A Neutral View

I'm unable to recollect when/ where I saw a hijra (transgender) for the first time. But, I do remember one incident that left me terrified of them for a long time.

Sometime in my late-teens.... I had almost reached IB's (Iyengar's Bakery) for a quick snack. A hijra was harassing the maama @ IB's for money. Simultaneously, she was also chasing the customers away by making obscene gestures.......

Another time, I was on a train journey. Somewhere near N.K'taka, a group of hijras had entered the compartment and had harassed the men - quite successfully. Looking back, where was our guard? In cahoots with the hijras? Probably.....

To date, these two incidents remain my only real-life experiences with the hijras. The sole local transgender keeps to himself - when he is in town, i.e....
 In our films, of course, they are always portrayed in a crass manner - even when they are supposed to be blessing people during auspicious occasions.

I have often wondered why our movies love to misrepresent facts. In most movies, a typical farm-girl is dressed quite skimpily. In real life, it is the other way round! A farm-girl takes good care of her skin & hair and is always fully covered from head to toe when she is slogging outdoors.....

Coming back.....

One afternoon last year, I was lunching alone. I dislike dining alone, and when I have to, I turn to IB (Idiot Box) for company. While surfing channels, I chanced upon a documentary on NGC about hijras. Soon, I realised that the film featured hijras from B'lore (my hometown) and decided to watch it.

The highlight of the film was the annual festival celebrated by the hijras at Koovagam.  But, it gave me my first real peek into their lives. The film removed some of my prejudices, and, my fear was replaced by sympathy towards the hijras.

Some months after the movie, I came across this book - "The Truth About Me" - an autobiography by a hijra called A.Revathi .... the first of its kind.

I recognised the author (the person on the cover) as one of the hijras featured in the documentary and was interested.

Revathi's life begins as a boy in a normal middle class home. By the time the boy is a teenager, he realises that he has strong feminine feelings within him. The rest of the book is about how he joins the community of hijras, learns their rules, lives by the rules, and, sometimes, breaks the rules.
Revathi takes us through many of her traumatic, very personal experiences. Each experience makes her a stronger person, and as we take leave of her in the book, she is working for an NGO that caters to sexual minorities.

The book tends to be a little repetitive at times, but, I appreciate Revathi for coming out with her story and wish her well.

You know, the hijras have very rigid hierarchical rules within their community. It is taboo to break those rules. Many among them dislike their traditional professions - begging/ harassing/ prostitution..... and desire to come out of the stereotype. But, once they come out of it, it is very difficult to go back the group. It is a neither-here-nor-there situation if the regular society does not give such change-seekers a chance.

 Once in a while, one comes across news items where hijras have contested and won elections, passed post-graduate exams, etc. and one wishes that more of them are inspired. They will be inspired, I guess, if most of us drop our prejudices against them.

One of the most talked about issues when the Aadhaar Card registration forms came out was that the 'gender' column had three options - 'Male/ Female/ Transgender'. At last, the hijras are being counted -  and I think, that's one step closer to being accepted.....

 

Chasing a skirt!

Not so recently, some of us bore my uncle's tirade - meant for the editor of  "The H...", the newspaper maamaaji reads. Apparently, there's this regular column, wherein, readers are invited to contribute pics showing gaffes in signboards, etc. - especially the gaffes in angrezi.

"Why laugh at some poor, illiterate signboard painter for his mistakes? If he was as educated as those people at the news office, he wouldn't be painting boards. And, it's not like the newspaper wallahs don't make mistakes at all.........."  - the gist of my maama's speech.

Of course, I didn't quite agree with him. I think, the laugh is more for the end result than at the poor painter. At that moment, I didn't say so because I was in no mood to start a discussion. However, after that incident, I think of my uncle whenever I see a gaffe in angrezi.... and that is very often!

Recently, there was this pamphlet with our newspaper, announcing some sale in town. As I ran an absent-minded eye before crumpling it, I saw this....



Obviously, there was a spelling mistake. Now, I was curious - because I couldn't think of the right word. Since I don't like to be ignorant, I decided to ask google, the all-knowing one......

This pamphlet must have been printed locally. And, in this part of the country,  the letter "P" is popularly pronounced "Ph" / "F".  ( Eg :  'Phrize" for "Prize").
So, I decided to google "Riprown Skirt".... No result.

I tried "Ripron Skirt"....and, google asked me if I meant "Rapron Skirt".

