movie made on the book. You find small and big places where the movie has deviated from the original.

It may be as large a deviation as having inserted a whole new subplot or scene. Think the scene in HP and The Half-Blood Prince where the Death Eaters come en masse and create havoc at the Burrow, the Weaselys' home or the change in the reason why the Death Eaters realise who the real Harry is in the opening sequence of Deathly Hallows 1. (Yes, that is a large deviation in my eyes- I can be a purist that way!)

It can be a small deviation like having a trim-slim protagonist in the movie version of Louis Sachar's Holes versus the plump, podgy one in the book - a wonderfully made movie - one movie which certainly improved on the book - a difficult feat indeed!

The point is, that it a reader's/ viewer's understanding and memory of the story depends on the version they have imbibed, and thus starts the metamorphosis of the original story - happens with the writer, too, doesn't it, with each subsequent draft?

It is these versions that we are celebrating - Tulika Books had recently held a Celebrating Our Myths blogathon, in which I was declared one of the winners. My prize - this book.

Folktales and mythology. There are as many versions as the cultures that tell a particular story. Every storyteller worth their salt adds embellishments to it- some of which get incorporated in further generations. A sort of branching out in oral tradition. So the same story at the root may spawn many culturally different variations.

pic courtesy matsyacrafts

Here is a book that focuses on this very aspect of storytelling, with the help of the kaavad. I have seen one of these amazing contraptions at Artnavy's home. It is a fold-able picture book of sorts, that can be used to tell the story. The storytellers, called the Kaavadiya Bhaats, unravel the story from the seemingly intricately folded kaavad. This is a storytelling tradition that is still alive in the villages of Rajasthan.

pic courtesy tulikabooks

It's All The Same!
Written by Nina Sabnani
Illustrated by Satyanarayan Suthaar
Published by Tulika books
Ages 5+

Pappuram and Kojaram are both Kaavadiya Bhaats who go from place to place telling stories with the help of their colourful kaavads. Both tell the story of why Ganesha is worshipped before any other gods or goddesses. Both the stories take completely different paths. Both stories begin with Shiva and Parvati, Ganesha's parents. Where one version speaks their two sons, the other has a disgruntled Rama being prevented from reaching his own wedding.

What happens next? How do such completely different trajectories reach the same conclusion? Read it in our book, It's All The Same- for, at the end, it all is.

The illustrations by Satyanarayan Suthaar, a kaavadiya himself, are in rich detail, full colour, in the tradition of the kaavads, as is obvious from the two pictures here. Check out this video of the making of this book - watch the two kaavadiyas in action.


    

Abhijnaanashakuntalam: Truth & Lies

Mythological stories and folktales that have been around since ancient times are constantly evolving. They are a part of our oral storytelling tradition, and every storyteller tells it differently, infusing it with the cultural milieu, social and religious practices and his/her own world-view. This means that the same stories necessarily change over times and geographies, even if infinitesimally every time. This, for eg., accounts for vast differences between the Ramayana of Valmiki, the Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas and the Indonesian version which has been derived from the Kamba Ramayanam of South India taken there by people who migrated there in the 8th century AD from Srilanka.

A notable example of different tellings of a mythological story is that of Shakuntala. Any self-respecting book reader will swear by the story immortalised by Kalidasa in his Abhijnaanashakuntalam. Shakuntala’s existence is forgotten by Dushyant on account of a curse by Durvasa rishi as she had been daydreaming about her husband when she should have been hastening to attend to Durvasa who is a guest. When she pleads with the seer to take back his curse, he tells her that if she can produce a token given by her husband in front of him, he would remember her. Then follows the whole story of the loss of the ring (careless woman!) and the serendipitous producing of it by the fisherfolk in the court after Dushyant has denied recognising Shakuntala as his wife in public.

