Aluva Kadalolu - In an ocean of tears.

This is a poem by one of Kannada’s greatest poets – Late Mogeri Gopala Krishna Adiga (1918 – 1992). He’s also considered the father of modern Kannada poetry and known as the pioneer of the “New Wave”.

This song has been immortalized by the legendary Late P. Kalinga Rao, one of the doyens of Kannada Sugama Sangeetha (Light Music), he, who won Pt. Nehru’s heart with his “throat of gold”. Kalinga Rao peformed with his protégées - the sisters – Sohan Kumari and Mohan Kumari. With spotlight shifting away from that genre of music and the doyen’s death, the sisters lived a life of loneliness and penury. Mohan Kumari, the younger of the two, passed away a few days back. This blog post is a tribute to artists like them who bring pleasure to others, while they suffer quietly, wallowing without support.

The Kannada original -
Pronunciation Key –
L – retroflex “l”
D – retroflex ‘d’ as in doom
N – retroflex ‘n’
Vowels written in upper case denote the long vowel sounds, lower case vowels make the short sounds.

aluva kaDaloLu tEli barutalide nageya hAyi dONi
bALa gangeya mahApooradoLu sAvinondu vENi

neretide beretide kuNiva moreva tere teregaLONiyalli
janana maraNagaLa ubbu taggu horaLuruLuvATadalli

Ase bUdi taLadallu keraLutive kiDigaLenito maraLi
muridu bidda mana marada koraDoLu hoovu hoovu araLi

kooDalAradedeyALadallu kanDIttu Eka sUtra
kanDadunTu bese desegaLallu bhinnateya vikaTa hAsya

Ase emba taLavoDeda dONiyali doora teera yAna
yAra leelegO yArO EnO guri irade biTTa bANa

idu bALu nODu ida tiLidenendarU tiLida dheeranilla
halavutanada maimaresuvATavidu nijavu tOradalla

bengADu nODu idu kAmba bayalu dorakilla Adi antya
ada tiLidenenda halarunTu taNidenendavara kANenayya

are beLakinalli bALalli sutti nAveshTO maletu meredu
konege karaguvevu maraNa teera ghana timiradalli beredu

An attempt at translation –

In an ocean of tears, drifts an elfin sail boat of smiles
In the deluge of life, a stream of death intertwined

Tumbling and twisting in the dancing topsy-turvy merriment of the waves
Through the highs and lows of birth and death, in the rolling frolicking game of unrest.

Even in the depths of the ashes of desire, countless sparks return to rekindle the fire
Flowers blossom on the dead branches of the fallen mind

Even in the depths of divergent hearts, a revelation of a converging connecting strand
Revealing an ironic farce of distinctness in the sameness.

In the broken boat of desire, a long voyage unto the banks of hope
In a strange, unknown sport, an outsider’s aimless, misdirected target.

Look, this is life, and no brave man, despite his claims, has found what it's all about
It reveals myriad intoxicating games, but the truth it won't reveal.

Life is a barren vast land, a testimony to this Lord’s unending reign
There are a few who are aware of this, but none satiated with it.

Walking in circles, through life’s murky glow, we forget humility;
Then finally we melt and blend into the greater pool of death.

Children’s literature - reading between the lines -1

Flipping through children’s books casually over the years, as a parent, I’ve come to understand that there’s so much more to children’s literature than I ever knew – not just as a child, but even now as an adult. And this - not only in the variety of genres available and topics touched upon, but also in the content and its treatment by both authors and illustrators.

In this day and age of very thinly-veiled agendas of domination and pogroms of extermination, stemming from a high level of intolerance to difference in political ideologies, socio-economic structures, caste, religion, race and gender, what is glaring is that the establishment and the educated citizenry alike, either chooses to turn mute and watch in horror or covertly abet such agendas. Maybe our education just lacked the right focus and perspective. Or, like I read somewhere recently - "All problems in this world stem from people's varying levels of spiritual growth". Now, the very meaning of spiritual growth being elusive, wonder what can show us the way.

Getting back to kid stuff (which is so much more reassuring!) - in this series of posts, I intend to focus on those lines or illustrations which apparently look innocuous, but are so heavily layered that even adults can learn a thing or two from them.

Stellaluna by Janell Cannon (Scholastic) is a bat and bird story for 4-8 year olds.

Mother fruit bat loves her baby Stellaluna and will let nothing come in her way. Then an owl attacks them and throws Stellaluna out of her mother's loving care. The baby bat luckily lands in a nest of fledglings, but her whole world has just turned upside down. Stellaluna's adoptive bird mother accepts her into her nest, but only on the condition that Stellaluna will behave like a good bird should. Soon Stellaluna learns to behave like a bird --she quits hanging by her feet and starts eating bugs. But when she finally has an opportunity to show her bird siblings what life as a bat is like, all of them are confused. (Excerpted from an Amazon review)

The conflict of being someone else that you aren’t, but having to be, under duress, is poignant and in a larger sense very relevant to us, in the current context of our lives. It is all the more pertinent to us in a land that is pluralistic in every sense of the word and where all our traditional systems are crumbling.

Here are some of those hidden gems from Stellaluna – some food for thought.

“Stellaluna promised. She ate bugs without making faces. She slept in the nest at night. And she didn’t hang by her feet. Stellaluna behaved as a good bird should.”

“I’m just like them, thought Stellaluna I can fly, too.”