There it was! The current trend in skirts looks a lot like the "Wrap-around Skirt", popular during my primary school days long, long ago....  an open ended skirt with cords on the upper ends for fastening.

Wonder if  "Wrap-around" has been shortened to "Rapron"!

In that case, I have a suggestion....

  At the risk of being clobbered by my VeshTi/ Lungi wearing acquaintances, I propose that these items of clothing should be called "Rapron Skirts" in angrezi!!

Ganesha's water-pot!

You will not find this place on the tourists' list of places to visit in Chikmaglur. However, you'll find it on my list of favourite places in Chikmaglur. Let me take you there.....

A half-an-hour's drive from home will take us to the not-so-sleepy town of Koppa. From here, onto  the road to Kesave village.  About 3-4 kms on this road, to the right - a rusty arch and the mud track beyond welcome us. Blink, and we'll miss the place!
We are now on private property. This part of the estate is open to all. Because, it is here that the river Braahmi has her origins. The Braahmi is a small tributary of the river Tunga. Infact, she joins the Tunga within 20 kms. from her place of birth. The presence of an idol of the elephant-headed God lends some piety to the place. 

 

Someone has done a neat job -  making it seem like the water is gushing out of a water-pot. This, and the presence of God Ganesh... the place is locally known as 'KamanDala Ganapati'.

Like all small temples, this temple is open during prayer hours only. But, that's okay...because, we can peep in through the grilled door/ windows. 

From here, the water is channelised and made to fall into a pit that can be accessed... so blissful to drink that pure, cool water straight off the pipe!

  

Of course, it's fuller during the monsoon months. This pic was taken during summer.

The managers of the temple have been thoughtful enough to keep some open space by the temple for picnickers/ people who want to host small functions.

On normal evenings, you'll find some local kids playing cricket!

I know what most of you are thinking! And, yes, I agree...it is not worth making the trip all the way FOR this place. Check it out if you have some time to spare in Koppa town. 

You know, the first time I was here, I was a little surprised to see Ganesh-ji. Because of the big role played by Shiva in bringing down the river Ganga to earth, one usually finds Shiva temples near places where rivers originate.  I had thought - and, still think - Shiva/ Ganesha/ any other God, it is the life-giving source of water that is actually revered.... What do you think??

The Wicked Bird

In most Indian folk tales, the crow is portrayed as a cunning, thieving villain.
And, when Uncle Pai created Kalia, he broke the tradition.  Kalia, the clever crow, was always doing good things like helping out creatures in distress -  NEVER the villain....

 The crow is the vehicle of Shani (Saturn) - the planet that is supposed to cast evil on one's life.
 Perhaps, for this reason, it is considered to be a symbol of bad omen.......
 As with the colour black -  the colour of the crow and the colour associated with Shani.
For the same reason, children who collect birds' feathers are forbidden from bringing the crow's feathers inside homes (especially if grandmas are around!).

To add to its list of woes, the crow has such clumsy ways and an unpleasant cry. Even the nest it builds is shabby when compared to the nests of other birds.You know, many a time, I have felt quite sorry for the crow.

Misplaced sympathies!! The crow is indeed a bad bird!
Sometimes, it pulls food from the mouths of smaller creatures like the squirrel and bullies smaller birds - chases them away from food sources, disturbs their nests,.... Yes! it spoils the nests of other birds. Let me tell you about it........

Meet this shy little bird on the left.... the grey titbird. Here, he/she is searching for the right stuff to build a nest. Twice an year, at least one pair of titbirds choose their nesting place on the creeper on our wall.








This is a typical nest of the grey titbird. As an admirer of birds and their nest building skills, I find it so fascinating that every bird has it's own pattern for building nests from locally available materials. And, birds of a feather have very similar nests!

Every year, during the nesting season, I spend some time watching birds choose grass, pull out tiny twigs, etc. With amazing understanding, the male & the female birds skilfully weave the raw materials and make their homes - they know what to do without any training (nothing 'bird- brained' about this!).

Once the birds begin to spend time in the nest, I leave them alone, hoping that things go smoothly. Most of the times, things do go smoothly. When the fledglings turn about 7-8 days old, the family abandons the nest.... too small for all of them, I guess.

Early Feb is nesting time for a lot of Indian birds. Every time I see a pair of busy titbirds,  I wonder if they are the same ones that were here before!
This time though, there was a crow - very determined to spoil things for the titbirds. Whenever I could, I tried to prevent it from pecking at the nest. Alas! One morning last week, I found this -

                                                           
                                                                           and, this -

  
 I also caught the crow pulling out some stiff looking grass from the broken nest.
Now, I didn't think of shooing it away - after all, another nest was being built
elsewhere.......

