ALTER IDEM

There is a belief among farmers - that for best results, seeds of flowering plants should be sown during the period of the waxing moon & seeds of vegetables & fruits, during the period of the waning moon. The same belief holds good for planting cuttings/ saplings of flowers/ vegetables & fruits. Of course, there is no logic or scientific explanation to this - only a psychological comfort that one has begun correctly! Early summer is the best time to grow vegetables, if one can ensure plenty of water to the plants. But, for most of us, summer is the time for vacations - quite inconvenient to provide constant attention. Early monsoon is also okay, but, the saplings could waste away if heavy rains set in just after sprouting. Of course, the quality of seeds are very important. Sometimes, seeds that are more than a year old don't sprout at all :( The grower's woes begin right from the moment the seeds are sown - ants simply love them. The organic method is to spri

Alter Idem turns two today :) For no particular reason, I began by sharing a favourite short story. While thinking of a post to mark the first b'day, I decided to start a tradition - of sharing short stories on Alter Idem 's b'days - preferably, stories that have been with me for ages after I have read them. Here's Annayya's story....set, I think, in the 1950s-60s. Annayya, a Brahmin from Mysore, goes to the US for higher studies. He settles down well to the American way of life, food habits,..... Often, Annayya's lady-friends ask him questions about Hinduism and to be better equipped, he begins to read books on Hinduism! Soon, he develops a genuine interest and spends a lot of his free time in the library - reading books on Hinduism. One day, Annayya chances upon a newly published book by an American, on customs and rituals among Hindus. He flips through the pages - references to verses from ancient texts, photographs, detailed descriptions of the v

You can classify travellers in these parts into two main categories, i) the indifferent local - born and brought up here, he takes his green surroundings for granted. ii) the city dweller aka the tourist traveller- for him, every step is a moment to be clicked and captured. And then, there is the 'in between i) & ii)' traveller like yours truly! As the number of years that I have lived here is inching closer to my number of years in big city, I'm neither indifferent to nature, nor do I gush over every other landscape. Take this scene for example .... The local traveller is speeding on his tractor. While the tourist traveller may have spent his few moments behind the tractor gaping at the unusual vehicle, I spent my few moments noticing the verse on the trailer! Hudugiya hinde hodre goLu Nanna hinde bandre dhooL Loosely translated, it means 'Follow a girl, woe. Follow me, dust' Flawed rhyming, wrong punctuation and o

Over there! That man in the lungi ! He is the umbrella repairer! A nomadic umbrella repairer, in fact! His dress, his paraphernalia and his sudden appearance in mid-June....make me wonder if he has hopped out of an R.K.Narayan book! Calling out ' Koday repayri? ' (Umbrellas for repair?), he walks along the length and breadth of the town and repairs umbrellas at his client's door step, except, on market days. On this day, his clients come to him. You'll find him near the bus stand, the busiest part of the town on market days. Now, if you live in the Malnad, the brolly is one of your most important accessories for at least three months. Mid-June to mid-September, everyone lugs one around. Losing/ misplacing umbrellas is a common occurrence. When regularly used, umbrellas are prone to some common complaints. The most common one is of the cloth/ spokes slipping off at joints - such a nuisance! A simple looking problem, but, try fixing it! Within no time, you'

Twice, on Alter Idem , I have written about my dates with Kannada movies - here and here . Well! Music class is quite irregular now and the only silver lining is that I don't have to suffer jhalaks of Kannada movies. Today, the Kannada news channels were going on and on about the arrest of 'Sandalwood' actor 'Challenging star Darshan'- for abusing his wife of 7 years or so. The actor has been sent to jail - at least for the weekend and, in a strange way, I'm pleased! You'll understand me when I tell you why! On 4 occasions, I have suffered the same bits of the same 'Darshan movie'. No doubt, the 'bus fellows' switch on the movie at the same vantage point :/ On all 4 occasions, I sat down to a very heavy dose of violence as Darshan, playing the top cop of a small town takes on the local goons. Later, at home, he receives a call from his amma - she has chosen a bahu . With a 'your choice is my choice', cop cuts the call- to

