Waiting for the Arecanuts

Not to be confused with Argonauts. Argonauts were Greek and the stuff of myth. They hung with Jason as he hunted for his Golden Fleece. Mine are Areca catechu; adikke as we call them in Karnataka. In Meghalaya, while shooting Guhya, we heard it called kwai.

Fields of arecanut always brings to mind Malnad; Sagar, Heggodu, Ninasam. First time I met the extraordinary K.V.Subanna was during the Royal National Theatre - Project Nadya (circa 1994). 8 young girls from Bangalore and 8 girls of Indian origin from London and us facilitators - Soumya Varma and myself. We went to Ninasam, and Ninasam cast her spell. In the mornings we danced kollaata, then took Yakshagana lessons. Evenings we watched rehearsals for Ashwathama. A faint drizzle in the afternoons and fragrant coffee and conversation in the canteen. The pinnacle - listening to K.V.Subbanna speak of the genesis of Ninasam, all of us sitting on the floor of the little library. This is really the stuff that dreams are made of. Other Malnad veterans (and adikke chewers) would include UR Ananthmurthy, family friend and literateur par excellence, author of Suryana Kudhare, Samskara, Avasthe and so much more. Akshara, son of KV Subbanna and present director of Ninasam, Chidanand Jambe, ex-director of both Ninasam and Rangayana. And my best girl - Radha Sullur, Chithaara artist extraordinaire.

                                                           Photo Credit: KS Rajaram 
                                                           http://ksrajaram.blogspot.com/

                                                        Rain from the Canteen at Ninasam

                                                                                                                                                                                                           Shivrama Karanth Ranga Mandira, Ninasam

Long and the short of it, Kuki and I were thinking about what to grow on our third field, when Hanumanthappa swept in with both his nati cows and a couple goats and via Nagaraj, his spokesman, communicated to us that the best plan would be to grow banana and adikke in the same field. OK, we said, succumbing once again to his alleged superior knowledge of farming. Also, we had illusions of swaying areca palms, Malnad-style, and us drinking coffee and watching the light fall through their lovely slenderness.

It's been three years now and the areca, let me tell you, do not oblige. They take their own bloody time. Every week, we make our ritualistic walk through the field to measure growth. For two years - absolutely nothing. Year 3, there was some slight effort. But I swear it's like pulling teeth. While the bananas are all leaf and flamboyance, the areca are reluctant and prissy. Late growers, is what they would be called in school.

But the other day while searching for a pumpkin on the floor of the banana-adikke field, I noticed that the trees that are planted inside have had a sudden growth spurt. Hmmmm....so this is must be adolescence.

TELL ME, YOU WHO KNOW . . .

Tell me,
you who know of poetry –
I know nothing of it
but I know what rasam is.


Do you think it’s a mere nothing?
It calls for a blend
of the principles of water,
aroma and essence –
a tempered state reached after simmering . . .
Thus . . .


There it was in the corner,
a container with rasam,
on a seemingly dead and ash-covered
coalfire, waiting and waiting . . .
Does it matter that it waits?


In the great durbar of meat dishes
seasoned with spices that sparkled,
of servers who danced as they walked,
of laughter and chatter,
it had waited, since morning,
the clear rasam on a seemingly dead
coalfire, simmering,
still fresh even at night.


You who know all about poetry,
tell me,
do you know what rasam is?


Forgive me,
I don’t know any poetry.

By Vaidehi

Translated from Kannada by Dr.Ramchandra Sharma

Music of a Sunday

If there is any one art that could wrench your heart right out, what would it be? 
For me it's easy...music. Nothing - not film, not theatre, not visual art - can match music for me. I'm admittedly a pop music junkie and somewhat addicted to Youtube. Born in 1966, I was ripe for the sounds of the  ‘70’s. Led Zepellin’s Immigrant Song to this day can turn my head right round, right round, make me go down, down. But the ‘80s were also fantastic – Oh, Prince! Or T.A.F.K.A.P, why have you disallowed your songs from being played on Youtube? Besides pop, I will listen to most anything that answers for me all those vague karmic longings - MS Subbalakshmi’s Shuprabhatam, Dexter Gordon playing ‘Round Midnight, Billie Holiday singing God Bless the Child, Abida Parveen, Bhimsen Joshi, Daude, Pavarotti singing Nessun Dorma…

Here’s what went down one week in October.