           

Uncanned laughter

                    
"The earth laughs in flowers".... so said Ralph Waldo Emerson.

How true! Ma earth laughs so prettily....and, in so many different ways!

 The Canna, is one of my husband's favourite flowers. Easy to grow, it asks for some sunshine & regular watering - that's all. Even so, I'm not sure why the canna isn't that popular in home gardens.
Of course, they are very popular  in parks and landscaped gardens - usually as border plants or in the centre of a circular theme.

Canna was one of my mother's favourite flowers. We have one here that has its origins in her garden. The flowers are smaller than the regular canna flowers. Quite recently, I read somewhere that the bulbs of this variety are edible. And, I have seen small birds visiting regularly - their 'juice shoppe',  I guess!

This red canna here is S'man's favourite. S'man drops in sometimes to help us out with gardening.   Every time he sees this, he says  'mast colour'.... He thinks these look like plastic flowers !!

  Strangely, S'man doesn't call this flower 'mast'.
   Maybe, because this is quite common .....

I know, care-takers are not supposed to have favourites, but, as an admirer, the remaining three in our collection are my favourites. This,

this,

                                                      

                                                                                                    ..... and, this! 

 Let me confess - I like the last one a wee bit
 more than the others!
                                         
Let me also confess - when I add a white canna to our collection, it will top the list of favourite cannas (because, I have a weakness for white flowers)!      

                    
     
According to some estimates, there are about 3 lakhs flower species on Planet Earth.

Multiply that by the number of colours in each species - that's countless ways of laughing....

          
P.S: Soon, it will be one year since one of the worst days of my life. The road looks empty, shade-less and obscenely wide. But, there is some colour & happiness when I open the door. You know, the earth's laughter is quite infectious.... and, after a long time, I'm in better spirits :)

Three years!

 As Alter Idem turns three today, I have been thinking about how it came to be......
It started out as one of the by-products of my lonely evenings, and continues to be that!

The name of the blog......
I had come across the term Alter Idem (meaning - 'the same, yet different') some years ago. It must have stayed in some corner of my mind. Because, it was one of the first names that came to me when I was thinking of a suitable name for my blog.

And, the picture on the header....
Travel anywhere in the Malnad between 8. a.m. & 10. a.m., and you will run into the cow/ goatherd with his wards. I have often wondered about the cowherd - have thought about how a profession that used to be represented by someone as multi-faceted as Lord Krishna has come to be represented by someone who's generally classified as 'good-for-nothing' !
Of course, they're a nuisance to other road users. But, then, there's something nice, peaceful and reassuring about the entire group as they go on with life at their own pace...... one of my favourite sights from my surroundings!

And, now, as always, the story.....

Once upon a time, the king of a certain land invites applications for the post of a minister. He narrows down the candidates to two. Undecided between the two, he sends them to his spiritual guru to make the final choice. After some hours, the guru, instead of bluntly saying 'you are chosen' , beats around the bush! He sends one candidate back with a sieve and the other, with a winnow. The baffled king seeks help from his cleverest minister. The minister seeks some time. While racking his brains at home, he notices his wife at work... she's cleaning grains & flour using a winnow and a sieve. It suddenly dawns on him - while using the winnow, the good is retained and the waste is discarded. While using the sieve, the good is filtered and the unwanted stuff is retained. He asks the king to appoint the man with the winnow.

You know, I usually share the first story that comes to my mind as I sit down to write the 'anniversary-post'. Strangely, 3 out of the 4 that I have shared belong to my school days!
 I had read this one as an illustrated story in 'Tinkle'.... a magazine for school kids brought out by the Amar Chitra Katha group when I was in my pre-teens.

 

Umbrella for fools!

Guess what?? It takes only an umbrella to make one look like a fool!!
Of course, not any umbrella.... it has to be this particular umbrella - the umbrella of my kid's kindergarten days.
And, it's not like this umbrella always had such a lowly status.......

You know, there's this school near home. Not so long ago, when the kid was about 2-3, one of her favourite routines was to wave out to the school-going kids - every morning & evening. Since she had learnt how to open the gate, I'd linger around, keeping an eye. Pretty soon, both of us knew all the kids who passed by, by their names!