I, too, believed in this version of the Shakuntalam till quite recently. The genius of Kalidasa and the beauty of his rendering ensured that the world believed it to be the real version. Far from it. It was merely the more popular version, that even little children learn (unfortunately!), thanks mainly to ACKs.

pic courtesy flipkart

It was quite recently, that I came across Women of the Mahabharata: The Question of Truth. Its author, Chaturvedi Badrinath, is a scholar on the Mahabharata who has won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2010 for his books on the epic.

In his book, he speaks about the various women characters in the epic, known and relatively unknown. The chapter on Shakuntala made me sit up and take notice of the fact that Kalidasa had redefined the term ‘poetic licence’ drastically. Searching more for the original version, I found it again in Ashok Banker’s The Forest of Stories and a few online versions of the truth like this one.

In the original, there is no Durvasa-Ring episode. When Dushyanta disowns Shakuntala publicly, she berates him, and teaches him a few essential things about the Truth and Dharma. In the process, she comes across as intelligent, dignified and resourceful even under the grief of her husband’s denial of their marriage. Dushyant comes across as weak-willed coward, who was more worried about his image if he admitted to an impulsive marriage in a faraway hermitage. Of course, as it is mythology, he ‘accepts’ her after a convenient akashvani proclaims Shakuntala to be telling the truth!  

Kalidasa’s Abhijnaanashakuntalam is a beautifully written love story. However, he had adapted the original tale of Shakuntala, infusing it with the beliefs and social mores of the times: the 4th century AD. The status of women was at a low as a direct result of the Manusmriti written a few centuries earlier. And of course, the hero of a romantic tale could do no wrong. How is Dushyanta to be blamed for his behaviour if he was a victim to a curse? In this, Kalidasa's genius has done women a disservice, as following generations have till today believed in his version rather than the original. Unfortunately, this is something that will shadow many such originals, as Sanskrit no longer remains a living language, and there will be fewer people who can study our original works.

This is my entry for Tulika's "Celebrating Our Myths" blogfest. 

A delicious prize!

So I've won! And the prize is delicious. It is The Sweetest Mango.

Yes, yes, I know it is currently the mango season and all that, but this one, though closely related to those mangoes, is a bit different. I recently participated in a blogathon held by Tulika books on mangoes and my post was declared one of the winning entries. My prize :  A copy of this book.

Pic courtesy tulikabooks.com

The Sweetest Mango
Written by Malavika Shetty
Illustrated by Ajanta Guhathakurta
Published by Tulika books
Ages 5+

Do you remember that when you were a child, you probably had a very close buddy (a friend or a sibling) who you hung out with, with whom you shared every little secret, and who was your partner-in-crime for all the mischief that you got into? With whom you shared absolutely everything?

But sometimes you had something really tasty. You hoarded it, hid it from everybody, even your closest buddy and ate it bit by bit, all by yourself? Didn't want to share it with ANYONE?

I would do that. My mother would give me some guL-shengdaNe (jaggery and peanuts - a really yummy combination that I loved. You split open the peanut, and stuffed some jaggery between the halves, and then popped it into your mouth. Yum!) and I would be loath to share it with anyone. I would keep it in a box in a secret place, and eat it surreptiously throughout the day, making it really last. I was reminded of that as I read this book.

Suma is a little girl who loves mangoes in any form. There was, of course, the delicious, juicy fruit, but there were also the pickles and curries made at home that she relished.

Now, Suma has a bosom buddy, Jyothi. The two girls were neighbours in a village near Udupi, a coastal town on the mango belt near the western coast of India. The village had many mango and coconut trees, and there were some around their houses. Summer meant a surfeit of mangoes, and of course, they had to be got by climbing the trees, and eaten freshly picked from the branches.

There was a particular mango tree, the mundappa mango, that grew behind Suma's house. It grew huge, round and sweet mangoes. One day, Suma spots a really big specimen, bigger than a coconut.

'But it was still raw, and it would be a few days before it ripened to sweetness. 
Suma couldn't wait to eat it. "I won't tell Jyothi," she thought. "I'll eat it all by myself."

So what happens next? How does she get through the few days of waiting? Does she get to eat it? All by herself? What about Jyothi?

