ALTER IDEM

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...