It was during the rainy season, when this routine continued, that the kid noticed - while we held big, black umbrellas, the school-goers held small, colourful ones. She wanted a colourful brolly, and, well, we decided to humour her.

One of the greatest disadvantages of living in a small town is that, often, one has no choice but to buy what the shopkeeper has. And, I had my fingers crossed as I walked into the shop. To my great delight, the only colourful brolly he had was MOST agreeable!

 The kid, of course, was absolutely delighted with the new umbrella. One of the smaller kids in the brolly was her, and the rest were named after her school going friends!
And, now, there was an additional pastime - of standing out in the rain just to watch the rain fall off the umbrella!!

 I don't remember when & why this umbrella went to the corner, but, after a couple of monsoons, the kid & the brolly broke up....

 The other evening, after a long time, I checked in on the umbrella. The first thing that came to my mind was that the manufacturers could have used this umbrella for their ad - 3-4 years of not too careful handling by a kid, and a few years in a corner - but, still, in working condition!
The manufacturer's tag, unfortunately, is missing.

Feeling a little compassionate towards the umbrella, I decided to take it out. The kid called out, 'Are you going out with THAT umbrella?! You look like a fool'................

The Lower Octave

In high school, my first language was Sanskrit. Correspondingly, Kannada became the third language. Third language Kannada was basically a repetition of what I learnt from Class 4 to Class 7. After Class 10, I didn't study Kannada formally at all.
 In spite of that, I had absolutely no difficulty in reading/ understanding the 2010 Saraswati Samman winner by  Sri.S.L.Bhyrappa --- Mandra.

The moment this book arrived a few months ago, I had decided to make it my 'monsoon reading'. At nearly 600 pages, of size slightly larger than the usual books, it had the qualifications to make my lonely evenings something to look forward to!

Well! monsoon arrived late this year. By then, I had finished reading the book!

Mandra is about the turbulent life of a classical musician, Pandit Mohan Lal. Panditji's journey begins from Haridwar  - as a bhajan- singing beggar-boy on the banks of the river Ganga - and reaches international fame, after plenty of twists and turns...... like the Ganga, actually!

Mandra, in classical music, means the lower octave. Though I'm not a follower of Hindustani classical music, I know that it is no mean task for a singer to achieve mastery over singing in the lower octave.
 In Kannada, the word also means low/ base as in 'vile'.........
 Revealing more will be like spoiling it for someone who wants to read this book. All I can say is that it must be a very difficult task for a writer to sustain the reader's interest in a 600 page book - and,
 Sri. S.L.Bhyrappa seems to have done it effortlessly! It is easily one of the best stories that I have read.

A couple of years ago, I had read Naayi NeraLu. Though I had read some of Sri. Bhyrappa's controversial columns in Kannada newspapers, it was the first complete novel by him that I had read. I guess, that book is not exactly an ideal introduction to the author. Mandra is!
And, after Mandra, he has become one of my favourite writers!  

Mother-in-law's tongue

Mother-in-law's tongue is the very mean nick-name for this common plant, otherwise known as 'Snake's tongue'. A very hardy succulent, I think it makes an attractive live fence. Known as NaagataaLi in Kannada, the sap from the 'tongue' is supposed to be a cure for ear ailments.

In addition to the one above, I have two other variations in my collection. This is 'Mother-in-law's tongue' with a dash of colour.... my favourite.
The 'tongue' in this type usually takes a twist or two and has a nice spiral shape.

And, kyonki saas bhi kabhi bahu thi, this dwarf variety is the Mother-in-law's tongue when she was daughter-in-law ;)

All the three above have their origins in my mother's garden. She had a huge collection of succulents.....

Most gardening websites root for the snake's tongue as indoor plant for its air purifying properties. They advice against over watering. But, you know, some years ago, I had accidentally separated a 'tongue'. I had kept it in water in a vase. Over time, it has grown roots and more 'tongues'. This is how it looks now ---

    Ah! I can now be accused of holding the mother-in-law's tongue!
    (Strictly tongue-in-cheek statement, that one!)

     Actually, instead of offending mothers-in-law & snakes, we should be calling it by the unimaginative 'green tongue'.  But, there's a hitch here. I have seen a variety where the 'tongues' are a beautiful shade of purple-green. The tip is very sharp... 'blade tongue', perhaps? 'Sword plant' because it looks like a sword???

Anyway, a tough, hardy plant that can adapt itself to suit any condition....whatever the name!