This flower, Glory Lily , blooms around Ganesh Chaturthi . It is locally known as Gowri Hoovu (Gowri flower). I was under the impression that this plant was a weed. We didn't plant it and I don't know how it came to be there. I noticed the plant about 2-3 years ago, when it bloomed for the first time. Since the flower is so unique, I decided to keep the plant. Today's edition of the local newspaper carried an article on the flower. Gowri hoovu is called so, because, it is considered to be a special offering to the Goddess on the day of Gowri pooja ( Ganesh Chaturthi eve, usually). What tickled me was the botanical name - Gloriosa superba . According to the article, the gora scientists exclaimed 'Glorious! Superb!' when they saw the flowers for the first time and decided to name the flower so!! This tickled me so much that I decided to google it up. I couldn't locate the last bit of information ... maybe, it is a tall tale!! However, I came ac

This hoarding adorns the compound wall of our Taluk Office, also known as 'Mini Vidhana Soudha'. It's a hoarding that cannot be missed. That pic, of course, was taken during the 'World Kannada meet' in Belgaum in March 2011. The hoarding tells us that - i)The meet was successful thanks to enthusiastic participation by lakhs of Kannadigas, ii) The meet was hailed by dignitaries from all over the world and, iii) The meet provided an opportunity to 1000s of national & international artistes to showcase their talents. As far as I know, Taluk offices are places for files & records of land surveys, births, deaths,.... why this particular hoarding HERE? Yaake? Yaake? Yaake? Poor Anil Kumble! Half hidden thanks to that handfan - like protrusion from Mr.Y's turban! Now, if he was seated next to Mr.Y...... he would have made the pc s in Kannada! But, would anybody bother to take a second look at the hoarding if AK/ some colleague of Mr.Y's was

Every year, every child I know here prays for heavy rains. And, on most years, the rain Gods answer the collective prayers! About 40-50% of the school kids here have to cross streams & travel through forests & plantations, to reach school. The chances of blocked roads due to fallen trees and flash floods in streams are very high during the peak monsoon. Fearing stranded children, the Block Education Office declares 2-3 days' holidays to schools whenever there is a non-stop, heavy downpour for 3-4 days....now you know why our children pray! Quite magically, the intensity of the rain decreases from Day 1 of the holidays ... God letting us know on whose side He is ! As it is, in these parts, monsoon is non-stop, steady rain for 100+ days. Some of my friends, in their 80s, tell me that the monsoon now is nothing compared to the monsoon of their youth! They mean that back then, the rains were heavier and lasted for about 150 days! The rains may not be the same, bu

Lakkinakoppa is a very tiny hamlet - about 10-15 km from Shimoga on the Shimoga- NR Pura- Koppa road. This deserted, aesthetic building in Lakkinakoppa had always made us wonder - 'Doesn't look like a house...what could it be?' Forever in a hurry, we had left it at that...until that afternoon 2-3 years ago. That day, we had plenty of time! Slowing down, we realised that the building was a museum called Amulya Shodha . Amulya means 'valuable'/ 'priceless' & Shodha means 'discovery'. Built on the boundary of a beautiful arecanut plantation and surrounded by a well maintained garden, Amulya Shodha is a private museum belonging to retired history professor, Mr.H.Khandoba Rao. We decided to check it out and were taken aback when the caretaker told us that entry was free! What we saw inside was a mind boggling collection by a single individual - of pots, pans, cutlery, utensils, lamps, weapons, musical instruments, indoor games, clothes, c