A team of German theatre-makers from the Schnawwl Theatre were in Bangalore to meet musicians, experience sounds and instruments and jam on certain ideas for theatre. I roped Kuki in because I knew he’d have some funky places up his sleeve. Sure enough, he first took us to the old music shops in Balepet. Through narrow corridors and between pawn brokers, he led the way, telling us that all the old shops that had previously specialized in veenas and mridangas were now beginning to make guitars. Bingo! As we entered the first shop, dusty and interesting, a young family, mother and two sons, walked in and asked to buy a guitar.

We looked in on a khanjeera maker and bought beautifully crafted goat skin khanjeeras (lizard skin khanjeeras can only be purchased by traditional khanjeera players) for the remarkably low price of Rs 150 a piece.

And then on a Sunday, a bevy of musicians brought their loveliness to Infinite Souls. 

Vidushi Shanthi Rao & C.N.Anand. 

Ambi Subramaniam, incredibly talented son of Dr.L.Subramaniam.

M.D.Pallavi

Coordt was on hand with his cajon and Kuki with his guitar.

And Shrunga, the young actor playing Naz in Boy with a Suitcase, all ready to improvise with his script.

In the soft October light and with a wind coming through the banana field, we listened to them. Painting pictures in sound, Carnatic making way for Hindustani, Kuki always solicitous of others, listening to the intention behind Shrunga’s words, trying to create through silence and sound the experience of travel, danger, strange lands, longing.

Then Pallavi’s vachanas ringing true through open space and reaching the ears of Neighbour Huchappa and his goats. This unusual combination of Kannada words in the Hindustani style... Indina dina Aananda…

Bob Dylan once wrote of Joan Baez’s voice

“When all at once the silent air

Split open from her soundin’ voice

Without no warnin’ from her lips

An’ by instinct my blood reversed

An’ I shook and started reachin’ for

That wall that was supposed t’ fall”

Pallavi has that sort of voice; a “soundin’ voice”.

Shanthi and Ambi playing a tillaana together. The one so experienced, playing her veena, Goddess Sarasvathi’s instrument. The other so young, playing his violin. My heart, floating elsewhere.

Just as Shrunga speaks about goats or cattle, Huchappa’s goats being meh-mehing.

Actor/director Josefina Baez often uses the word “gladly”.

Gladly, I lived that Sunday.

Gladly, I heard this music.

Mud Ganesha, Rasam Water

Yesterday, when Madan said “The mall is Kai’s favourite place in the word”, Kai yelled “No! The farm is my favourite place!” That’s one for the farm :)

I feel I have to “take dhrishti” of the farm…spread my fingers around it, burn red chillies and broomsticks, "buzz the name of God a hundred times”* and pray fervently to Ganesha, who must love the bananas and tamarind and custard apples that so abound, and ask that nothing untoward happen to this blessed land. That no illegal miner cast their eyes on the hill, that no developer comes anywhere near…

But hope has a way of coming around. It’s crazy how some people continue to sparkle, despite the mess of the Commonwealth Games, the anticipated hysteria over the Ayodhya verdict and the general pissing, spitting and corruption that is the state of affairs in India. And this time hope came around in the form of three men, Sumanth, Suresh and Jaishankar, who have started an NGO called VANAMITRA www.vanamitra.org

http://thealternative.in/articles/all-creatures-great-and-small

They specialize in wildlife rescue and awareness and their latest rescue has been of 3 leopard cubs that were handed back to the mother in 4 days flat thanks to aggressive searching by the VANAMITRA team. Totally beats having them stuck a zoo. We’re hoping to start a new series of workshops on wildlife awareness at Infinite Souls, which will be facilitated by VANAMITRA. So anyone who is interested, do get in touch.

