Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from June, 2011

The Silent Companion

My mother was the only person in the family who could and would tolerate P . The rest of us would acknowledge his presence and then, go about our ways. P , in his early 20s then, belonged to my parents' hometown near Kasargod. He had come to B'lore in search of employment. He ended up as a peddler - of different products at different times. If it was pure honey at one time, it was banana chips, kokum products, tickets to cultural events (that nobody would attend),.... at other times. Since he would refuse to leave until she bought, my mother ended up being P 's permanent customer :( It was when P was selling leather bags that my mother bought this brown bag. I thought that it looked more like a bus conductor's bag than a college girl's! And so, for a long time, the bag stayed in a corner, unused. I don't remember when & why I used the bag for the first time, but, once I discovered the convenience of the multi compartments, the bag became my perma

TambuLi thoughts

TambuLi is a side dish - unique to the cuisine of certain communities in Karnataka. It is very easy to prepare and is believed to be a digestive restorative. All tambuLi s follow a similar recipe - grinding some part of a plant (main ingredient) with coconut. Adding salt & buttermilk completes the cooking. It is a bland dish and chilli/ pepper, if used, is more for the aroma than for the spiciness. Depending on the main ingredient, one either boils the tambuLi or serves it cold. Seasoning is optional. When it comes to whipping a tambuLi out of any plant on earth, the prize must undoubtedly go to the women of the Havyaka community - I mean the women of a bygone generation, of course! The tambuLi range is so vast that the main ingredient could be anything from fresh ginger to dried amla to pickled lime, mango,... to tender leaves of the guava, pomegranate,... to mature leaves of herbs like Brahmi , Doddapatre ,... to dried rinds of orange, pomegranate,.... Phew !! Take thi

The First Novel

If a kid pesters you with 'Say sorry', you can be very sure that he/she will retort with something that rhymes with 'sorry'. If the kid is from Mangalore, the retort is sure to be ' Hampankatte Byaari ' ( Elsewhere in K'taka, the retort will be 'One plate poori ' ) ! Hampankatta (katte in local lingo) has been one of M'lore's business localities for centuries. Byaari is the local Muslim tradesman...a descendant of the 12th-13th century Middle East trader who settled down. This bit of nonsense - ' Sorry....Hampankatte Byaari ' - comes to me every time I pass by Hampankatta! And, that hot afternoon in May was no different. Thinking of HB & other things, I was walking down the main street. Huge buildings on either side of the road had barred Mr.Sunshine... making the whole experience of walking on a summer afternoon very eerie! Suddenly, this very attractive cover on a book-shop window caught my attention. Durgesh Nandini