r2i forum

Memories of my parent's native place is close to my heart and I think it's due to the natural affinity towards our carefree childhood; I feel this sentiment isn't unusual for many and it's natural to feel this emotion in our lives once in a while if not frequently.

Our dad earned his bread away from his native place in his youth and considered Mumbai his working home till his end. But due to our mom's insistence, our childhood and culture were strongly influenced by their roots associating us mostly with culture in coastal Karnataka. My blog is dedicated to bring out some of the regional delicacies, coastal specific folk arts with occasional backdrop of the dilemma faced by my parents as immigrants in Mumbai to retain some of the coastal Karnataka culture or to blend in the local culture.

While talking to my sibling over phone during our weekly ubhaya kushalopari(chat to ask each other's live's well being), I casually asked what was for breakfast and when told, it was 'Ganji'(rice porridge) being dwadashi (day after ekadashi, the fasting day my sibling still keeps),my mind wandered to the childhood spent in summer vacations. Ganji cooked over 5 burner gas cooking range here or anywhere would never taste the same : )

Every year during summer (till we became teenagers and when we started resisting such trips on the pretense of catching up with studies next year though the real reason was missing school friends and getting apprehended that we might miss some of their fun), Mom took us to spend 4-6 weeks of vacation in Dakshina Kannada. Both my parent's native places were in suburbs of Mangalore and Udupi. It was just one big Dakshina Kannada district then.

Mom would fill her calendar with near to distant relative's weddings/thread ceremonies/Shasti (60th year) celebrations to attend, Samaradhanes/Santarpanes(normal functions for some gods) plus some tithi/shraddha (yearly rituals for celebrating death anniversaries of departed ones which bored us to death but it was nice backdrop for her to catch up with what all gossip she had missed in a year) to attend, planning endlessly what to take and what to bring back. Bombay Rava (Sooji) as well as Bombay halva were hot commodity to take as the sooji in Mangalore/Udupi shops weren't considered good for making Upama plus only Halva was considered a sweet that was worth bringing from Bombay; Clothes were considered to be quite essential gifts to shop as well as Bombay fashion was considered novelty; Mom used to buy cheap roadside supposedly latest fashion accessories to give to female cousins as any items from Bombay were revered by people in those suburban towns (even though we from Bombay used to feel inferior in front of stylishly dressed Mangalore gals : ) was a different matter). Dad would accompany us only for the first week, so naturally we would stay at his side of the family first. My paternal grandma (Grandpas from either side had expired before we kids were born) would prepare rare delicacies and normal breakfast of Normal tatte(plate) Idli/Kotte Kadabu(Idli batter poured in leafy containers and steamed) , Neer Dose (Thin crepes of Dosa), Ottu Semige (rice vermicelli prepared in conventional way by pressing steamed rice balls)and there was another laborious dish called Pundigatti (another rice/coconut dish which I never understood for it's laborious procedure to be considered as breakfast item) till my father stayed. Once he left, it would be mainly Ganji(except on Thursday/Saturday as any Rice based breakfast was considered to be mailige (not pure for God's liking : )) in her view those days and would be replaced by different kinds of Bajil( Thick Poha, Thin Poha, Soaked Poha and many other kind even though poha was also a specially made rice flake :) ;we were ignorant of this tidbit then and even if we knew, I am sure we would not have been allowed to rub on her belief : ))

This'Ganji' oota with appe midi uppala/uppinakayi (appe midi is a small raw mango available in coastal karnataka marinated in salt in a special procedure to keep it safe and uncontaminated and then made as pickle with normal redchilli powder/methi/Hing) served with generous dose of ghee was everyday breakfast till we left and for some reason, we could never get bored of this as the memory still brings water in my mouth : ); Ganji was cooked using parboiled rice called kochilakki (unpolished red rice) cooked in a small hande (thick copper bottomed vessel) in conventional 3 stone fire in slow fire for over 2 hours with sufficient water to serve when it was served. It had the special taste eaten with just ghee/pinch of salt, or with appe-midi pickle or sometimes eaten with curd/butter-milk. In a day with nothing much to do, this ganji oota used to keep us full till lunch : ). Grandma would occasionally serve Ganji with some Padartha(some vegetable curry) sometimes if it was already cooked by breakfast time or if we were scheduled to go to city (for some function in city/temple) after breakfast. When I was a young kid, I always admired her estimating capacity as the quantity was always sufficient but right ;if we ate more than we normally would, she accommodated that extra demand as she never served less to gadde (field) workers to be served along with us.

After a week of Dad's departure, Mom would start getting restless as she wanted to spend time at her mother's place;we would have visited maternal grandma couple of times (when dad was present) but night stay would be limited to dad's house. Some excuses that Maternal grandma was not keeping well or was requesting mom's presence for some special function etc would be conveyed directly and indirectly repeatedly over the course of a week and even though paternal grandma didn't believe mom's excuses and thought it as conspiracy to take away the grandkids so soon but she would also not stop us from leaving.Plus the other kids crowd to give us company was less than paternal grandma's house, so we usually endorsed Mom's gestures that we should leave within a week of Dad's departure.

