DIET

"Ask your husband not to worry. Let him walk to his shop every morning.It is just two furlongs away". The advising voice faded away as I walked faster and faster. It was a man advising his relative. Though I was a complete stranger I could make out that the lady's husband had got the high sugar levels and she was worried about it. The past decade has seen increasing levels of diabetics in India. All the media cry and shout about it, nobody knows the cause, it's just happening. A boy of 10 or 12 years walks limpingly holding his mothers arms unable to read the prescription as they come out of the doctors shop asks his mother " enu bardiddaramma?"(what has he written?) his mother with a heavy voice answers " adeno mixtard anthe"( mixtard it seems). My heart is heavier than her voice. Why this dirty disease is so cruel?

There must be some important factors which we have neglected to follow might have resulted in such a disaster. As a woman who spends half of her time in the kitchen, my mind naturally goes in that direction- are we eating properly? There was no other choice than Idlis, dosa, rotti for breakfast even a decade ago. Cereals have replaced these items as they do not need any pre-cooking excercises. Even when I was young, if we buy bread from the local baker he would kindly enquire about the health of our family members. There was a common understanding that we should eat bread only if we are sick.

 Friends groups and Media, everyone is talking about the balanced diet, healthy diet and fat-free diet. Doctors and Dieticians warn about having refined food like sweet bread and other products of maida.
We are advised to have whole wheat bread, fiber-rich products and lots of greens. Frequently having brunches may lead to obesity and under-nourishment. Why can't we eat a simple rice, roti, rasam, palya everyday and have a feast once in a while, it was done by our parents and grand parents.

We feel Ragi mudde( steamed ragi ball) and Soppina saaru(greens rasam ) are boring and tasteless food nowadays. Is healthy food always tasteless and boring? Increase in number of diabetics in the state is scary. We have no time left for excercise or walking, why can't we sit back for a while and think about our lives? is our changing lifestyle making us physically weaker than our fathers and forefathers? why don't we change our food habits atleast to improve our physical strength.

Words and Her Voice

With her a link from past to present has missed. A great loss to the field of linguistics. She spoke with her bronze like voice in a great volume so that the listener should understand her thoughts clearly. The  proverbs she used were very strangely explained the depth and dearth of a situation.

To explain the plight of a person who was forced to share some important things but the pain of parting with those things she used a saying "Irkondene hotte, thivkondene kannu". The powerful and beautiful explanation made me to repeat the same on many ocassions. It explains how much it pains to take a decision sometimes. If a decision is made to save the tummy the eye has to be given up and Vice versa.

The mono syllables( o, ho) were giving a lot of inspirations to the person who wanted to share his/her experiences or grievances.Her way of teaching a dish would give any historian a hint to the origin of the spices and ingredients used( Hing wasn't used as it came from Persia-Mlechchara deshaddalve) She never hesitated while narrating the distarded versions of Ramayana or Mahabharatha stories. Whatever she spoke carried a sort of musicality in each and every word. The intonations were not intentional but a common linguistic charisma of the last century.The phrases "come, shall I make some coffee for you"(ಬನ್ನಿ ಒಂತೊಟ್ ಕಾಫೀ ಕಾಸ್ಲೆ?) used to treat the guests, were so affectionate but not mechanical. No one would refuse the lure of coffee. Some words she used were completely forgotten by me. I have heard (ತೊಗೊ) 'take' since one and a half decade. Last time I saw her she placed a hundred rupee note into my hands and told ("ಕ್ವಾ ಬಳೆ ತೊಗೊ") "take, buy bangles". The word qua ( take) made me to think about the origin of the word. In Kittal's dictionary, it was an imperative singular of buy or take it.
I never knew why the tender coconut water was occasionally recommended by her. Once when I asked her she told that it was (ಸಮಧಾತು) "samadhatu".
"Maadikkidde", "Dwaashe", "howde", "Oohoo", were all the usual words of kannada but became special when she pronounced with a musical crystal clear voice in an unusually high pitch. Her grandchildren made fun of her and imitated the special stress given by her to the words "howde", "OoHoo". The brand names of cars turned funny. The tata sumo was "Tata Suma" as she thought a girl's name was in vogue to name the cars as though she was the CEO of the company. The reason- simple-"Padmini antha ondu car ilve, haageyappa"!( Isn't there a car named Padmini, just like that!)
Lots of memories continued to spring up I go on writing about her- My Grand Mother!

Songs of My Days and Today

College festivals! It's time for the competitions to become idols of the current year.Wow! The inspirations are innumerable starting from Sonu Nigam and Shreya Ghoshal.

