Right from my child hood, that is nearly half a century down
my memory lane, Mysore has been our favourite (rather, the only) holiday
destination. I was in the city recently for yet another holiday and went out
for a walk in the morning earlier than usual. My destination was the
Kukkarahalli lake and instead of walking on the main road to the Manasagangotri
end of the lake, I decided to go along the interior roads of Saraswatipuram and
reach the other end. The wide streets of this well laid out locality, with many
quaint houses having a curved frontage and metal mesh windows adding to the charm, are always a pleasure to walk. It was still dark and the
light from the street lights, filtered by the canopy of the trees lining the streets,
mixed with the light flowing out from the occasional open door provided the
right amount of illumination. One or two ladies were already out washing their
front yard prior to laying the traditional ‘Rangoli’ designs. There were no
street dogs to bark at me and make me turn around and run for my life. Two
wheelers and four wheelers were yet to roll on to the streets and disturb the
carpet of flowers which the trees had spread under them overnight.
Almost all the trees were in bloom and walking under them in
the cool atmosphere enjoying the fragrance was a wonderful experience. The
paper boys and the milk suppliers were still busy loading their bicycles and
TVS 50s with their wares and yet to take to the streets. I walked along breathing
deep to fill my lungs with as much of the fragrance as possible and emerged
onto the Kantharaj Urs road near the Saraswatipuram fire station.
This fire station building, remaining as it was half a
century ago, is at the center of my childhood memories of Mysore. My maternal
uncle stayed on the Swimming pool road to the left of this station (now called
Mahabhodi Road) and one of my aunts was on the third cross, just a street away,
to the right of the same building. We moved a lot between these two places every
day passing in front of or behind the building
but spent most of our time on the street in front of my uncle’s house where
there was almost zero traffic and plenty of shade from the ‘copper pod’ trees
which were full of yellow flowers and chirping birds. We played outside most of
the time and when we felt like, ran inside to help ourselves from the cluster
of Bananas which hung in a corner of the bedroom. I am partial to the Banana
fruit and we have always had a bunch containing about a dozen in our house. But
my uncle used to buy a whole cluster of eight to ten dozens and hang
them in a corner. It was a novelty and a great experience to pluck the
fruits from the cluster and eat them. Like plucking them out of the plant itself!
Mysore has provided many such memories that I cherish but two of them stand
out.
One was the episode of our hunting a parrot and the other
was my learning to ride a bicycle.
The majority of the birds that were there on the tree in
front of my uncle’s place were what we called ‘Parrots’. They could be
‘Parakeets’. Green birds with red beaks. We, myself and my cousin, were very
keen to ‘hunt’ one. It may be because we wanted to see the effectiveness of the
hand held ‘Catapults’ which we made using the fork of a small tree and rubber
bands or may be because we wanted to test our prowess as hunters. It is
possible that we only intended to hit and capture a parrot for keeping it as a
pet. Whatever it was, we made a catapult especially for the purpose, using
strips of rubber from an old cycle tube instead of rubber bands - for more
power- and tested its accuracy by firing it on empty boxes. Having found it
suitable for the purpose, we stood under the tree armed and ready. We selected
a small pebble of the right shape and size, loaded the weapon, selected an
unfortunate bird, aimed and shot. I was wielding the weapon. Having previous experience
of the accuracy of my aim, we expected nothing to happen or just a flower or a few
dry leaves to fall down. But to our utter disbelief and surprise, something small
and feathery fell from the tree to the ground with a soft plop. We ran there
and to our horror, found, instead of a happy and singing parrot ready to be our
pet, a bleeding tiny yellow bird writhing in pain. As expected, my aim had
missed the parrot but the pebble must have hit this bird. The sight of the tiny
bird in agony, with blood oozing from its stomach deflated our valour in an
instant and we were now full of remorse and were eager to save its life.
To get out of our guilt we concluded that the bird was not
hit by my stone but had been attacked by a crow exactly at the time when I had
shot the catapult (even today I believe that was what exactly happened) and we tenderly
carried the bird into the house. Evading his mother’s enquiries with vague
answers, my cousin managed to procure a cardboard box, some cooked rice and a small
receptacle for water. We lined the box with some cloth pieces, laid the bird in
the box, placed rice and water next to it and waited for it to eat, drink and
recover. It opened its eyes, looked at us (or may be we imagined that it did),
tried to get on to its legs, collapsed and died. There was nothing else we
could do. We cursed the crow, broke the catapult into pieces and conducted a
solemn funeral for the bird behind the house.