Maternal grandma's place had same eating ritual repeated with almost similar routine for breakfast, lunch and dinner but with Mom taking extra pride in serving : ) any of Maternal grandma's dishes made this place more special. This grandma had lot of jack fruit (halasina hannu) and mango trees in her compound and summer was the season for it. Sometimes, it would be jack fruit kadabu(steamed jackfruit idli made on plantain leaf), jack fruit appa (sort of fried pakoda) and jack fruit payasa (kheer) and jack fruit nut's vade (vada) as a snack on the same day and to top with this sure recipe for diarrhea, there will sometimes be kukku rasayana with bajjera dose (mango pulp with thin rice crepes) ! and by evening one or the other kid would be suffering from stomach ache/dehydration due to excessive trips : ). Unlike paternal grandma who never believed in evening snacks/coffee, this grandma never believed in moderation especially moderation in eating. She had the principle that if we didn't go twice/thrice to rest room to relieve us from all that eating, we didn't eat enough. Though we(us plus all the other kids from Mom's long list of siblings/relatives) enjoyed this binge eating episode, this is where we fell sick often too.

All these suburban people had their own clock/calendar based on private buses shuttled between their towns and main cities like Mangalore/Udupi. Manjunath ge hoguva, Mukambikeyinda baruva, Chamundi illva ivattu (Let's go on Manjunath, can catch Mukambike while returning, chamundi didn't come today) were usual phrases to refer to Buses that used to arrive and schedules to go to town/temple/relative's visits were planned according to many of these local bus schedules. Even by Bombay trains standard,these buses were different beasts in maintaining the routine and carrying the excessive traffic on curvy roads but the effortless transition, my mom used to adapt and make us adapt within days makes me wonder how come our kids didn't catch on to this adjustment syndrome that came so easily to us : ).

People's food habits have changed coupled with affluence to rule these suburban towns with display of car in most house's portico's these days, so Ganji and Manjunatha have slowly started disappearing from people's lives, but these things linger as nostalgia in people who experienced such idyllic childhood.

RaReSha3;269118Memories of my parent's native place is close to my heart and I think it's due to the natural affinity towards our carefree childhood; I feel this sentiment isn't unusual for many and it's natural to feel this emotion in our lives once in a while if not frequently.

Our dad earned his bread away from his native place in his youth and considered Mumbai his working home till his end. But due to our mom's insistence, our childhood and culture were strongly influenced by their roots associating us mostly with culture in coastal Karnataka. My blog is dedicated to bring out some of the regional delicacies, coastal specific folk arts with occasional backdrop of the dilemma faced by my parents as immigrants in Mumbai to retain some of the coastal Karnataka culture or to blend in the local culture.

RRS - Great blog. Brought back memories of my childhood at my paternal and maternal grandparents home.

RRS, the moment I read the title of the thread, remembered this song

ಸ್ನೇಹದ ಕಡಲಲ್ಲಿ, ನೆನಪಿನ ದೋಣಿಯಲಿ

ಸ್ನೇಹದ ಕಡಲಲ್ಲಿ, ನೆನಪಿನ ದೋಣಿಯಲಿ,
ಪಯಣಿಗ ನಾನಮ್ಮ, ಪಯಣಿಗ ನಾನಮ್ಮ,
ಪ್ರೀತಿಯ ತೀರವ ಸೇರುವುದೊಂದೇ ,
ಬಾಳಿನ ಗುರಿಯಮ್ಮ, ಬಾಳಿನ ಗುರಿಯಮ್ಮ .

crude translation:
In the ocean of friendship,
In the boat of memory lane,
I am the traveller, I am the traveller.
Reaching the shore of Love is the goal of my life.

I dedictae this song to you for starting this thread with an appropriate title since you hold a special place in my heart as a friend and the love, affection and respect you hold for your parents and the nostalgic memories to still cherish year after year.

anwesha;269615Amazed to read chaste kannada, which is rare.. had almost forgotten the word, surprised to see that you have kept up with it. Letter we wrote began with: Kshema(safe)-shri-date. To top this, I had kannada as 2nd lang in school(that has helped to poke fun at PG!), shame on me :(

Ahaa! :)

Btw, i relate to RRS's posting on Ubhaya Kushalopari. My dad used to write letters in Tamil to my grandparents and he used to start with a "Pillayar suzhi" (similar to Sri) and start off with "Ubhaya Shemam"! It used to be a common practice until emails came along!
If any of you had watched Andy Rooney on 60 minutes last Sunday, he mentions about how snail mails have faded or lost the glory. He talked about how he loved to see the postman deliver those eagerly awaited mails. He preferred to get junk snail mails than not get anything any mail at all.