You know, there are three main rounds.First round is your own choice of songs. Next is the tough one that is changing the rhythm. Last is the toughest one that is changing the pitch and singing without any faults. Totally one has to prepare for five songs. And the number of contestants? One hundred and fifteen!

The information sounded very much interesting when I heard it from my daughter.But the reality started biting after some time.They have to sing to the "Karaoke"  and all the singers, I don't know why, sang in such a high pitch that it was nice only to listen to the karaoke and just hum the song in "samvadi" pitch ( parallelly lower) and the rhythm always a drawback when she sang along with the karaoke.

Then emerged the problem called the lyrics of the songs. Some of the new film songs had preethi, prema, love, iniya, pranaya themes which irritated us too much and these songs were kept away.For some good songs of the present days, karaoke was not available. We sat together and decided on five songs which she can render with ease and elan.When she started singing we came across another problem with lyrics. Somehow we did not know the full songs. There was a frantic search for the wordings. Phone calls, messages to friends and discussions over e-mails were fruitful. My friend told,"Aiyyo! Adakkene--You-Tube". I was totally depressed. "Yeah! I am Tube (Dull-headed). Tell me where to get the songs?". "Eh! log on to You-Tube. You will get everything. Even English translation of the songs".

Fine! It worked. When we logged on to you-tube the lyrics of the songs were available. My daughter started her practice. But my golden memories of the 1970's started parading in my mind. Books containing the story-line of the film along with the lyrics of the songs were a rage in those days. These were titled " haadina pustaka" or "chitrageethegalu". The cost would be from nakane to entane ( 25 paisa to 50 paisa). We would consider ourselves fortunate if we got those books as gifts from the uncles or aunts who took us to watch the movies. Sometimes, to get these books, we would walk the distance of 3-4 kilometers( from Vidyaranyapuram to Shantala talkies).These books were sold near the movie theaters and some reputed book stalls also. The cover page would have beautiful pictures of the heroes and heroines. And very costly book(75 paisa to 3 rupees) would contain colour photos of the stars. The composer, writer and music director's names were given neatly and the lyrics followed with illustrations called Pallavi, and charanagalu or nudigalu. These books were our pricest possessions. There were moments of joy, and tears of happiness if a friend or cousin gifted one or two such books.

A stressful walk of a couple of miles, a two rupee note which was a saving in the piggy bank, a starry smile on the face with the "cinema haadina pustaka" in hand, everything is now vanished and the mouse of the computer is watching mechanically and waiting for us to click for more and more songs.

DASARA!

                                                               Times  have changed

Dasara! the festival of 9 days, the bombe habba, the pooja of different avatar of Devi-goddess of power, intelligence and victory, the feast in the mornings, the arati of pattada bombe and bombe baagina the evening of glory!

Truly, the colours of this colourful festival of Mysore makes the locals fill with joy. Times have changed. Dasara exhibition which used to be organised in some spacious buildings is shifted to the dodda kere grounds. Only place is shifted but not the zeal and zest to discover something new in the small and big stalls.
In the zoo, maybe some more cages, space, animals and tram cars are there now but we cannot forget Vali the friendly chimp. Illumination of the palace, some small changes but the same enthralling police band, concerts and the balloon vendors. Lighting in KRS a painful but beautiful memory as parking the vehicle and lot of walking is hard for old and weak people. The serpentine queue and the darshan of godess chamundeshwari atop the hill, so tedious but new arrangements of parking space, the buses plying to and fro the hill and Mysore city bus stand makes ones efforts easy. At our times Karanji and kukkarhalli lakes were the coolest lodges of many types of supernatural powers. But now, one should see these lakes alive with rare and rarest of birds and butterflies.

The hordes of guests visiting us during Dasara is diminishing. But, our memories lit up the dull evenings at home. No child wants to collect bombe baagina, diffent types of snacks made in very tiny shapes(kodbale and kajjaya). Now kids prefer chocolates and last year, one of the kids asked me why can't I serve them small pizzas. Changes are there, they are welcomed by us.Yet a dull vaccum spreads in and around while taking out the dolls from the attic, dusting the dolls and arranging those dolls on the white new cloth. The ten steps of dolls now has shrunken into one step.No problem. We Mysoreans are friendly people and neighbours welcome us to see the dolls arranged in their houses.

A park made by ragi sprouts, the tender green of the growing tiny crops again brings the old and the golden days memories. The ladies of the house ask me to sing some rare kritis. The kids give me bombe baagina with a sort of puzzle in their bright eyes. The cultural scenario is spreading it's horizons and the divine music, dance, dramas, folk arts immerses in its pure authentic clarity. There are a lot of changes yet they are welcomed by us. It's Dasara in Mysore again!