A book about the joys of friendship, and the carefree innocence of childhood. A drool-worthy book, with warm, summery illustrations by Ajantha Guhathakurtha matching the yumminess of the text.

A read the book within ten minutes of its arrival at home, and was smiling as she finished it. I suppose she, too, was thinking of the way she is often loath to share some of the goodies she gets from her grandparents' place when we visit. And how we sometimes enjoy them better when shared!

Crossposted at Saffrontree.

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A word about the mundappa mango. It is a variety that I have not heard of. I did a google-search for it, and came across this article from the Metro Plus section of the Mangalore edition. Quoting from it:
"The Mundappa has a distinctive taste and develops sweetness in its very early growing stage. Even when ripe, its colour will still be green, but a reddish tinge on the top indicates that the fruit is ready for consumption. If allowed to grow to its full size (some growers do) each Mundappa can weigh as much as 450-500 grams. Though they are a local variety, the fully-grown Mundappas arrive in the market only during mid-season."

Another article, this time a blog post from a farming blog, SundayFarmer, laments the gradual disappearance of local and wild varieties of the fruit due to a demand for the 'more marketable' varieties like the alphonso, totapuri, dasheri, etc. Quoting:
"‘Mundappa’ is another local variety that many people in Dakshina Kannada district would readily recall. Ayurveda specialist Dr K.S. Kamath, from Manchi village, says this variety originally came from the compound of a house on Dongarakery-New Chitra Theatre Road in Mangalore.
A red variant of this mango used to grow on three trees in the heart  Mangalore city until a few years ago. None of them can be found today as a posh shopping mall stands on that land. Ironically, the hypermarkets at that mall stock a range of hybrid mangoes, but the local red mundappa can no longer be had for love or money."

A mango locally grown and known in the western coastal mango belt around the Mangalore area, this, along with the many others which are just as or sometimes even more delicious than the commercially known variants, needs to be preserved and propogated for future generations.

A sad state of matters, indeed. Like the 'goti mango' that I remember from my childhood. A very small, very sweet variety that is not to be seen anywhere these days.

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Mango memories

Tulika books is holding a summer blogathon for mango lovers. Here is my entry.

Summer vacations meant a lot of things to me as a child, but most of all, it meant Mangoes with a capital M.

My native place was in a small, picturesque village, in central Maharashtra. Every year, cousins from wherever they were would zero in for a month or more of mango filled decadence. Our family owned a lot of land in the village, and there were jowar and bajra fields, peanut fields and mango orchards. Of course, for us children, it was the latter that mattered the most.

The fun began soon after reaching the village by ST as the State Transport buses were called. It was a very small place, too small to have a proper bus stand, but there was a clump of banyan trees on the tarred road that passed by the village. There, in the shade of that clump, was a 'paar,' a makeshift 'bus stand', if you could call it that. Transport to the homestead was on foot, by cycles, or on bullock carts. It was usually the bullock cart for us, as we would have luggage with us, too. Luggage, children and grown-ups (in that order) would be piled onto the carts, the adults sometimes preferring to walk along with the cart, happy to stretch their legs after the cramped journey in crowded buses.

Imagine. No motorised traffic. No pollution. A drive through mango orchards loaded with fruit, and past fields. An era much before mobile phones. The only sounds were the tinkle of bells on the bullocks, the clip-clopping of hoofs, the clickety-clack of wooden wheels. The chatter of people, the cry of the occasional baby, the hailing by someone known, working in the fields. The sound of birds, especially the koel, calling out incessantly from the trees, and the crows cawing at intervals. The gurgle of a brook running through the fields. The orchards were wonderful places for picncs that we children often went for. Cool in the shade of the sprawling trees, even at the height of summer. More than eating, we would be interested in throwing stones at the fruit to get it off the trees.

Before we knew it, we would be at the homestead. I keep calling it a homestead because it was a massive, sprawling structure that had seen many generations of my family, who were landowners in the village. There was a huge courtyard in the centre, around which the rest of the house was structured. The walls were thick, made of worn stone, with massive recesses set in, to be used as cupboards, or (as I then thought) cool niches just for us children to curl up in, on a hot day, preferably with something to much, or a pillow and a book.