Sorry for the hijack on the last part!

RRS, I have tons of things in memory to share here. I will go one by one as and when time permits.
Having one of my best friend from Coastal Karnataka and also staying with her in hostel for 4 years, visiting her home town, and also being one of the lucky one to experience/live in diverse culture had helped me to absorb many things.

Neer dose: I had the opportunity to taste this when I visited my friend's house for first time.
Me and my friend even did grind the soaked rice with fresh coconut in traditional oraLu(=grinder). It was so yummy and later I tried this at my place too. I think the secret of yummy as per my observation is that batter made out of fresh coconut and freshly soaked rice. I tried with ready made rice floor later and it was okay.

You would be surprised to know that this Neeru dOse is prepared in surroundings of Davanagere and Chitradurga regions too. They do not add coconut though and also do not soak rice and grind. They usually mix ready made rice floor with small cut onions, cilantro and spread, I call it toss since it is just impossible to spread the batter like the way we do for regular dosa.

My friend used to say that this Neeru dOse and Khara roti(very hard ones) is a famous combination with Meenu sAru(fish sambar) and kOli sAru(chicken sambar).

I will try to write about ganji in my next post.

Suma, MR, Anwesha and all,
This is a boat for all the memory rides : ), So do share your experiences freely whenever you feel like it.

Yakshagana , Bayalata and Taala-Maddale

I have seen all these variations.Yakshagana,Bayalata and Taala-Maddale; I can never really differentiate between the 3 but purists can. But to a casual observer, except the rules and the extent of the roles of bhagavata/sutradhaar (narrator) and his jester vidushaka(clown), the basic premise for all 3 remain the same.

Yakshagana compared to western opera by some is probably one indian folk art originated in KA that will survive another few decades/centuries IMO because it's flexible, it resonates with southern and northern coastal karnataka, Malenadu (interior landlocked ghat section of Karnataka),parts of Kerala(Kasargod) and accomodates variation in narration plus allows characters to get into current political debates in the middle of the mythological play to the chagrin of purists! Obama, Bush, Sonia Gandhi and Indira Gandhi, etc etc, any current and past political figure reference can come between Karna-Arjuna's war or in between Parvati-Ganapati but ultimately it will revert to the theme of that play to steer it right : ).

When we were small, we believed that women roles were done by women and men roles by men.So sometimes, even the minimum hugging between men/women witnessed within 10 ft of the stage used to make us feel shy as such scenes were thought to be restricted to movies on silver screens : ). In one of the Krishna-Rukmini-Satyabhama play, revelation that our belief was not true came when one of the main women actor(Rukmini) was seen in patte-chaddi (the underwear with stripes) with no curves (!) in the green room which we had entered through some 'influential' local politician's son who was our playmate. Some of the older boys were not thrilled with this revelation as size of the curves were really enticing to boys : ) and some did show lack of interest in future plays because of this ! This one revelation did some damage to our innocence when we were 5-9 (like Santa's revelation here for US kids).The mystery of Yakshagana's Rukmini's 'charm' was solved but childhood was never the same again!

Later we did come to know that this politician's son's influence was not-so-big deal because those actors struggled to make ends meet and even Rs. 2-5 Bakshees/Bahumana (prize for their performance) was a big deal to them and anyone ready to part with some cash were allowed in the green-room readily. After learning that, some of us tender hearts used to donate part of our earnings earned through 'Dakshine' (cash offering) received in marriages/temple functions in our vacation. Talking of 'Dakshine', this offering of some nominal cash as 'Dakshine' to all the invitees to any function seems to be the practice only followed by Dakshina Kannada Sivalli community. Is that true or some other communities(across Karnataka or India) also follow this practice?

My sibling when he was young wanted to be the 'Chande'(a cylindrical percussion drum beaten with two thin sticks) player as always in these Yakshaganas, the play started by beating the 'Chande' and he was not interested in any roles but he wanted to start all the plays : ). In later enactments to our elders in our afternoon entertainment sessions,I was either asked to pick 'pretend play'(through mouth or some home-made instruments) any other instruments between Harmonium, Maddale and Mrundangam or any of the small bit female roles but my favorites in any Yakshagana/Bayalata were always the villain characters in any mythological play like Indrajithu, Shurpanakhi, Rakshasas (demons) etc because they got angry the most and their facial expressions were amazing and they danced the most : ) and I used to get teased a lot for my picks by other girl cousins who used to consider me as not girlie enough and by boys as not villainish enough : ). So long story short, I was always picked to pretend play some musical instrument in the side wing that no one ever cared to look/listen : ).