“Wrong for a bird, maybe, but not for a bat.” (Can't help but think of the anti cow slaughter bill being pushed by the Karnataka Govt.)

“How can we be so different and be so much alike?” I think this is quite a mystery.”

“I agree,” said Stellaluna to her bird friends. “But we’re friends. And that’s a fact.”

Lattice.

(Agra Fort)

in a sea of light

a floating web of darkness

full or void?

Old friends

like vintage wine
warm the heart.
(Kokkarebellur village, April 11, 2010)

Rains.

Earth's tears

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
wash away the pains -

life sprouts.

Peek-a-boo with time.

(Bhoganandeeshwara temple near Nandi Hills, Feb 2010.)

shifting all the time -
the past framing the present -
the sands of time...

A gud taste of bella.

Yugadi, the New Year celebrated in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh is a festival of new beginnings - of new life. Nothing symbolizes this more than the fresh sprigs of bitter neem and freshly made jaggery (bella - Kannada, gur - Hindi). In fact, jaggery assumes a prime place in the scheme of things. The popular form of jaggery is a brownish solid made by boiling sugarcane (Sachcharum) extract. But, what is not very well-known is that there are various other varieties of jaggery, made similarly from the sap of different trees like toddy palm, palmyra palm (borassus flabellifer), sugar date palm (arenga pinnata), date palm (phoenix sylvestris), coconut palm (Cocos nucifera) and Indian sago palm (Caryota urens). Based on the sap or extract used and the extent of processing, various forms of jaggery and sugarcandy are made. In contrast to sugar, jaggery is unrefined, but, not flat in its sweet taste, because of the richer undertones of the many vitamins and minerals (especially Calcium) that it manages to retain. Besides, it contains some soluble fibre and generally releases sugar into the bloodstream at a much slower rate compared to white sugar (lower Glycemic index). Traditional methods of jaggery-making have always been chemical-free and completely organic. Sugar is chemical-laden, particularly if it is refined and bleached.

Sugarcane jaggery (to the left, in the picture) also comes in many forms. Bangalore, itself, given its close proximity to the sugarcane belt of Mandya, boasts of quite a few varieties. Jaggery has no colour barriers and scans the whole spectrum from the whitish, to varying shades of brown to dark, chocolate brown types in hard, soft and flaky forms. The scum that forms while making jaggery is separated out and sold as a soft, whitish variant called “norae bella” (foam jaggery). There is also a semi-solid, dark liquid form called “joni bella” (a.k.a molasses) which is sought after not only as a critical ingredient of some traditional jaggery delicacies, but also as a mineral rich, tasty accompaniment for everyday foods like idli, dosa, roti. In fact the famed jaggery “aalaemane”s – places where jaggery is processed from sugarcane extract – evoke a strong sense of nostalgia and longing for the multi-sensory experience that is jaggery. Sometimes, if you are lucky you may be able to source variants perked up with roasted channa dal, peanuts, sesame, dry coconut, ginger, etc. – directly from the aalemanes. Navadarshanam jaggery, Kolhapur jaggery are some examples of organic sugarcane jaggery which can be sourced in Bangalore through the regional food stores (Mangalore, Malenadu, North Karnataka), organic/ health food stores and traditional stores (grandhigae shops).

Palm jaggery (to the right, in the pic above) is quite popular in the Southern states of Tamil Nadu (called Karupatti vellam or pana vellam), Karnataka (thaati bella), Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. It is processed from the toddy palm or palmyra palm and used for its medicinal properties as much as it is valued for its intense,

earthy taste. But, Mangalore produces the best Palm jaggery (ole bella- in the picture on the left) - dark brown discs ringed by thin palm hoops, reminiscent of chocolates in its taste.

The Bengalis swear by their nolen gur/ notun gur / khajurer gur / patali gur, which is fresh date palm (Phoenix sylvestris) jaggery. Just close your eyes and think of all the pleasant memories of your life - suffice to say that this liquid ambrosia tastes just like that! It is made at the crack of dawn, by boiling the sap collected overnight from the sugar date palms and is available only in the winter months of November to Jan. Guess this seasonality is because during the other months, the temperatures are so high that the liquid sap just ferments in a few hours, rendering it fit for consumption only as an alcohol! Talk of another high! Various mouth-watering delicacies like sandesh, rossogolla, jol bhara (liquid-filled sandesh) and paayesh are made with this "liquid gold". My Bengali friends tell me that these delicacies are available in namma Bengaloooru at select Bengali sweet shops. I can promise you one thing - you try once and you'll be hooked for life to these melt-in-the-mouth delicacies. For all those unfortunate ones who haven't yet cut their teeth on this - the nearest approximation to this is probably the celebrated American Maple Syrup!

Whatever the source, whatever the form, jaggery enjoys a special place in the Indian milieu – so much that it is offered both as jaggery and in the form of foods made with jaggery to the Gods. It should come as no surprise for us that we have a full-length feature film called Saudagar (old) on the process of making jaggery (nolen gur), starring - hold your breath - none other than Amitabh Bachchan! And for the discerning shopper, even the common man, the unsung, hole-in-the-wall shops can definitely afford us a peek at all these varieties even now - well almost. So, go ahead and grab some gud before its too late and you lament “gud was too good to be true!”.

Silent whirl.

hanging by a thread

dried up leaf on the fig tree

mute whirling dervish.