Soon, the monsoon will turn heavier here & most of us will have nothing much to do outdoors. Time to catch up with our reading/ writing/ art/ needlework...... Time to play indoor games too. Computer games have already phased out board games like chess, scrabble & ludo, carrom, cards,.... And, to think that not so long ago, these games were blamed for phasing out the traditional indoor games like chennemaNe ! ChennemaNe is popularly thought to be a traditional game of the 'rain-rich' Malnad & coastal K'taka. But, it is not so. It is known in the west as Mancala and is believed to have come to coastal K'taka from Egypt (sea trade links) many, many centuries ago..... so long ago that we believe that we invented this game!! Actually, Chenne is the local name for a tiny, red seed ( Red lucky seed - used to play this game) & maNe means plank/ board. I won't be surprised if this game is known elsewhere in the country, by other names, of course!

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 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

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

'Go away now..come back when you are a butterfly' .... in his books, Ruskin Bond throws out caterpillars from his room with these words. My exact sentiments!! It is so magical that an itchy, creepy, crawly thing like a caterpillar becomes a beautiful butterfly after a few days inside a cocoon. That's what's called 'beauty sleep', I guess :) Born and brought up in Bangalore, I was quite indifferent to nature. Now, living in the most beautiful Malnad part of Chikmagalur, I'm surrounded by nature on all sides... I only have to look out of an open window to see these fascinating creatures flitting and fluttering by - seemingly careless, while performing the duties assigned to them by nature. Butterflies love the lantana flowers and sunshine. Infact, lantana makes up for 50-60% of the plants in a butterfly park. Once the rains arrive, the butterflies disappear - to goodness knows where! Old timers here, in the Malnad, missed the butterflies so

Come summer, and its time for the annual car festivals (Jaatre) at most temples in Karnataka. It is also the only time when an unusual professional in our town gets to exercise his vocal chords...the town crier. On some days in summer, this man walks along the length and breadth of the town - beating his drum and shouting out the Jaatre notifications in between. He is probably meeting the ritualistic needs of some culture. I feel so, because, even in a small town like ours, for most public announcements, he has been replaced by loudspeakers and ads on the local TV channel. Once upon a time, a town crier must have been a very important professional all over the world - the only advertising medium! His distinct drumbeat would have made everyone sit up and listen to him. He was probably entertained with refreshments on any veranda he chose to stop by after those long, tiring hours in the sun.... The town crier may now be extinct, but , we still use this expression when one is as

I'm quite addicted to my evening walk. My regular route takes me along the lane that leads only to the temple. One rainy evening long ago, I fell for this landscape, and, ever since, I have been a regular on this route. Earlier, I used to joke that armed with a stick and a whistle, I could replace the beat police :) .... only, there is no such creature called 'beat police' here! And, I'm sure... at 6-6.30ish in the evening, he doesn't exist anywhere! Of late, a change in another part of my beat has been catching my attention... the 200m stretch on either side of the temple. What was once a haven for weeds now looks like this - No fancy plants here, only hardy, flowering shrubs, but, looked after well. When I ran into the manager of the temple the other day, I complimented him on the nice garden. The manager said that it was thanks to the latest inmate of Jeevan Sandhya , the old age home run by the temple and pointed to an old, lanky man. Oh! The '

Bougainvillea!! Shrubs that add a lot of colour to the summer months! A native of South America, the bougainvillea is one plant that has really taken to the Indian climate. Strictly speaking, the 'flower' is the small, white, well...flower- like thing you see in the picture. The surrounding bigger petal-like thing is some kind of a leaf variation. During summer, when the rest of the plants demand water, the bougainvillea shuns water. Excess watering encourages the green foliage. So, during the monsoon months here, this plant is just an ordinary, thorny shrub. There are some varieties with dual coloured leaves for such times...they look ornamental even when not in bloom (unfortunately, none in my collection). Here's another beautiful bougainvillea .... where the flowers aren't visible. One nice thing about the bougainvillea is that it can be grown in pots and trained to nice shapes. Since the plants are very hardy, available in 40-50 different types and re