Lot of Kannada Kootas across US do play the Yakshagana in some occasions and if you get a chance, get a glimpse of this classical folk art. You probably would enjoy it if you have grown up kids because small kids might get scared both by the makeup and the loud music/foot steps : ).

Yeah, even after decades, my favorites are still the same demon/antagonist characters : ). I hope my blog helps one struggling Yakshagana artist to make his ends meet.The plight of this folk art and artists is well chronicled in Girish Kasaravalli's Kannada movie ' Bannada Vesha' enacted by dancer/actor Sridhar.

RaReSha3;269757
Talking of 'Dakshine', this offering of some nominal cash as 'Dakshine' to all the invitees to any function seems to be the practice only followed by Dakshina Kannada Sivalli community. Is that true or some other communities(across Karnataka or India) also follow this practice?

Good que. I would think it is prevalent in SI brahmin communities. Hadn't seen this practice in NI.

One societal progress that we can be proud of !

When Deepa Mehta's 'Water' was released around 2006 time-frame, I was in Boston and was prodded by an American colleague to never miss to see this 'classic/mind blowing' narration of hopeless plight of young widows in 1930s time frame. I watched it but did not share his rating of high accolade but that would be topic for another day to avoid digression but point I want to make is, I didn't have to see the movie to see Indian widow's plight 7-8 decades ago as I had seen many such widows from close quarters in my childhood even 4 decades ago.

My parent's native place visits always meant trips to grandma's house for us as grandpas had kicked the bucket on either side before most of us/our generation kids were born.We never really bothered to check how old both my grandmas were when we were visiting them. But based on marriage/child bearing ages of their era, they would have been between 62-65 as my dad was mid 1930 born and mom early 1940s and my parents were the youngest in their respective families. Both grandmas were widowed in their late 30s when my parents were small we were told.

The situation depicted in 'Water' could have been a norm followed in Vrindavan belt but in Mangalore, the situation wasn't so dire.They were widows devoid of any 'married woman' or even 'normal woman' signs and were forced to wear certain colors and certain fabric of a saree. But they were not shunned by society to live in isolation as they stayed along with one or two members of the family due to joint family structure. They were resilient with amazing coping skills.They were fixtures in all family functions including weddings/naming ceremonies supposedly the good occasions but were always in behind-the-scenes either by subtle shun for widows in good occasions or by choice. Did they resent it or accepted it as norm of the society without any fight when they still had fire in their belly as we got to see them in their 6th-7th decade? We never really got a clear answer as they hardly entertained such questions amidst their busy routines. But come to think of it, themselves and people around them treated those barbaric customs as norm. When I think about that now, living amidst such societal norms had naturally forced them to adapt and the society including the widows were desensitized to a certain extent and apathetic to their plight including the protagonists themselves.

Assuming both grandmas were around 65 in early-mid 1970s, their energy level and the amount of work they did on a daily basis was amazing and they were indispensable in daily activity of cooking for 20+ people's' 4 meals for 20-30 days stretch including visitors and regular residents/field workers; seems so unimaginable hard work now when most of us are used to cook for only 4 people on a regular basis. Their energy was centered around housekeeping and cooking, and they had very little time to ponder on any deep thinking I am guessing. They spent all their time centered around cooking,planning for the next meal, soaking/fermenting for a breakfast to be cooked in next 1-2 days, planning storage for the next rainy season etc etc. Outside trips by them were minimal and provision(grocery) item shopping was limited to spices/tea/coffee/sugar cooking oil and fuel oil purchases. Most of the vegetables were grown in backyards and most flowers (used for god) in front yards.The facilities of old kitchens (with no islands, cooktops, no running water etc) seem so primitive now but such kitchens were spacious and supported multiple people to carry on simultaneous cooking/preparation activities without hindering the other person(s) and grandmas were the chief supervisors for all activities around the house.

The barber came once every 6 weeks to shave their heads off; we witnessed the ritual occasionally during our annual trips if barber's visit happened to coincide with our visits. Never really paid much attention in young age about what that ritual meant but later when I started understanding what that ritual meant and wanted to talk about their plight, could not succeed in making them open up due to their nonchalant attitude. Their hurt had evaporated long ago overtaken or covered up by their sense of duty to the family.They lived with the families dedicating their lives to well being of the young ones,capable of carrying on the duties of a single mother of their era on their slender shoulders.Most importantly they lived with a dignity and a sense of serving.That's why my post is remembering their plight without much dramatics for which they had no time.

I see the custom of shaving widow's head has vanished in majority part of rural Karnataka these days as well as the widows being forced to wear certain colored attire. Those seem to be things of the past. This one evil societal norm went out of vogue without much fanfare as the society progressed.Younger widows even have the option to remarry if there are suitors now. Culture police talk about India's waning culture of the past but the societal progression on this custom has made me proud that the unsung heroines who were dealt a cruel fate can carry on their sense of duty without the garb to show for their sacrifices now.