But back to Ganesha. Don't you find the toxic painted Ganeshas abhorrent and aren't you shocked at how gigantic the community Ganeshas are growing? Almost as if they wish to challenge the Elephant God himself.

“Mine is bigger than yours.”

“See how great a Hindu I am, I have such a big one and it’s neon pink!”

“Mine is soooo big and I will make soooo much noise with my terrible PA system and faux-Hindu-Ganesha-disco-bhajans that you will be forced to either slash your wrists from despair or convert thanks to visual and auditory oppression.”

Etc

I long for the peace of a silent church or dargah.

Mooshika Vahana, Modaka hastha...

For Ganesh Chathurthi this year, Zui and Kai along with their grandfather made their very own Ganesha and Gowri. Nagamma collected some clay that they squished and messed around with. With mud up till their elbows and pleased as punch, they finally displayed 2 Ganeshas and a Gowri. Aala was the Master of Ceremonies. She got Nagaraj to decorate a space beneath the big Banyan tree. He made it beautiful and elephant-friendly with bunches of fresh tamarind leaves, hanging custard apples, young banana stems. Then we made kadabus on turmeric leaves and thus was spent our day.

Chamara karuna
Vilambitha sutra...

In the evening, we climbed up the hill to immerse Gowri and Ganesha in a rock pool. There we had a crisis, because the pool was a perfect biome, with tree-frog spawn, ferns, algae and tiny water plants, and Zui couldn’t bear to destroy this. And she was right, however ok the clay Ganesha and Gowri were, the accompanying kumkuma/haldi and karpura would definitely mess with this delicate pool.

Man, how do people live with zero carbon footprint? I'm so in awe.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/green-living-blog/2009/oct/28/live-without-money

All my attempts come to nought. In fact I should call this piece “Confessions of a Failed (but not lapsed) Green Activist”. By the time we came to the electricals, we couldn't afford the high price of solar lighting. My togri crop routinely get attacked, despite the chilli powder/neem oil spray. The peacocks love our no-pesticide tomatoes. Prudence still shits in the bedroom. My rainwater harvesting methods...hmmm...let's just say, they leave a lot to be desired.

On the expert advice of gardener Narasimha (who, one Christmas, spilt red enamel paint all over the hall making it more blood bath than Noel) I set about with pipes and buckets and filters to collect water off our really ancient roof with dried leaves strewn all over. End result: water the colour of rasam, redolent of rotting eucalyptus. It would be funny if it were not for my tragic attempts to explain the colour and odour to visitors who are shocked when they look in the commode or open a tap.

But we plod on. Let's see what happens to our cow shed/chicken coop efforts. Lord Ganesha, please be on our side. You did mess with our banana field after all.

...Vaamana roopa

Maheshwara Puthra

Sri Vigna Vinayaka

Paadha Namasthe

* Night of the Scorpion
I remember the night my mother was stung by a scorpion.
Ten hours of steady rain had driven him
to crawl beneath a sack of rice.
Parting with his poison - flash
of diabolic tail in the dark room -
he risked the rain again.
The peasants came like swarms of flies
and buzzed the name of God a hundred times
to paralyse the Evil One.
With candles and with lanterns
throwing giant scorpion shadows
on the mud-baked walls
they searched for him: he was not found.
They clicked their tongues.
With every movement that the scorpion made
his poison moved in Mother's blood, they said.
May he sit still, they said.
May the sins of your previous birth
be burned away tonight, they said.
May your suffering decrease
the misfortunes of your next birth, they said.
May the sum of all evil
balanced in this unreal world
against the sum of good
become diminished by your pain.
May the poison purify your flesh
of desire, and your spirit of ambition,
they said, and they sat around
on the floor with my mother in the centre,
the peace of understanding on each face.
More candles, more lanterns, more neighbours,
more insects, and the endless rain.
My mother twisted through and through,
groaning on a mat.
My father, sceptic, rationalist,
trying every curse and blessing,
powder, mixture, herb and hybrid.
He even poured a little paraffin
upon the bitten toe and put a match to it.
I watched the flame feeding on my mother.
I watched the holy man perform his rites
to tame the poison with an incantation.
After twenty hours
it lost its sting.
My mother only said
Thank God the scorpion picked on me
And spared my children.
 