These days, I wake up...no,.. am woken up... at 5 - 5.15 in the morning...by the cuckoos. Such noisy birds! I'm sure, all the poets who praise the cuckoo's 'melodious' voice have never had to live near them! Or, maybe, they're sound sleepers!! You know, the cries of the male and the female cuckoo are different. While the male's is the extended 'koo....ooo' (the celebrated cry!), the female's is a quick, curt, 'kukukukuk...'. And, though you can hear them, it is very difficult to catch sight of these elusive birds, especially the female. And, they are birds that seem to stick to a regular routine - a sort of a time table. Maybe, that's why, the clock makers decided to make a 'cuckoo clock' instead of a 'parrot clock, 'sparrow clock',... :) Every year, during Feb-March, around 8.00- 8.30 a.m., I see them from our kitchen window... having a breakfast of chikoo fruits from our neighbour's tree! I like to watch the

Ask anyone about his/ her favourite flower and 90-95% of the time, the answer will be 'Rose'! Roses are among my favourite flowers too. Agreed, they don't last as long, but, I prefer the hardy, aromatic 'local' varieties to the hybrid ones. The 'Taavare Gulaabi' is one such non-hybrid rose. Taavare is 'lotus' & Gulaabi , 'rose'. I won't say 'Well done!' if you get the origins of the name right, but, if you still haven't got it, check out this lotus at a lake nearby...

Brr...it's co--ld...makes me wonder if this is global cooling!! My friend, Guttappajja (Grandpa Guttappa) would have predicted a good monsoon for the coming season. You know, according to local wisdom, if the winter is co---ld, the following monsoon will be heav---y. Mild winter = low rainfall. The weather used to be Guttappajja's favourite topic. Not surprising, because, he was a farm hand.. and, the weather was THE deciding factor for all his works. When I knew him, Guttappajja had retired from active farm work. He would spend his mornings idling here and there. Some times, around mid-morning, he would drop in and do some gardening works at his discretion - pulling out weeds, loosening the soil around plants, providing supports to weak plants,... After about half an hour, he would call me and that would be my cue - to provide some breakfast and tea/ buttermilk. The first time, I had offered him money for his work, and, he had refused...he had even snubbed me! Obviously, I

I complete 2 scores today :) It was wonderful to receive so many wishes, and, also wish the other three 'same b'day' people I know. My day began with a phone call from my 4 year old nephew, Milind, and I couldn't have asked for a more entertaining start.... Milind (very chirpy & cheerful) : Happy, b'day, Soumya doddamma ! Me (equally chirpy & cheerful) : Thank you, Milind. Milind (very musically) : What sweet? Me (equally musically) : No sweet. Milind (very musically) : What cake? Me (equally musically) : No cake. A very panicky & alarmed Milind to those around him : She's saying 'No sweet, no cake', She's saying 'No sweet, no cake',....(about 4-5 times) At this point, his big sister pulled the phone from him and asked me: Not even Jamoon ? Me (trying not to laugh): No Niece (without much cheer): Okay..happy b'day...Milind wants to talk to you. Milind (hopefully): Do you have chips? Me: Yes. Milind

Yesterday, our family friend sent me a link..... http://panasamwonders.blogspot.com. It's a blog dedicated to the jack fruit. The jack season is round the corner. Soon, households in the Malnad, Udupi, Mangalore, Kerala,.... will be making their favourite jack fruit dishes. First, tender jackfruit palya . Later on, dosa , varieties of dishes, curries, chips,... And, finally, the ripe fruit - as itself, and, in dosa , idli , payasam ,... Alongside, the raw fruit will be preserved in brine and as papad . The ripe fruit will also be preserved as jam, papad ,... With so many time tested recipes, it's not surprising that there is such a huge demand for processed jack fruit, both, within the country and abroad. The farming community in India has woken up to this demand. Though in its infancy, the processing/ marketing industry is rapidly growing thanks to the efforts of a group of committed people - through jackfruit mela s, print media, blogs,... Not exactly my favourite frui