Kesar mangoes
pic courtesy google images

Here, there were whole rooms that would be piled high with mangoes, sorted out by those that had fallen off the trees and those that had been plucked off them. Our orchards did not grow that king of mangoes, the alphonso, but something just as sweet- the kesar mango. This is a slightly elongated specimen, that never turns that delectable shade of reddish golden so prized in markets, but stays greenish yellow even when ripe. The taste for me, though, is unmatched as remembered from my childhood.

I don't remember ever having this fruit cut, in a plate/ bowl, in the usual civilised way. No. We would simply choose what we wanted from the pile, wash them summarily under the eagle eye of some grown-up, then settle down to devour. The fruit was first squeezed on all sides to make it squishy, then the top was taken off, and we would proceed to suck the pulp out. Mmmmm...heaven! The mangoes had a very small seed, and plenty of pulp, so some of our meals would consist only of a handful of mangoes, and then some- on the go. I remember my brother once swallowed a seed by mistake, and to this day we rib him about the mango tree that never grew out of him!

Of course with the surfeit of fruit, quite a lot was sorted out and sold in the surrounding towns. Most of the rest was preserved in rural methods, and the remaining was made short work of by eating. There were special meals cooked incorporating the mango- aamras-puri being my favourite. To make aamras for the entire clan, whoever could would sit around with huge brass vessels and sqeeze out the pulp. If the pulp had to be extracted to preserve it, women from the village would be called in for the day- sometimes days. They would, of course, be paid in kind for their work. No, I am not speaking of very long ago- this was about three decades ago, and a lot of things worked this way in rural areas then.

The pulp thus gathered in great brass vessels would be cooked to thicken it. Sugar would be added as a preservative and what we finally got was a thick mass that solidified on cooling. A lot of it would be spread out in brass platters or on banana leaves to dry in the shade. We call this 'aamba-poli'. The rest would be shaped into rough balls and cooled for a few hours in the shade and stored for future use. We called this 'aambyacha saatha.'

Freshly mixed pickle

Raw mango- a lot of it was processed into a variety of home made pickles to be used over the year. There was an interesting pickle made of the smaller raw mangoes- they were simply mixed with a large amount of the rough sea salt, not the table variety. This lasted much longer than the pickles in which oil had already been poured. So after the other pickles were over, this one was opened, the mangoes cut up and used as a mouth-watering addition to the rough rural diet of bhaji-bhakri (vegetables with jowar/bajra roti) and crushed green chillies.

Some of the raw mango that had sweetened a bit was made into a refreshing drink called 'aam-panha', which could be made fresh, or in a preserved form that surprisingly lasted for weeks inspite of no refrigeration. Let me share a modern version of this drink with you. One that is made every year at my home.

Take raw mangoes. Remove peel. Cut the flesh away from the seed. Cook in a microwave till tender in a vegetable steamer without immersing the pieces in water. Puree. Measure the puree. For every volume of puree, add 3.5 measures of sugar. Add some salt to taste. Blend till evenly mixed. Add elaichi powder / jeera powder / kesar for flavour. Store in glass jars. This can stay in the refrigerator for upto a year.

While serving, take a tablespoon for each glass, add water and ice, stir till mixed well. Enjoy!

Oh, for those unfettered times!

An Ode to Swings

Last week, we were visiting some friends, who had a big wooden swing at their place. It was a wide, wooden one, hung by metal links, in their drawing room. As soon as I could, I went and sat on it. It felt great. Took me back many years.

We had a similar swing at my parents' home when I was a child. We stayed in a bungalow, and the swing was the only thing in the large verandah overlooking the garden outside. I remember spending many afternoons on it. There was a friend who stayed in building opposite our house, (I don't remember her name now. I was all of 5-7 yrs old then.) and she would come over every evening to play. We would spend hours on the swing, pushing as high as we could, thinking up many imaginary places that it could take us to. I think I had started reading a lot of Enid Blyton books around this time. So the swing would take us to all those delicious lands at the top of the Faraway tree, or where the Wishing chair went, or to all the places we learnt about in geography. The swing would then transform into the bus or train or plane taking us there.