- Nissim Ezekiel

August

August has been a busy month at the farm. Four fields had to be cleared and the remaining bananas harvested. We made three trips to the HOPCOMS yard next to Lalbagh to sell bananas. By the middle of August we got a decent rate. Once the fields were cleared we sowed togri, huruli and avarrekai. Easy winter crops. I wanted to plant tomatoes and beans but Nagaraj said the peacocks woud eat them up anyway, so what was the point. He cited the banana losses to the elephants and neighbour Rame Gowda's vegetable losses to the peacocks as proof of his superior farming intelligence. And I conceded defeat.

Then we had 31 children from Mallya Aditi School come by to work on Lewis Carrol. We brought in stilts and Brinda Jacob Janvrin to choreograph the Garden of Living Flowers and the Mad-Hatter's Tea Party. Navaz Hormusjee called the night before the children arrived to ask if it was dry enough to sleep in tents and I said "Yes, it's been dry as a bone. No rains." Famous last words. Soon after the children arrived, by late afternoon, the rains hit us. It was beautiful, no doubt, but I was a goner. Fearful thoughts of wet tents, soaking sleeping bags, scorpions, snakes looking for shelter from the storm...is what occupied me. But children being children, were wonderful. As we sat on the verandah and looked out at the tents they transformed into an installation of torchlight and children-shadows.

Finally, the issue of Prudence - the Basset Hound-English Pointer mix breed puppy. She was to be a farm watch dog. (Ha! says Kuki, the only way she'll keep intruders away is if they die laughing. The best thing to do is give Nagaraj a deerstalker and a shotgun and they'd make quite the comedy team. Both with doleful eyes and demeanour.) But I wasn't to be thwarted in my efforts. So we took the dogs to the farm to test Prudence's skills. She wasn't bad, little survivor that she is, and even made it up the hill. But she was so exhausted that she slept all of the next day. Perhaps things will change. I think Nagaraj is quite looking forward to having her follow him around.

Thus passes August. Month of transition, month of rest. Lull-before-the-storm month. I saw the trucks on Magadi Road, filled with neon Ganeshas heralding...what? A new way? Water pollution? Anxiety?
But for now, I love the rain at the farm and have no truck with dark clouds.

Dark August by Derek Walcott

So much rain, so much life like the swollen sky
of this black August. My sister, the sun,
broods in her yellow room and won't come out.

Everything goes to hell; the mountains fume
like a kettle, rivers overrun; still,
she will not rise and turn off the rain.

She is in her room, fondling old things,
my poems, turning her album. Even if thunder falls
like a crash of plates from the sky,
She does not come out.

Don't you know I love you but am hopeless
at fixing the rain ? But I am learning slowly
to love the dark days, the steaming hills,
the air with gossiping mosquitoes,
and to sip the medicine of bitterness,
so that when you emerge, my sister,
parting the beads of the rain,
with your forehead of flowers and eyes of forgiveness,
all will not be as it was, but it will be true
(you see they will not let me love
as I want), because, my sister, then
I would have learnt to love black days like bright ones,
The black rain, the white hills, when once
I loved only my happiness and you.

The School In August by Philip Larkin

The cloakroom pegs are empty now,
And locked the classroom door,
The hollow desks are lined with dust,
And slow across the floor
A sunbeam creeps between the chairs
Till the sun shines no more.

Who did their hair before this glass?
Who scratched 'Elaine loves Jill'
One drowsy summer sewing-class
With scissors on the sill?
Who practised this piano
Whose notes are now so still?

Ah, notices are taken down,
And scorebooks stowed away,
And seniors grow tomorrow
From the juniors today,
And even swimming groups can fade,
Games mistresses turn grey.

Who

who stops the car for mee 

to pee