Learning to ride a bicycle was a pleasurable and painful
experience. What I mean is that the experience was a pleasure but the body had
to endure considerable pain. Another cousin of mine who was much older than us
and was a research graduate at the Mysore University then, had gone home for
vacation and he had left his bicycle with my uncle for safe keeping. It was
safe - till my sight fell on it. The presence of an ownerless bicycle lying unused
triggered the dormant desire to learn cycling and I embarked up on it with
gusto. I was found attached to this bicycle all my waking hours for the next
week or so with a single minded devotion to the cause, almost matching
Ekalavya. And, just like him, I did not have any ‘guru’ to teach me cycling.
The learning procedure was to push the bike to the top of
the slope – the road in front of my uncle’s place was a slope beginning next to
the fire station and ending at the intersection of this road with the one coming
from the swimming pool, where there was a circle. (Now known as the JSS circle)
– and then try to roll down the slope standing with the left foot on the left
pedal and the right foot hanging freely, to learn ‘balancing’ the bicycle. Once that
was achieved, the next step was to insert the right leg through the center of
the triangular bicycle frame and get hold of the right pedal in what was known
as the ‘Katri’ (scissors) maneuver. Very
aptly named. This was because most of the bicycles then were of standard size, much bigger than
the young learner and the learner had to use the shortest way to reach both the pedals.
From there one promoted oneself to what was known as the
‘Bar’ – Riding the bicycle straddling the bar connecting the seat and the
handle. For this, one had to grow enough and gain enough balance to swing the
right leg over the bar and get hold of the right pedal. In this position, with every effort of pushing
the pedals down, the body and the bike alternately swung to the left and right dangerously
and the bike moved in a zig zag way till the art was mastered.
The final position was the ‘Seat’ where you rode the bicycle
properly sitting on the seat. One had to grow a lot before that could be
achieved and it took years to be able to ride ‘Seat’ if one learnt cycling at a very young age.
My memory is wandering into the bylanes of cycling
techniques. Please endure.
I had reached ‘Katri’ with ease but was fed up of pushing
the cycle up the slope every time. Now was the time to maneuver the bike around
the circle without stopping and ride to the top of the slope again. While
attempting to successfully turn around the circle I fell dozens of times
damaging my right knee, right elbow and the entire right side of the bicycle
but by the end of the day I was proudly riding nonstop up and down the slope.
Before I left Mysore, I had mastered the art and had even ridden
the bicycle all over Saraswatipuram with my hands off the handle! I have never
felt so elated and felt that sense of achievement in my life again.
Immersed in my memories I had forgotten the Kukkarahalli
lake and had reached the other end of the Mahabodhi road and by then the orange
- red sun was coming up between the coconut palms. The tree tops which were a
uniform black in the dark had turned into beautiful shades of yellow (copperpods),
soft pink (rain trees), white (three different trees the names of which I could
not get. One of them is called ‘Honge’
in kannada) and blue (Jacaranda) with the sun rays playing on them.
As I turned towards Kuvempunagar, where I was staying, more
doors were open and in front of the houses ladies were out sweeping their yards.
The more enthusiastic ones were also sweeping the street in front
of their houses removing the carpet of fallen flowers but making it look
very neat and tidy. I crossed two more roads and found myself in front of the
Javaregowda park in which the regulars had started their morning constitutional.
Sitting comfortably in the shady, cool porticos of the beautiful houses next to
the park with cups of morning coffee steaming beside them, few lucky people
were opening their morning paper.
I am quite happy where I am, but at that moment I just could
not help myself wishing that I was living there.
I could very well appreciate the sentiments of the great
Kannada poet Pampa when he said “antavaraagi puTTaladEnaagiyumEnO teerdapude?
teeradoDam maridumbiyaagi meN kOgileyaagi puTTuvudu nandanadoL Banavaasi
deshadoL”. (While describing the land ‘Banavaasi’ and its people, Pampa says “I
do not know how I can get to be born as one of them. At least as a bird or a
bee, in that paradise called Banavaasi.”)
Well, Mysore may not
exactly be the ‘Nandana’ (Paradise) that ‘Banavaasi’ was and I may not go to
the extent of wishing ‘Maridumbiyaagi meN kOgileyaagi’ (at least as a bee or a
bird) - but my feelings came very close to that.
Camera courtesy : Vidya Shankar. I always like articles with
pictures. If the writing is bad one can at least look at the pictures. Having seen
Vidya’s photographs in Face book I was sure she has a good and working camera.
Since she has posted a lot of bird pictures I knew that her camera is always
charged and ready. (How is that for the Sherlock homes in me!) The camera was good. Blurred image indicates
my incompetence.
Identification of trees : Vidya Shankar
Computer courtesy : Anuradha and Nandakumar. The number of my postings on this blog have
crossed three hundred. I am now an experienced writer. My experience is that
unless I put things down in words as soon as they form in the mind, they
evaporate. Anuradha handed over the keys to her house and access to the
computer so that I could go over there and type whenever I wished. Writing this
has given me considerable satisfaction and it would not have been possible without
free access to Anu - Nanda’s house and computer.