As I grew a little older, I would actually sit there reading my books or studying in peace. This swing was taken with us to our later house when we shifted into the main city area, and was there for a long time even after I had married and left. It is now no longer there, and the balcony where it was has been converted into a study area for my nephew.

As if to make up for the lack of this swing, my parents fixed a single basket seat swing in the house. This is in the main hall, where one can sit and just read, or close one's eyes listening to music, or watch the TV, or just enjoy the company of guests. I happened to be staying at my parents' house during the few months before and after A's birth. I would spend hours sitting there, as the seat offered the perfect support for my back, and the slight breeze created by the swinging movement would fan me to keep me cool during the summer heat of mumbai + scheduled power cuts that had begun in Mumbai that year + the extra heat that one feels due to pregnancy.

Even after A was born, I would sit in the swing with her on my lap/ in my arms, humming to her, and the gentle movement would lull her to sleep. Many a day, when she would not be calmed by anything else, the swing would always do the trick. Something that the husband could magically do here at home without the swing, but with some soothing music playing as he walked with her in his arms. Even now, A loves sitting in that swing, and it is the first thing she does when we go there- climbs up into the swing and settles down.

Image Courtesy lone-star.net

At our native village, there was a very old stone house where we had swings made of rope tied to the horizontal wooden beams in the ceiling. These were made of double ropes with a thich sheet of sacking tucked in for a seat, with sometimes a pillow on it for extra comfort. These were found indoors as well as out of doors, tied on thick horizontal branches of very old mango/ banyan trees. I have a mental image of myself swinging on one of these swings, pushing higher and higher, with the sun shining down through the branches and leaves of the tree the swing was tied to, and, of all things, a calf tied to a post nearby. I do not now remember how old I was, or who I had with me, but I can safely say that I remember having a lot of fun.

Sometimes, when A plays on the swing in our complex, and goes higher and higher, with her hair in plaits streaming behind her, a smile of utter delight on her face, I am transported back to those carefree, innocent times. Oh, to be a child with not a care! I have sometimes sat on this swing myself, but didn't dare to swing very high, as these are not meant to take as much weight as mine.

Recently, I had reason to go to a farmhouse where A's friend AM had her birthday party. They have a swing seat there, and it felf great to go up in the air again. Since there were a lot of kids running around, and I was an 'aunty', I didn't hog it for long, but we had been there once before, and had swung on it to my heart's content.

There is a wrought iron swing seat in the clubhouse area of the complex I live in. It is a favourite place, where I sit almost every day whilst A plays with her friends in the evening. I sit there with my book, mostly oblivious to the hubbub around me as kids of all ages rush around on cycles, or just run around, mothers stand around catching up socially while looking out for their offspring or the older ladies sit around on the benches placed strategically. But that swing is 'my seat', as even the children around know. If any of them are sitting on it when I approach, book, spectacle case and phone in hand, they immediately move away to make place for me.

The swing is an old one, and recently there has been a proposal to remove it and replace it with a bench so that there is some more place for the older ladies, who do not seem to be comfortable with the sense of motion sickness it might be giving them. Somehow, I never suffered from motion sickness on a swing, and this last one where I may sit on a regular basis will also soon disappear. I have often felt the need for a swing in the house, but somehow it never materialised.

I am reminded of this lovely poem by Robert Louis Stevenson. From A Child's Garden Of Verses.

Image Courtesy Amazon

How do you like to go up in a swing,

Up in the air so blue?

Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing

Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,

Till I can see so wide,

River and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside--

Till I look down on the garden green,

Down on the roof so brown--

Up in the air I go flying again,

Up in the air and down!

This post is my entry for Tulika Books' blogathon 5. It is a collage-y post on swings.